Bad audience behavior - revisited- Page 7

[Yankeefan007]

Posted: 5/21/06 at 8:30am

At yesterday's Caine Mutiny matinee, someone's cell phone rang during Schwimmer's speech in the last scene. And the woman let it ring for the duration.

[WiiCKED x3]

Posted: 5/21/06 at 9:01am

Yay. I have another story, this time about cell phones ringing.

Okay. 2nd time seeing Wicked. My aunt went with me and she got a new cell phone and she has no idea how to work it, her last phone wasn't a flip phone, and this one was.

So... during I'm Not That Girl, when it's nice and quiet and a perfect time for a cell phone to go off. Someone's cell phone DOES go off. Everybody's looking around, and it's comming from the front rows, we were in row A. So I was looking all around and everyone was like 'Who's cell phone would be ringing at a time like THIS?'I was furious, this was my favorite scene and someone's cell phone is going off after the people working at the theatre keep telling everyone to turn off their cell phones or put them on silent, or vibirate, sometimes a persons viberate can be heard, mine can.

I turn back around.I then look at my SLEEPING aunt. She has her bag in her lap. I had to shake her to wake her up. She's still awake enough to hear a persons phone ringing. She looks deep into her bag and picks up her phone. She then has the nerve to start talking to her best friend at work. After she's done having her one minute conversation I start scream-whispering at her. Her excuse for not hearing her own cell phone ringing and vibrating in her lap was because she's a heavy sleeper.

She is.

Sorry for all of the spelling mistakes, I just woke up.

[jv92]

Posted: 5/21/06 at 10:41am

At The Light in the Piazza, two Italian ladies were chatting it up durring almost every scene that wasn't in Italian.

[Steve2]

Posted: 5/21/06 at 3:41pm

Another Example of Bad Audience Behavior Updated On: 5/21/06 at 03:41 PM

[JustABroadwaybaby2]

Posted: 5/21/06 at 7:49pm

Oh.My.God.
In Tarzan, this guy screamed "YOU'RE HOT!" at Tarzan. Then, when Terk sprung up into his little chair thing, he went "WHEEEEEEEEEE!" He sounded like he was about thirty.

[ShbrtAlley44]

Posted: 5/21/06 at 11:45pm

During Wedding Singer, which I was ushering, a man in the mezz yelled "Read it again!" after Felicia Finley finished her "letter" song in the first act. I would have gone over and reprimanded him but I had no idea where he was sitting.

[WhenURScrap]

Posted: 5/21/06 at 11:47pm

I was doing a High School production of The Butler Did It. We were doing a High School preview of the first act up until my character died ... It was the first time I had died onstage and it was overly exaggerated. Mind you I was not very well liked throughout my school years ... When I die I was supposed to go over to the coffee table, take a sip of sherry, the go like, HELP, I'm DYING , Help!! When I started "choking", everyone in the audience starts cheering and screaming and whooping. And then I am supposed to throw my stuffed dog Napolean into the audience and yell, Run for help Napolean! Help! ... Someone threw the dog back onstage at my "dead" body.

And then!!! before all this, there were lines that everyone in the cast loved ... We had a cast member get kicked outta the show --I replaced him-- and he was at the preview and he yelled out lines from the audience.

How rude! I hated that production

[COOOOLkid]

Posted: 5/22/06 at 12:37am

^ I'm sorry, but that story is hilarious!

Anyways, when I was watching Stomp, this guy next to me was uttering to the every single beat, which was soooo annoying! Argh!

Oh, and when I saw Gypsy at my local high school, during the Strip Tease part, this guy starts yelling "EWWWW You are DISGUSTING!" Wow... The girl playing June looked at the guy and just stopped moving. The whole orchestra stopped playing, and some students had to kick him out of the theatre.

[ErikJ972]

Posted: 5/22/06 at 12:53am

I went to see Drowsey Chaperone on Wednesday night. As soon as the house lights went down I heard the very loud noise of a bag being opened. And then I start to hear very loud crunching. I turn and look across the aisle and there is a woman eating a bag of microwaved popcorn! Her crunching was so loud I had to go complain to an usher who eventually went and asked her to stop eating.

[collins]

Posted: 5/22/06 at 8:07pm

Wicked-Atlanta. May 18, 2pm and 8pm. I have never experienced so many rude people at one show. I witnessed people talking during the show, leaning their heads together blocking the view, droves of latecomers blocking the view and talking loudly while walking down the aisles and squirming down the row to their seats, people playing with their brightly lit phones, one of which rang for at least 2 minutes during the show, etc, etc. And the granddaddy of them all, running for the doors as the show is about to end. One lady was tripping over me trying to get out, but I didn't budge.

Posted: 5/23/06 at 1:29pm

Coming from Miami, where they arrive late and loud and leave earlier and louder....I am used to audience horrors...What's happened in New York these past 10 years is simple. Sophisticated, well-behaved people don't comprise the audience majority at mainstream Broadway shows................especially the musicals, which with few exceptions, are not aimed at the sophisticated audience. They are for tourists from the sticks and 13 year old girls....If you want a well-behaved mature audience...find mature entertainment....Straight plays or off-Broadway...any stupid audience behavior in those shows comes from those cell phone ringers who mistakenly thought they were attending "Mama Mia".

[Stitch_Stalker]

Posted: 5/23/06 at 2:23pm

Forgive me Broadway, for I have sinned...

Although this doesn't technically count as bad "audience" behavior, it was bad nevertheless... We went to New York this past weekend for a model UN conference and could only afford to see one show (of course, 5 minutes into the city my classmates see Avenue Q's "Wake Up Happy" advertisement and demand to see it)... So... I... Went stage door hopping and asked for photos with various other actors/actresses at musicals I haven't yet seen!!!!


I'm so sorry Broadway... But I love my camera so much now..

[mrslovett7]

Posted: 5/23/06 at 6:38pm

Stitch_Stalker,

I've done that too! hahaha

[ShbrtAlley44]

Posted: 6/3/06 at 10:59pm

This afternoon at Awake and Sing, three women behind me and my mother whispered and commented throughout the first three scenes. At the start of the last scene, I loudly went "Shh!!" One of the women promptly fired back, "'Shh' yourself!" People around us gasped a bit and the woman next to me leaned over to me and said, "Well, you knew it was coming." I was glad to see other people agreed with me. The bitches were, however, quiet for the rest of the show. They knew they were in the wrong

[WhenURScrap]

Posted: 6/4/06 at 2:24am

The only store of bad audience behavior I have from when I was PART of the audience was when I saw Urinetown at Beck Center in Cleveland. I was at the very TOP row with my friends quietly watching the show. All of a sudden we smelled chili. The lady next to us was eating a hot bowl of chili while watching the show. I wanted some ... but I thought it was rude.

And to comment on that thread about the cell phone...

Whenever I go to any kind of show ... my cell phone is always on my lap or if I'm wearing a pocketed shirt, it's in the pocket... on vibrate. I would never ANSWER it during the show, but if I got a text message I would answer the text ... But my backlight is turned to ultra dim before the performance so the light doesn't distract.

[TicketMediaGuy]

Posted: 6/4/06 at 3:01am

Tonight at the Black Rider in LA a couple behind me spent the entire first act deciding if they were going to stay or leave. It wouldn't have been so bad, but during the quiet scenes they were doing the whole debate - and not in whispers. When the house lights came up to full power for intermission I turned around them as they were STILL debating and told them that their decision should be easy - Just LEAVE so the rest of us can watch the show without their interuptions. The couple behind THEM chimed in and agreed with me. The noisy couple looked at me like I had a third head. I noticed they weren't behind me anymore during the second act.

[neddyfrank2]

Posted: 6/4/06 at 3:51am

Not really bad, but it was funny.

I was sitting watching Dirty Rotten Scoundrels Second Row, next to this lady who looks like Victoria Gotti. During Oklahoma? she turns to her husband as says "That looks like John Lithgow"

[singingwendy]

Posted: 10/2/06 at 11:35am

So during our performance of Nine last night, we had the most distracting audience member I have ever seen! And sitting in the front row, of course! And this is a small "theatre in the round" kind of space, so she was only about 3 steps from the stage.

We start the show, and she is talking. Now, it's only once in a while, and I hear the guy next to her try to "ssh" her, and honestly, I thought she might be "special needs". Well, as the show goes on, it's apparent that she's not "special needs" but just plain old drunk.

"Call from the Vatican" got her very excited, and her hands and legs started to "wander" and the groping got really intense. At one point her boyfriend got up to leave.....and we're not sure if it was because it started to rain and he'd left the car windows open, or if he needed to "finish some business" in the mens room.

By the time we got to "Be Italian" she was dancing in her seat and clapping along. Then she decided to sing along with "Bells of St. Sebastian".

Thank goodness she and her boyfriend decided to leave after Act I.

Most ironic part? The cast decided to go out after the show, and guess who was sitting at the bar as we walked into the restaurant? Yep....there she was, and had NO CLUE who we were.......

[Anakela]

Posted: 10/2/06 at 11:43am

That had to have sucked, but I just had to share that for some reason this:

Well, as the show goes on, it's apparent that she's not "special needs" but just plain old drunk.

has me cracking up here at work. I'm the only one here, though, due to the holiday, so it's all good.

[singingwendy]

Posted: 10/2/06 at 11:46am

Glad to have been able to give you a chuckle!

You should have heard the cast the second we walked off the stage at intermission!

[Producer2]

Posted: 10/2/06 at 11:48am

hundreds of kids were unwrapping candy throughout the nell carter annie revival. granted, the audience was bored out of their minds!

[RainbowHigh2]

Posted: 10/2/06 at 12:35pm

A friend of mine told me about his experience seeing "Resident Evil" - there was a girl talking loudly on her cell phone a la Scary Movie - "Girl, when they bring them bloody dogs out I am going to SCREAM!" Then someone's father was yelling "YEEAH!!!" every time someone was shot and of course when the dogs came out.

For the theater, Rent has never been a quiet musical any of the numerous times I've seen it; the worst times are when a longtime cast member has their final night - Antonique Smith's was the worst!! I'm still deaf from the geeks screaming their heads off. Another time at Rent, not so rude but cute - two pre-pubescent kids were giggling and giving each other the "WHOA! COOL!" looks to each other at every curse word. They asked me during intermission if during the second act people would be singing from the opera seats - I told them that like in the Lion King they're instead going to walk through the audience, but this time they'll be giving out drugs. I think they're still waiting for the stashes.

[sarbear2]

Posted: 10/2/06 at 12:46pm

When I saw Light in the Piazza in Miami on Saturday afternoon, the woman two seats away from me would NOT turn off her cell phone. It went off twice during Act I and it wasn't even a ringtone, it was a LOUD beeping noise. Also, she wouldn't stop crinkling plastic, which I suspect were stupid hard candies that I would've shoved down her throat if it had meant that she would just STOP. All during the last, highly emotional scene, all I could think of was her crinkling the stupid freaking plastic wrappers.

Oh, and the old people (it is Miami) behind me would not stop explaining what was happening- I know that Piazza is sophisticated, but it's not REALLY that complicated. And the Italian family in front of me would just not stop translating the English parts!!

[Mattbrain]

Posted: 10/2/06 at 12:57pm

When I saw Jersey Boys this summer, I had to sit next to this couple who took it upon themselves to sing (horribly) every song in the show. You should've heard the husband's rendition of "Sunday Kinda Lovin'." At one point, in the big meeting in Act Two, when Tommy DeVito said something to Frankie Valli, the guy said, "Hit 'im, Frankie."

[avab802]

Posted: 10/3/06 at 1:34pm

I used to perform at a dinner theater when I was in high school, and it seemed we always had at least one drunk audience member. One time this drunk woman decided she needed to leave the theater during the first act and she knocked over a plant on her way out, spilling dirt onto the stage. A stagehand had to rush out & pick up the plant and we all had to try to avoid the pile of dirt until it could be cleaned up at intermission.

The one question that keeps coming to mind while reading a lot of these posts is why do people go to the theater if they don't really want to be there? If you are going to talk or text message or sleep or walk back & forth the whole time, save your money and just stay home!

I also worked at Aida one summer, and the school/camp groups were the worst. 9 times out of 10 they were loud & rowdy for the whole show and we had other patrons coming out to complain about their behavior. I can sympathize with the teachers/counselors in that situation, but a lot of the times they were doing nothing to try to control their kids.