Bad Theater Behavior — Page 4

A few weeks ago I took my eight year old granddaughter to a Young People's Concert at Lincoln Center. It was she who noticed the large number of people texting during the performance. She also realized that the majority of the culprits were grown ups. She commented, "If they don't want to hear the music they should just stay home." I didn't mention to her that most of the texters were probably divorced dads who where there out of obligation.

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Class died a long time ago.It's ashes are on sale in all theater lobbies.

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There are often "no cell phone" signs in Broadway theatres.

P.S. Fix your space bar.

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My experience, MY EXPERIENCE, 80-90% of the time, texters at shows and operas were women.

Please don't scream at me, these were what I encountered.

Maybe it was just a coincidence..I have seen plenty of texters who were woman and teens and yes men too.

As to what their marital status is, I have no idea. Just because one parent is there with a child does not necessarily mean divorce. Theater is expensive..maybe only one goes to cut costs.

I just survived an experience that thankfully allowed me to move to an empty seat during intermission. It involved loud gum-chewing, excessive aural self commenting, knee/foot banging on the back of my seat, & crinkling water bottle drinking. Moving 4 rows up & across a center aisle gave an interesting perspective that allowed me to chill out a bit but I swear I could still hear the gum smacking. I hand it to the earlier poster who successfully communicated their observation enough to get the chomper to spit out their gum. I didn't trust that I could have gotten away with that one.

My experience at Matilda was seriously compromised w/finding myself amongst groups of kids who were making more noise than you could imagine with packages of candy. Chaperones were several seats over from the biggest offenders, so the problems couldn't be properly addressed. Then intermission sold them even MORE & I felt like they were all just revolting. (I did write am email note of complaint to the theatre afterwards, telling them they really shouldn't be selling candy to unchaperoned children, but never received any return response so doubt anything was accomplished with it.)

Updated On: 3/9/14 at 04:51 PM

To Mrs/Ms/Mr/Miss ClydeBarrow-Please re-read my post-I think you will see the occasional capital letter where necessary.Why would/should you care how I look/come across-you're not my Mother-but perhaps it's your Motherly instincts trying to protect/teach her young that kicked in.I think that gum-chewing lady should have placed her gum across your mouth instead of into her hand.Let people post how they want-peoples' speech,and typing vary with the individual[and education].You complain about bad behaviour in theatre--what about on here,eh!

It's not really asking much for people to abide by basic rules of grammar and punctuation in a medium of communication that involves reading and comprehending other peoples' posts. Nobody's asking you to write a Pulitzer Prize winning novel. It's not hard. Spaces after periods and commas, capital letters for proper nouns and at the beginning of sentences. Simple.

Dear Mr Barrow,Of course I'll live and I am a victim of your cruel mouth.Yes-someone else did point out about spacing[none of their business either]something which I know nothing about.If you must comment on how another person types,you're going to be a very busy person because every one on here makes mistakes[obviously you don't].My complaint about your use of words has been passed on to the Board.

To Stickit-As I have never had a typing lesson and still a '2 finger typist', it's learn as I go. I don't appreciate your school marm style of reply[look at me-I'm MissPerfect] but at least from your post I learnt something about spacing and if I make mistakes-you'll just have to live with it-or read over-it's very simple.

I'm more than happy to ignore every post you make. I just thought, apparently incorrectly, that you might want to sound educated when you type. As you were.

Thanks, but don't need you to validate my every word [but see, a space--learning !]. PS Don't need to 'sound educated' as that seems to put YOU into an elevated position of intelligence-don't need to be in that elite society-thanks anyway for your concern-appreciated.

LizzieCurry, the kids weren't the issue the last time I saw Matilda. The ones seated around me at least seemed engaged and were mostly quiet. The adults with them, however...the mother in front of me was commenting on everything that was happening to no one in particular when I saw it in January. Her daughter, on the other hand, was very quiet and well-behaved.

And that's not the only show where I've seen that happen.