Have you ever been to a show where the audience actually booed?- Page 2
Have you ever been to a show where the audience actually booed?
neddyfrank2
Broadway Legend Joined: 12/23/05
#25re: Have you ever been to a show where the audience actually booed?
Posted: 4/8/07 at 11:31pm^ You would be suprised
MaronaDavies
Featured Actor Joined: 3/17/06
#26re: Have you ever been to a show where the audience actually booed?
Posted: 4/8/07 at 11:35pmThe only thing I've ever personally seen that's come close to booing: when I saw "Allergist's Wife" the first time, Linda Lavin was out. They announced it before the show, and there was...not a boo per se, but a very audible collective groan from the audience. I didn't think it was directed toward the poor standby, but to the situation.
WiCkEDrOcKS
Broadway Legend Joined: 6/13/04
#27re: Have you ever been to a show where the audience actually booed?
Posted: 4/8/07 at 11:36pmYeah, I think if I was with an evening crowd (I saw a matinee performance of TWS) which is usually a more vocal bunch of people, there may have been some booing.
Jon
Broadway Legend Joined: 2/20/04
#28re: Have you ever been to a show where the audience actually booed?
Posted: 4/9/07 at 12:39am
How about what I call "constructive heckling"?
About fifteen years ago, I saw a preview of a horrendous play called "Crazy He Calls Me", starring Barry Miller and Polly Draper. It was a Wednesday matinee, with mostly blue-haired ladies. At leat a third of the audience left at intermission, and in Act 2, during one Mr. Miller's most "intense" monologues, several ladies in the audience started shouting, "Louder! We can't hear you! Talk louder!".
The show opened to deservedly vicious reviews and closed after four performances.
#29re: Have you ever been to a show where the audience actually booed?
Posted: 4/9/07 at 5:24am
Opening night of the JCS Farewell Tour in SF last year and Corey Glover who plays Judas wasn't there and it was announced that it would be played by an understudy...people booed and sighed out of disappointment 
#30re: Have you ever been to a show where the audience actually booed?
Posted: 4/9/07 at 5:42am
People being so obnoxious about understudies is making me very angry right now. Have these people no manners? FFS, I flew from the UK to see Idina's last in 'Wicked', I'm sure you remember how that turned out, but I did not sit and bitch, I sat and enjoyed Shoshana's performance instead. People never fail to disgust me on a daily basis. XP
misschung
Broadway Legend Joined: 2/18/07
#31re: Have you ever been to a show where the audience actually booed?
Posted: 4/9/07 at 8:40am
I have! Sherie Rene Scott takes over Idina Menzel in Rent...
"Moo with me!"
Audience:
BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!
that is so wrong, I'm sorry. Poor Sherie! Granted, they miss Idina but going into the show, you KNOW she's not going to be there. And I thought she pulled off the role very well, personally
People should never boo - with the exception of booing at villains in children's shows. I mean its Broadway, not a high school talent show
#32re: Have you ever been to a show where the audience actually booed?
Posted: 4/9/07 at 10:12amAt A Chorus Line, at the announcement of the understudy who would be going on for Charlotte d'Amboise that night, people booed. Seriously- who does that? An understudy who was perfectly lovely, btw.
marypoppsfan!
Understudy Joined: 11/3/06
#33re: Have you ever been to a show where the audience actually booed?
Posted: 4/9/07 at 10:14amGrinch when Patrick Page Bowed
#34re: Have you ever been to a show where the audience actually booed?
Posted: 4/9/07 at 10:18amI've never seen it happen at a Broadway/off-Broadway show, but I've seen it happen at the Met. It was the opening night of a new production (I don't remember which opera it was). The cast was not booed, but when the director came out to take his bow, he was nearly booed off of the stage.
#35re: Have you ever been to a show where the audience actually booed?
Posted: 4/9/07 at 10:36amI actually find it quite annoying when villian characters in kids shows are booed. I mean, yeah they were the villian, but they were up there performing and likely did a good job. At least give them SOME applause.
LouieLovesTheater
Leading Actor Joined: 3/30/04
#36re: Have you ever been to a show where the audience actually booed?
Posted: 4/9/07 at 10:37amAt the opening night of a show with The Minnesota Opera, we were onstage and, as is tradition, the conducter and director came onstage to bow. When the director came onstage people booed...loudly. As an actor it was a horrible feeling...but since it was clearly directed at him (the show had a very radical directorial vision) I got over it quickly. So much for MN nice.
#37re: Have you ever been to a show where the audience actually booed?
Posted: 4/9/07 at 10:40am
Grinch when Patrick Page Bowed
Didn't his heart grow three sizes at the end? Now how does that deserve a boo?
#38re: Have you ever been to a show where the audience actually booed?
Posted: 4/9/07 at 11:14am
AC12, I think I was at the same Opera. Was it La Travatore ? I had never been to an opera before and someone gave me opening night tickets. I laughed my butt off when the Tenor entered to save the Soprano from joining the convent (so did much of the audienc). The Tenor left at the end of the act and would not leave his dressing room making for a very long intermission)). I had such I great time thinking, I didn't know Operas were so funny.
During curtain call I was shocked at the loud booing that was taking place. Specially when the director walked out for his bow!
#39re: Have you ever been to a show where the audience actually booed?
Posted: 4/9/07 at 11:26amLike I said, I cannot remember which opera it was. I think it was about 2 years ago. Booing is not uncommon at the Met when it comes to new productions; last month, at the opening of the new Agyptische Helena, David Fielding (the director) was loudly booed.
landryjames2
Leading Actor Joined: 5/17/06
#40re: Have you ever been to a show where the audience actually booed?
Posted: 4/9/07 at 11:39am
No matter how bad a show is, I usually don't have the urge to boo. I have just gotten into the habit of leaving at intermission at near atrocities on stage (Wedding Singer, Lestat, The Pirate Queen--yes I know there is a healthy amount of fans on this board for some of these shows). However, there is once recently in the last year that I was so angry at what I was seeing on stage, that I did feel like booing. I actually could not help but audibly groan many times through the first half (I ran out of there like a bat out of hell at intermission, as did all my friends who have attended the production).
It was two weeks ago at a NYCO production of Rossini's La Donna del Lago. The worst direction I have ever seen in any genre of a professional production. And I generally think that NYCO productions are very well done. But I saw a community theater production of Hansel and Gretal that was much better directed than this Rossini. Just speechlessly bad.
ggersten
Broadway Legend Joined: 5/11/06
#41re: Have you ever been to a show where the audience actually booed?
Posted: 4/9/07 at 11:40am
ACT did an "anniversary" production of Cyrano with Peter Donat and Michael Learned (Marc Singer was not there), but given that it was 20 or so years after the original production, Peter and Michael were not exactly age appropriate - so the play started in Act V, and midway through went back to the beginning of hte play, so that the whole show as sort of a flashback. An interesting solution.
Woman next to us was irate (even though this was not opening night, and the press had reported the change to the script) and got more uncomfortable and when intermission came she stood up and loudly yelled "Boo! Boo! BOOOOOO! BOOOOOOOO!" She also seemed to be drunk. She did not return for Act II.
BTW, Donat was still as captivating as he is on the video of the original production. Learned was a more sedate Roxanne - my problem was her Roxanne seemed too smart to not figure out the Cyrano/Christian thing - Stephanie Powers in Stacy Keach's production, well she, I could believe, could not have figured it out.
People didn't boo, but they walked out - loudly - during The Tale of Lear at Berkeley Rep - a Kabuki retelling of Lear. There was no intermission, yet by the end, over half the audience had left early.
#42re: Have you ever been to a show where the audience actually booed?
Posted: 4/9/07 at 11:52ameverytime i've watched Mary Poppins in London, the kids boo Ms Andrews after she scares the kids away!
Josh Freilich
Broadway Legend Joined: 2/17/06
#43re: Have you ever been to a show where the audience actually booed?
Posted: 4/9/07 at 12:03pmThe only two shows I remember people booing were both in London. I saw "Chitty Chitty Bang Bang" with Peter Polycarpou as the childcatcher. When he bowed, he got booed and hissed all over the place! When I saw HMS Pinafore a day later, the character of Dick Deadeye took his final bow, and he got half-applauded, half-booed.
#44re: Have you ever been to a show where the audience actually booed?
Posted: 4/9/07 at 12:12pm
When I saw Chitty Chity Bang Bang in London, near the end of the original cast's run, not only did the Child Catcher get booed whenever he came on, the two spies as well -- actually, they got more hisses than boos. In the scene where the spies are hiding behind bushes while Grampa Potts is out on an evening stroll the hisses were so loud that Grampa Potts (Anton Rodgers) made a comment about the wind blowing very hard. 
sondhead
Broadway Star Joined: 10/25/06
#45re: Have you ever been to a show where the audience actually booed?
Posted: 4/9/07 at 12:12pm
"People being so obnoxious about understudies is making me very angry right now. Have these people no manners? FFS, I flew from the UK to see Idina's last in 'Wicked', I'm sure you remember how that turned out, but I did not sit and bitch, I sat and enjoyed Shoshana's performance instead. People never fail to disgust me on a daily basis. XP "
That's a little harsh. Booing is of course not appropriate, but it is quite understandable to be VERY disappointed that someone is out on the day you paid $110 to see them. Groans and sighs of disappointment are definitely not out of line if you ask me.
BroadwayAbridged
Stand-by Joined: 2/2/07
#46re: Have you ever been to a show where the audience actually booed?
Posted: 4/9/07 at 12:19pmI don't see what's wrong with being "boo"ed at the end of a performance if you're the bad guy. If you've done such a great job portraying a villain that you're booed by the children at the end, isn't that as gratifying as applause?
misschung
Broadway Legend Joined: 2/18/07
#47re: Have you ever been to a show where the audience actually booed?
Posted: 4/9/07 at 12:20pmYeah, but I think that's different than flat out booing a performer/director, whatever
AudreyTwoTwo
Broadway Legend Joined: 10/4/06
#48re: Have you ever been to a show where the audience actually booed?
Posted: 4/9/07 at 12:32pm
I would think that for villians in kid shows the actors take boos as applause. I certainly would, because villians are characters you love to hate. It shows that they really did a good job if everyone hated them. Not their performance, but the actual character.
Although I do believe that they do deserve a bit of applause. But still.
I usually don't boo for people that are villians. I don't boo in general. I just go "woot woot" for the people I like. So if they suck, they get a golf clap.
#49re: Have you ever been to a show where the audience actually booed?
Posted: 4/9/07 at 12:37pmDon't "woot woot" Audrey Two Two, it's quite childish. If you really like someone ovate them. If they were good, but not great, don't stand up. The problem is people think they must ovate every show they see.
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