How To Behave At The Theatre.

A poster on the Broadway Board has posted this article from The Times and sounds a little upset that the piece has a dig at Americans!
And?
http://entertainment.timesonline.co.uk/tol/arts_and_entertainment/stage/theatre/article6535773.ece

http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/culture/stephenhough/100001589/for-laughing-out-loud/

I think tall people should be able to have good seats if they like. So long as they aren't in front of me!

The list has some good points, but is done so in a fun way. I particularly like:

"If you must go to that often obnoxious, spuriously glitzy occasion, the first night, don?t ponce about pretending to be an important guest, even if you are one. Think of your fellow audience members and the actors, both of whom want to get on with the show. And that show isn?t about you. "

Quite. I'm also a particular fan of not singing along. I accept that people sometimes need to cough, or that confused people may want to know what on earth is happening, but there are no excuses for singing along.

"10. No need to dress up, let alone wear dinner jackets and evening gowns, as was once the case. But try to be a little better dressed than the critics, who often look as they?ve been grabbed from a washing machine that hasn?t yet been turned on."

Hah.

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If you want well behaved American theatre audiences get the hell out of midtown and see an off Broadway show. That is where you will find good audience behavior. Not, in the great but tourist trap shows of midtown.

For example, on Broadway at any given performance of Wicked, there is a sure fire shot that there will be entrance applause when Elphaba enters the stage, cheering during the final riff of Defying Gravity and the undeserving standing O.

I was recently at a performance of the AMAZING off Broadway Pulitzer Prize winner Ruined. And despite it being a VERY moving and a VERY well acted play and one that is deserving of a standing O, only a handful of people actually did.

I am actually taken a back at the different reactions in the audience between shows that attract a different kind of audiences. For example, the differences between an audience at a Broadway show that is predominately tourists verses one off Broadway that is predominately New Yorkers.

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If you get stuck behind someone tall, they can't help it, it's just bad luck for those sat behind.

Right. Or in front of them, sometimes. The first time I ever saw Phantom I was in front of a guy who would gently kick my seat every so often. I almost asked him to stop until I saw that he was probably about 6' 6" at the least, and his knees were nearly up to his chin. Poor guy was probably totally cramped and uncomfortable.

I like articles like this, but posting them here is more like preaching to the choir and asking people to rant about their own experiences.

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Nope.

You can mount a production of Donkey Show The Musical and and the tourists will still give it a standing O.

I can't believe that I used the words donkey show and mount in the same post.

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