People Are Dressing Like Slobs: Elizabeth Vincentelli

I always dress up for the theatre. My avatar is of me and my fiancé before going to see, an awful production of, Pirates of Penzance. I'm a performer so going to the theatre isn't the big event that it used to be. However my fiancé rarely went before we got together so it's still exciting for him to get dressed up in classy attire and have a few pre-show drinks. Bless him.

I lived in Australia for a year and when I first arrived I got last minute tickets for Wicked in Sydney and thought I'd have time to change. I didn't so I had to go in wearing flip-flops, shorts and a t-shirt. I sat as far back in my seat as possible so no one could see me. However, my Scottish skin was still burning inside the theatre!

I don't concern myself with what other people choose to wear and I expect, or hope that people would not concern themselves with my choices either.

Live and let live is my motto.

I tend to dress nicely, but I really don't care what the person sitting next to me is wearing. I care more about how one behaves while at the theater than what one wears. (Although I do agree with mailhandler about cologne/perfume, and you can add jangly jewelry to that list).

Also considering how unbearably hot it has been this summer, I can't fault anyone who feels the need to wear shorts or sandals in an attempt not to overheat.

After Eight: relevant and in-touch with reality, as always.

I don't understand why anyone would spend their money to go to the theatre and care about what someone next to them is wearing in the dark.

"It is lack of respect to the performers and fellow audience"



The concept of respect for others is as dead as a doornail.

Unless you are in the first few rows, performers can't see you. And if, as an audience member, you feel disrespected by someone wearing shorts next to you in a dark theatre, then I think the problem is with you, not that person.

I once wore a sequined shirt to the theater (to dress up) and wound up with a front-row seat. Throughout the play's first somber scene, I kept wondering why the director would want tiny sparkles of light to flit erratically over the rear wall of the stage and characters' faces. Luckily, I realized my faux pas fairly quickly and donned&zipped up my jacket at the first applause break.

So aside from jangly jewelry, perfume, and overly revealing clothes, we can add sparkly garments to the list of what not to wear to the theater. Other than that, keep your phone off and refrain from speaking, singing along, leaving and returning multiple times, starting fistfights, eating, rustling chip or candy bags, and shaking ice in those godforsaken cheap souvenir cups, and you may wear whatever you please.

That said, when I saw the "Mary Poppins" tour in Boston, I got lost on the way from the T to the theater, and as I looked around for someone to ask directions, I spotted a gentleman (late 30sish) and two little girls: the girls were in party dresses and the gentleman was in a suit. I instinctively knew this little family was going to the theater. Turns out, we had both gotten out at a premature stop and were about 1.5 miles away. The family let me walk with them all the way there (I'm a female and at the time was in my 20s. I'm also tiny and unthreatening-looking, so that likely helped). I was wearing a simple but elegant black dress and gold chain. When we arrived at theater, having chatted about all the shows the family had seen and the girls' opinions on them, I asked the father how he knew I was safe to walk with for such a distance with his daughters. The gentleman said, "Anyone in this day and age who dresses up for the theater like you did has to be all right in my book." So there is that, as well.

"Such a lack of grace and common courtesy."

Grace?

Courtesy?

Obsolete notions.

I respect the performers immensely. At the same time, I wear what I wear. What I wear has nothing to do with the way I feel about anyone, in the same way that wearing a suit doesn't make you a better worker than wearing jeans and a mohawk. These things are all relics of the past. People are slowly beginning to understand that these superficial things don't amount to a hill of beans.

When I travel to NYC to see a show, I'm taking a 4 hour train ride, walking around in the heat to lunch and then dinner after, then back on the train for 4 hours. If it's hot out, I'm wearing shorts and sneakers. It has nothing to do with how I feel about the performers or the people around me.

I thought that article seemed familiar. Oh well. I only looked at the month and day, but not the year.

Updated On: 8/1/16 at 10:56 AM

For all the insistence that this is disrespectful to the performers, it's amazing that the only people complaining are exclusively other audience members.