Broadway fans who cross boundaries

[ermengarde]

Posted: 1/17/18 at 3:55pm

Hello, I've become concerned about how certain fans interact with their favorite actors through social media. Was it always this bad in terms of people treating actors like their therapist, trying to become friends with people they only know through their performances and social media?

If anyone has any stories of bad situations with fans getting too familiar with actors, please share.

[LizzieCurry]

Posted: 1/17/18 at 4:15pm

Pre-social media, but who was the fan back in the late '90s who fooled the Broadway cast of Rent that she had cancer?

[Kad]

Posted: 1/17/18 at 4:17pm

Social media has made fan culture in general pretty toxic. Fans have greater and direct access to performers/creators and to each other than ever before, which means things become very personal very quickly.

[ermengarde]

Posted: 1/17/18 at 4:23pm

LizzyCurry, I had forgotten about that. 

https://www.thisamericanlife.org/155/hoaxing-yourself

[Anakela]

Posted: 1/17/18 at 4:24pm

LizzieCurry said: "Pre-social media, but who was the fan back in the late '90s who fooled the Broadway cast of Rent that she had cancer?"

I tried to find that, and found this instead:

http://people.com/tv/catfish-season-3-episode-5-recap/

apparently faking cancer is a thing for Rent fans.

[newintown]

Posted: 1/17/18 at 4:27pm

As long as low self-esteem exists, we'll have rampant celebrity worship.

[LizzieCurry]

Posted: 1/17/18 at 5:00pm

ermengarde said: "LizzyCurry, I had forgotten about that.

https://www.thisamericanlife.org/155/hoaxing-yourself"

Thank you!

[dramamama611]

Posted: 1/17/18 at 5:25pm

We've always had stories about rampant fans....movies and novels have been based from the idea for decades and decades.  However, as said earlier, social media has, I believe, heightened the whole thing.  And we can't forget that while stage dooring has always been a "thing", now it's a sport, and an expectation.

[JSquared2]

Posted: 1/17/18 at 5:41pm

Let's not forget the classic Margo Channing quote from ALL ABOUT EVE:

"Autograph fiends, they're not people. Those are little beasts that run around in packs like coyotes...They're nobody's fans. They're juvenile delinquents, they're mental defectives, and nobody's audience. They never see a play or a movie even. They're never indoors long enough"

[Patti LuPone FANatic]

Posted: 1/17/18 at 5:55pm

When I initially saw this, I thought it meant some Broadway fans crossing the border into Canada.  Eh?

[Emmaloucbway]

Posted: 1/17/18 at 6:51pm

Lately I've been watching a few broadway actors go on Instagram live and some of the comments these fans leave are really cringeworthy and definitely cross boundaries.

[ermengarde]

Posted: 1/17/18 at 7:08pm

I'm just concerned mainly because of someone who is making my friend feel bad for being unemployed which they are doing in total niceness and passion for their career but it's really coming off the wrong way.

[bk]

Posted: 1/17/18 at 8:06pm

dramamama611 said: "We've always had stories about rampant fans....movies and novels have been based from the idea for decades and decades. However, as said earlier, social media has, I believe, heightened the whole thing. And we can't forget that while stage dooring has always been a "thing", now it's a sport, and an expectation."

Heightened?  It's turned into something really really bad.  The actors think it's helpful at first to have all that presence, but it's not.  I don't want to follow and act like I'm best friends with my plumber and that's what this is, really.  I've been lucky - the occasional PM or comment I get are very nice and I appreciate it.  If anyone got weird they would be gone in a heartbeat because let me tell you, it can turn into stalker stuff very easily - I have a long-time stalker - she's here on this board so let's she if she has the gumption to try and post under whatever her username is now - you'll know it instantly.  And finally, stage dooming had not always been a thing.  It is a product of the last decade and a half, coinciding just as you'd expect, with the popularity of boards like this and then Facebook and Twitter.  Whatever activity used to happen at the stage door in the old days bears no resemblance to the insanity now.

[Fordham2015]

Posted: 1/17/18 at 8:08pm

Patti LuPone FANatic said: "When I initially saw this, I thought it meant some Broadway fans crossing the border into Canada. Eh?"

They're just really big fans of Come From Away who wanna take a Gander

[dramamama611]

Posted: 1/17/18 at 8:38pm

You've never heard the phrase Stage Door Johnny?  That term comes from the 40s, I believe.  And it was used in  All About Eve.  Is it different now?   Yes, as I said.  Are there extremists?  Yes, and I'm not saying there isn't real issues.  I wasn't trying to down play any of that.  In fact I blamed social media for it

 

But not every person that stage doors is a psycho.  Most are not, not even close.

[dearalanaaaa]

Posted: 1/17/18 at 10:36pm

Various incidents I've heard of:

- On Instagram a girl without a therapist DMs a child broadway actor asking how to be happy like he is, and explains she's numb inside and such

- THE BEFORE DOOR IS APPARENTLY A THING

- The Ben Platt situations at stagedoor (and Brendon Urie... and Mike Faist... there's probably more I don't remember)

-The person who made a bootleg from the second orchestra row

 

Theatre etiquette has deteriorated ever since the base has grown for those who only know 4 musicals

Updated On: 1/18/18 at 10:36 PM

[faceleg]

Posted: 1/17/18 at 10:41pm

dearalanaaaa said: "- THE BEFORE DOOR IS APPARENTLY A THING."

 

What is a before door???

 

[jacksonpotter]

Posted: 1/17/18 at 10:54pm

"Theatre etiquette has deteriorated ever since the Hamilstans and the Fansens came along."

 

Updated On: 1/17/18 at 10:54 PM

[Call_me_jorge]

Posted: 1/17/18 at 10:57pm

Whenever I stage door I always feel so insecure about what I say and I’m worried that it would creep the actors out. Like today I saw the wicked tour and I complimented Mary Kate Morrisey on one of her riffs and I felt like I freaked her out, lol.

[Bwayfan292]

Posted: 1/17/18 at 11:01pm

I tend to stay away from stage doors cause I know how crazy they can get. I see it all the time on social media when these teenagers spam the dear evan hansen cast with “adopt me” “please like my post”

[secretschuylersister]

Posted: 1/18/18 at 12:30am

faceleg said: "dearalanaaaa said: "- THE BEFORE DOOR IS APPARENTLY A THING."



What is a before door???

"

hanging out at the stage door before the show when the actors are coming in for work

 

[Malka2]

Posted: 1/18/18 at 12:45am

Call_me_jorge said: "Whenever I stage door I always feel so insecure about what I say and I’m worried that it would creep the actors out. Like today I saw the wicked tour and I complimented Mary Kate Morrisey on one of her riffs and I felt like I freaked her out, lol."

I had the exact same experience, hah! At the Groundhog Day door I complimented Barrett Doss on her amazing voice which she thanked me for, but when I added how incredible her powerful "If I Had My Time Again" vocals were she seemed a bit taken aback. 

[Fan123]

Posted: 1/18/18 at 6:03am

I think part of the problem is that social media is giving fans access to their idols while some of the fans are still rather young. Some young fans haven't yet developed a proper sense of perspective about the unimportance of their fandom in the scheme of things, and the necessity of proper boundaries. Social media wasn't yet a thing when I was younger, but even back then I didn't think much about how there was an actual other person at the other end of any given internet interaction, who might be hurt or scared by my words. #Notallyoungfans are like this, obviously, but some.
Not that this explanation would be much of a comfort to beseiged celebrities, who can never be certain whether somebody on social media is just a tone-deaf thirteen-year-old, or is a deranged adult with actual agency.
Additionally, fans connecting with one another online is great (here we all are), but that probably also creates some extreme-fandom echo chambers that make inappropriate behaviours seem more normal than they actually are.

[Patti LuPone FANatic]

Posted: 1/18/18 at 6:22am

For the most part, I don't approach actors as they show up at their theatre.  When the recent revival of Pippin was playing, I went to see it in 2013.  Usually, I try to be at the theatre a little early, as I don't want to exhaust myself walking around prior to the performance.  I was hanging around the Music Box when I saw a few people hanging around the stage door.  One of them was Matthew James Thomas (Pippin).  After a while, his friends left. I mustered up the courage to approach him and ask to take a pic with him.  He was ever so nice about it.  What was so amazing about this was the time.  It happened around 7:00 p.m.with the show starting a mere 30 minutes later.  I was in awe that he could be so relaxed just half an hour prior to the beginning of that evening's performance.  Once, I did approach Brandy (Roxie Hart) as she was arriving at the Ambassador, along with the music director Leslie Stifleman (who I've always wanted to approach but am sort of afraid of her).  When I see my favorite show, I sometimes meet a couple of my acquaintances from the show prior to the perf and we chat briefly at the stage door.  

[newintown]

Posted: 1/18/18 at 8:09am

"You've never heard the phrase Stage Door Johnny?"

You've got your definition wrong - a "Stage Door Johnny" was never just a mundane fan or autograph hunter; it was used as slang for a certain kind of (generally) wealthy young man who would hang around the stage door, looking to meet actresses and chorus girls for either brief or long-term romance, beneficial to both parties, if you know what I mean.