Broadway needs to fight back — Page 2

Unfortunately, I think that would just lead to people taking pics/video of that.

"It would make no difference at all."

Very sad !!

it's 2015, it's simply ridiculous to ask people in New York City to not bring their phones into the theater. Where do you propose they leave them? in the street? on the subway / taxi / uber? because you better believe I (not living there, but going as a tourist) would not leave my phone at the hotel. I obviously fully support turning off phones at the start of the show simply because they detract from the experience, but we live in an age where not having your phone on your person is never going to happen.

yankeefan7 said: "Question for everyone. Do you think it would make a difference if before the show the "stars" of the show stepped on the stage and made the cell phone/filming/photo taking announcements to the audience?

I understand that Annaleigh Ashford and Matthew Broderick had to stop their performances a few weeks back due to a disruption of a woman on a phone call! It was reported that the audience cheered them when they had to start the scene over, so maybe that would remind people that the actors are very affected by noise in the audience. It's probably worth a try.

"because you better believe I (not living there, but going as a tourist) would not leave my phone at the hotel."

I don't know about you but every hotel I have stayed at in NYC has a safe.

Updated On: 12/30/15 at 01:44 PM

Asking people to leave cells home is extreme. I don't think it's a good idea for many reasons. I would support checking them over that, but I'm still not quite on board with that.

People are not going to leave their phones home. Let's just assume this is a non-negotiable, because I don't think that part of the problem is worth fighting. The issue here is drumming into people what is and isn't acceptable use of said phones in certain venues.

Updated On: 12/30/15 at 03:30 PM

Dave Chapelle has some ideas:

http://perezhilton.com/2015-12-06-dave-chappelle-yondr-cell-phones-shows-video-tape-locked-no-filming#.VoRI2VJd2po

A good article Ilana. In another thread on this topic I suggested that performers themselves are in the best position to stop this insidious practice (recording). The same for audience members using their cell phones while a performance is in progress. Producers and theatre management have an obligation to enforce the law. Performers who stop the show when they see an audience member(s) recording the show or using their phones for conversation are within their rights to bring the curtain down until that(those) members of the audience is(are) escorted out. Let that happen several times and these incidents of dis-courteousness and theivery would become less and less frequent.

"Performers who stop the show when they see an audience member(s) recording the show or using their phones for conversation are within their rights to bring the curtain down until that(those) members of the audience is(are) escorted out. Let that happen several times and these incidents of dis-courteousness and theivery would become less and less frequent. "

Love to see it happen !!

"But punishing everyone by making them check their phones is unrealistic. Who wants to wait on a line for 30 mins after the show? Especially on a weeknight.

I agree it is unrealistic but I can't think of a better way to totally resolve the problem. I have said it will never happen, can't see theater managers wanting to go thru the cost or aggravation of having people employed to check phones.Performers stopping the show will work once in awhile but what happens if you have several people doing it during the show, can't imagine stopping the show every time.

i think the problem here is multi-faceted, and different abuses require different approaches.

in my experience, the vast majority of times i've been annoyed by someone else's mobile it's because it's gone off accidentally during a performance. the owner simply forgets to turn it off, or erroneously assumes upon hearing the announcement that s/he's already attended to the matter. the solution here is dippy but straight-forward: someone from front-of-house needs to come onstage before every performance and require every audience member to look at his/her phone and raise it in the air to "demonstrate" it's been turned off. the show doesn't start til everyone's phone is raised. i think it's naive to assume that a mere announcement can solve the accidental deployment problem -- humans are, well, human ... we forget what we're supposed to do, we misremember what we think we've done, we don't go to the theater with sufficient frequency to have the protocol ingrained. only a positive extra step is going to eliminate this source of the problem.

now, before the claws are extended, let me hasten to note this of course does not address the rarer but more insidious problem of intentional mobile usage during a performance -- texting, talking, taking pictures. in this case, the only solution is a clear warning after the hand-raising and IMMEDIATE ejection when there's a violation. a ticket is a LICENSE, and the theatre issuing it actually has a great deal of latitude in setting the terms of that license.

Yeah, that seems a bit much.

You're always going to have a balance of dealing with the people who break rules, versus making people who do what they are supposed to go through unnecessary treatment.