She stopped the show during Rose's Turn!- Page 5

[best12bars]

Posted: 1/11/09 at 10:10am

PJ excels at troll allegations!

But he still believes in Santa Claus.

[mikem]

Posted: 1/11/09 at 10:22am

I am extremely curious what the pre-show announcement before this afternoon's performance is going to be like. . .

[iluvtheatertrash]

Posted: 1/11/09 at 10:34am

First off, let me say: I don't want an illegal audio.
Second, let me say: Yes. I like the fact that I've met Patti and have a photo with her. However, I don't think it's my right to have it.

Therefore, I'm not the person you described.

I still think Patti was just in what she did. In all honesty, I think any performer in the show would've been. ANY. They have every right when someone is putting them in danger.

[ThankstoPhantom]

Posted: 1/11/09 at 10:38am

Deleted because really...what's the good of complaining here?

Updated On: 1/11/09 at 10:38 AM

[South Fl Marc]

Posted: 1/11/09 at 10:40am

Wow - some of you would have hated Jon Vickers. Arguably one of the best singing actors ever, he never put up with anything from a disruptive audience .

Once during the winter of 1975, in a performance as Tristan in Dallas, Vickers was upset that excessive coughing from the audience was destroying the mood by drowning out the soloists. He found his moment in Act 3 - the wounded Tristan, who was supposed to be on his deathbed and unconscious, shouted: "Shut up with your damn coughing!" at the top of his lungs.

[gypsy4]

Posted: 1/11/09 at 10:45am

with the way are economy is looking maybe LUPONE will become the head usher of a theatre. she reminds me of requel welch from tha seinfeld episode.

[PiraguaGuy2]

Posted: 1/11/09 at 10:50am

Am I the only one who immediately thought of that "THIS IS THE THEATERRRR" business that turned out to be completely fake?

[Elke]

Posted: 1/11/09 at 12:30pm

nexttoelectric: really? In theatre, everyone has a task: the actors are there to perform, the ushers are there to control and guide the audience. If an actor feels unsafe because the ushers are doing a poor job, then (s)he should warn the stage manager who, in turn, should notify the house manager. It's as simple as that.

Just my two cents. The "astoundingly stupid" comment I made was figuratively speaking. I'm sorry that you didn't get that.

[logan0215]

Posted: 1/11/09 at 1:00pm

Having a camera flash go off three times during a show is almost at the same level of "pull me out of the moment" as an actor stopping the show. I've personally had to take matters into my own hands regarding theater etiquette in the past and am glad Patti took a stand. I've dealt with incessant candy wrapper crinkling (specifically during silent moments), plastic bags under seats, older man explaining everything that was going on to his wife at Avenue Q (just this last Monday) and people consistently using their bright cell phone light throughout the show.

I've shushed, and eh-hemmed and even gotten up and told the person right out. Its rude and obnoxious and it sucks that someone had to be made "an example of" but I bet that the "99.8% of innocent people" in the theater will NEVER take a flash photo at a show again.

[nobodyhome]

Posted: 1/11/09 at 1:09pm

"In addition, I find it intersting that today on ATC there was a thread started that put down Pattis performance,, that was almost word for word as a thread started a few days ago."

Well, if her performance has deteriorated and is fairly consistent in the way that it's deteriorated, why would it be surprising that more than one person would post similar things after those two people having attended different performances? Obviously, not everyone agrees that it's deteriorated but then not everyone liked it in the first place. People have different opinions, and we accept that. What's so strange if two people have more or less the same opinion?

Someone posted, "Merman was just as unliked. If not way more."

Someone responded, "lj889: I'm not saying it isn't so, but can you give any examples of Ethel Merman being greatly disliked? By whom? Why? Caused by what on Merman's part?

"In GYPSY, she is known to have disliked Sandra Church and I guess the feeling was mutual. However, she got along very well with Jack Klugman. And during rehearsals, Stephen Sondheim said that she was very cooperative. In the recent biography by Brian Kellow, there was no mention of such dislike except toward the end of her life when she was ill and got to be very difficult. Once a diva, always a diva."

Well, Paula Laurence certainly didn't get along with Merman. And Fernando Lamas. And it does seem as if some others probably didn't like her too much.

In the cases of both Laurence and Lamas, it may have been more their fault than Merman's. Still, Kellow does tell the story of the night Lamas saved her from great embarrassment onstage and rather than thanking him, she yelled at him as if he'd caused the problem.

The Kellow book does say that Church and Merman eventually patched things up. In fact, I think the saddest story in the book is about the encounter between Church and Merman near the end of Merman's life, when Merman was deteriorating and Church came up to her in a restaurant, and said, "Hi, Ethel, it's Sandra Church." And Merman looked at her a long time and finally said, "You're not Sandra. You couldn't be Sandra Church. I don't know who you are." And it was just that Merman's mind wasn't functioning properly, it wasn't that she was trying to be unpleasant.

"remember when part of the St. James theater fell on someone in the audience and people here complained that Patti didn't stop the show to find out what was going on? can she really never win?"

That happened in the balcony. My memory is that people didn't complain so much about LuPone not stopping, but that the house staff should have stopped the show. Someone should have alerted the stage manager that there was an emergency. LuPone apparently heard some noise and that something going on. I don't recall people complaining that she should have stopped. If someone did, I think others came in and said that it was really the house staff's responsibility since LuPone couldn't have known exactly what was happening.

"Have you not heard the story Elaine Stritch tells about how Ethel once walked all the way into an audience to throw a drunk audience member who was yelling at her all the way out onto the street?"

Yeah, Stritch tells that story, but other people who were in the cast remember it differently. According to them (and this is much more plausible), Merman did walk offstage in mid-number, but what she did was go to the house manager and tell him to get the guy who was creating the disturbance out of the theatre.

"Once during the winter of 1975, in a performance as Tristan in Dallas, Vickers was upset that excessive coughing from the audience was destroying the mood by drowning out the soloists. He found his moment in Act 3 - the wounded Tristan, who was supposed to be on his deathbed and unconscious, shouted: "Shut up with your damn coughing!" at the top of his lungs."

Yes, and you can hear it on this page:

http://www.handelmania.com/dristan.mp3

[wonkit]

Posted: 1/11/09 at 1:25pm

Good for Vickers - he is one of the best opera singers ever -

[TheatreDiva90016]

Posted: 1/11/09 at 1:36pm

I think Patti's next show should be some along the lines of a Dame Edna Show, with lots of audicene interaction.

She comes out and sings a ditty or two, engages the audience in topical conversation, invites people up on the stage to discuss their marriages...

And if she doesn't like an answer, or what someone's wearing, or, just because she feels like it, she punches them in the face and removes them from the theatre with a lovely parting gift.

Like a t-shirt that said, "I got LuPowned!"

[Scripps2]

Posted: 1/11/09 at 1:38pm

frontrowcentre2: If you're going to disagree with Weez at least disagree with what she posted and not what you think she posted. Weez has a temperament such as to make the Lupone legend look passive.

[SporkGoddess]

Posted: 1/11/09 at 1:45pm

I don't like that Vickers yelled at someone for coughing. You can't exactly help that. And I know it's easy to say "Go out into the lobby," but you did pay a lot of money for that ticket and it would suck to have to miss the performance just because you'd come down with a cold or something.

[COOOOLkid]

Posted: 1/11/09 at 1:45pm

Wow. Breaking character because of coughing is a bit excessive. I can't imagine how awful the person felt.

[SNAFU]

Posted: 1/11/09 at 2:02pm

It has always been a wicked little fantasy of mine to design and make little ROSE lapel pins with a single blinking LED and then hand them out to the audience as they enter the theatre then sit back and watch her head explode!

Updated On: 1/11/09 at 02:02 PM

[TheatreDiva90016]

Posted: 1/11/09 at 2:09pm

Now that would just be messy.

[MamasDoin'Fine]

Posted: 1/11/09 at 2:15pm

Yea! No more LuPone Yea!

[SNAFU]

Posted: 1/11/09 at 2:20pm

I envision a scene like Scanners, with song!

[ljay889]

Posted: 1/11/09 at 2:36pm

Yea! No more LuPone Yea!


- I hope the production goes to London to torture your ass.

[MamasDoin'Fine]

Posted: 1/11/09 at 2:39pm

It will I'm sure!
LOL

[ljay889]

Posted: 1/11/09 at 2:40pm

lol, and somehow I doubt you'll be able to stay away from it.

[Pianolin717]

Posted: 1/11/09 at 2:44pm

any news on what she is doing next? IF people will want her to do anything after this?

[ljay889]

Posted: 1/11/09 at 2:47pm

If the production doesn't go to London, I'm sure Patti will be back on Broadway within in the next couple of years.

In March she'll start touring the country with Mandy patinkin in their concert. And she also has a couple of solo shows set up in Vegas.

Plus Jerry Herman showed interest in having her for a DOLLY revival, so who knows...

[Pianolin717]

Posted: 1/11/09 at 2:49pm

I forgot about her tour! yeah, I might have to get tickets to that!