Starting on Time

Yesterday I saw the matinee of The Curious Incident (brilliant by the way, but we already know that).

My seat was A-108 Mezzanine. The exact center seat of the first row of the mezzanine. People were pouring into the theatre, but I kid you not -- exactly at 2 PM -- curtain time -- I was the ONLY person seated in the entire front three rows of the center of mezzanine. Yes -- just me among about 45 empty seats! WTF? Then people started coming in. The show started at about 2:05, which seems early these days. People continued to be seated until about 2:15, when at last all those seats were filled. It was hard to follow the first 10 minutes of the show with all the confusion.

What's going on? Do people just assume it's going to start late so no need to hurry? Admittedly I've gotten used to most shows starting about 10 minutes late, but this seemed a new record for latecomers. I thought it must be a big bus group that had all those tickets, but clearly not, it was a scattering of mostly middle aged and older women. I was the only male in those entire three rows.

When I saw Curious Incident, latecomers were seated continuously throughout Act One. They didn't seem to have any set late seating cues--they just seated people as they arrived. It was incredibly distracting and totally took me out of the performance multiple times. (And it feels like latecomers are always seated in the center of a row--can't they ever have the aisle?)

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"I'm seeing Audra next year in Jacksonville. If I get the chance at stage door, I'm going to mention it to her. It had to be quite distracting to her while performing."

If you follow her on Twitter, I don't think you'd have any concern that she wasn't aware of these issues... although phones seem to be her bigger annoyance.

To be fair, though, this is up to the show. Some shows make people wait until a specific point into Act One before seating them or, in the case of Bette Midler, there was no late seating at all. They got chairs in the back where they could see down the aisle, sat behind the SRO people.

Updated On: 11/6/14 at 01:45 PM

I've never seen a show to start on time, it's been a on the 05 or 07 and I think they do this so people running from the bar don't have to rush to the seats and spill a drink, or be stuck in the bathroom. Gives those few extra minutes and that way you don't have the stragglers coming in interrupting the performance. Never heard of that late though!