Thoughts? — Page 6

Nothing is more disturbing to me than the sense of entitlement fans of theatre performers have (it's rampant in all genres but theatre seems especially susceptible). Now with technology like Twitter and Facebook, it's even worse, imo. People think they become friends with these professionals because they replied to their tweet or asked how their day was after seeing them at the stage door for the 10th time. If you have to wait at the stage door to talk to someone, newsflash: you aren't their friend.

It really freaks me out sometimes. I go to a lot of Idina's concerts, and rarely does the venue have proper security to handle her stage door craziness, and sometimes she gets bumrushed and it's so damn scary. And then if she takes awhile to come out, or can't sign because she has to leave on time, people scream at her over Twitter about her being ungrateful and never going to a concert again. And why? You paid to see her sing. She sang. Anything beyond that is a bonus and you should be grateful the chance exists at all.

I also wish BWW allowed html/bbcode formatting of posts so that gif would be at the end of this and not at the beginning messing up my paragraph...

Updated On: 7/26/12 at 08:50 PM

Vellekoop, please don't take this as judgemental or condescending, I am genuinely curious: Why does that mean so much to you, or others, do you think? I mean, it's not like he'll remember you or you'll ever really encounter him again probably, and I doubt most actors specifically remember every fan encounter they have, unless something particularly memorable occurs. Personally, I would rather reach the point of success in my industry that I could meet people I admire on equal ground at social events, opening night parties, friends of friends, etc. The "theatre friends" I've made through work and the experiences I've had are far better and more genuine than anything at the stagedoor. That, however, is just my personal experience and clearly quite a few people disagree with me judging by how crowded the stagedoor is. I just can't figure out why collecting autographs is satisfying.

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Defensiveness is so attractive.

It makes one actually ignore the question posed ("Why does that mean so much to you?") and say something utterly redundant ("It meant something to him.").

Updated On: 7/27/12 at 12:46 PM

I'm not defensive -- I don't stage door. It would mean nothing to me. But that it means something to THEM doesn't need to be tangible to me.

I just don't like how she ends up belittling those that enjoy something she doesn't.

I don't get why some people love sci-fi -- but I don't need to understand why they do. Different strokes.

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Some people are curious. Some people ask "why?" Some people like to think, rather than just accept.

But I dont' feel that Kelly2 is curious. She thinks she's right, and that that should be the way everyone thinks. It's like she needs to prove it to them so they can mend their evil ways. (Like hard core vegans, or born again Christians -- they've seen the error of the ways and need to save the rest of us.)

(All of the above is IMHO.)

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"I dont' feel that Kelly2 is curious. She thinks she's right, and that that should be the way everyone thinks. It's like she needs to prove it to them so they can mend their evil ways."

And that's what they call defensive. Kelly asked an honest, curious question about motivation.

Now, we all know that some people feel attacked or violated when asked to explore their thoughts or actions. But it's not an attack. It's curiosity.

"But if they aren't causing harm to anyone else, who cares?"

I'd say that's the wrong question. Again, it's not about "who cares?," it's about sincere and honest curiosity about why someone sees significant value in something that others see as clearly valueless.

There are a lot of things I could potentially say here because I have had, by whatever strokes of luck, a lot of experiences that are outside what would be considered the norm, but I hesitate to get into too many personal details or anecdotes. I'm an adult and I work in the business; I was once a precocious, curious, shy-but-friendly, sometimes pain-in-the-ass teenager. I did some silly things back then, but I regret none of them.

Kelly, you are really working to play up this "intellectual" angle, but it seems like in doing so you're ignoring the fact that the questions are you are asking are about how these things make people feel. About emotion and memory, which are things that are not always in line with what's logical. That may be part of the reason you have yet to find any suitable answers. Or it could just be that the responses to your questions make sense (which I think many of the posts here do), and you just don't like them because they aren't coincident with how you see it.

I'm also struck by your insistence that different kinds of scenarios are so deeply mutually exclusive: that smart people can't ever have the impulse to go speak to an actor at a stage door, that it's only for the mentally unstable, that people only remember you because you did something outlandish and crazy, or that meeting someone in one of the social/industry scenarios you listed is the only way it's respectable. If you meet someone at a party, or through a friend, there's a pretty good chance that the next time you meet them, they aren't going to remember you. Maybe it can make you [editorial] feel less self-conscious and awkward to meet someone in a situation like that -- I have had that feeling -- but I get the sense that having the ability to do that does more to instill a feeling of superiority over people who don't than it does to (often, anyway) make a serious connection: for my money, the majority of conversations at opening nights, etc. are drunken, drowned out by background noise, and in too much darkness to see anyone's faces. Sure, being at an event like that or being introduced by a friend can legitimize you -- it can bypass the background check, so to speak. But I have a lot of trouble with the idea that it's an either-or scenario.

I think for me the bottom line is that this is a very difficult topic to generalize, because it's so dependent on the actor, the moment, the fan's behavior, and a whole host of other variables. Some people remember things. Some people don't. You can make an impression without ever even knowing you did so. Something you nervously blurt out could mean more to the receiving person than you'll ever know. But there are so many different reasons and motivations and possibilities and totally true stories that I think it's a very futile issue to make such broad generalizations about.

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Updated On: 7/27/12 at 01:37 PM

Heres why I stage door:
It adds to my experience, I don't think any of these people that I meet are my friends, but when I look at my playbills on my wall and the signatures it brings me back to that night and the wonderful show I saw, if its not your thing well fine, but don't belittle or criticizes others, many of us who stage door aren't psychopathic tweens stage dooring the same shows 20 something times...

Yes, I can tell. But you also seem really quick to make unnecessarily giant leaps from what you read, and jump to kind of strange conclusions. Case in point, you are making this an issue of logic over "emotional hysteria," not logic over, as I posted, emotion. So you're implying that the way you see it, if any feelings are involved, they're hysterical. All I said was that if you are asking questions about why people enjoy an experience, or why a tangible item is meaningful, you're asking questions that sometimes go against the grain of what we consider intellect and logic -- I have thought, written and argued a lot about that divide, as it relates to art and otherwise. What I'm saying is that sometimes they don't mix easily. Sometimes it's hard to measure one in terms of the other, or to find a shared language, and maybe that's why you feel like the answers people have given you aren't satisfactory. Frankly, I don't know what kinds of answers you're really looking for, because they are inevitably going to be about how things make people feel -- and if any response that involves an emotion is going to be something you hyperbolize into hysteria, then therein lies the communication error.

I see no problem with the fact that you're moved on from the desire to go to a stage door or get an autograph -- so have I, 99% of the time. I'll make the occasional exception, but occasional is the operative. The thing that I think is rubbing people the wrong way is that the way a lot of your posts are reading, you seem to think anyone who does do that is silly, and further, that if it means anything to you that is silly, or you are silly, hysterically emotional and somehow unstable. I just don't think that's fair. As it seems like you know firsthand, a lot of the people who derive meaning from those moments are young. And yes, there is always going to be some negative behavior, and it can come from any age group or whatever classification you want to look to. But I think what's reading in your posts is a -- maybe accidental? -- conflation of the two. And a sense of judgment based on the fact that because you don't find it meaningful, it isn't, or if it is, that's because the person is nuts. I ask this completely genuinely: don't you remember what made it meaningful for you before you had a change of heart? And maybe for you, looking at your past experiences, you equate finding that meaning with being immature or something. But can't whatever that was exist for other people in various stages in their theatre going careers or of different dispositions? I just don't think it, whatever "it" is, is exclusive to young or crazy or whatever. Does that make sense?

I agree with you about the balance of "power," so to speak. It's what always made going to a stage door and meeting someone I really admired so nerve-wracking for me when I was younger. I think some of that is eliminated in a more "neutral" setting, but by no means is all of it. And that, to me, depends on where you are, who you are, and how you approach it. If you're a big fancy producer and you meet somebody at a party, that's a totally different power dynamic than if your friend is working on the show in some capacity, you're their plus one, and you're maintaining composure while you chat with an actor whose work you really love. I see what you are saying but in some senses I think it's a little bit of a false security blanket; you might feel better about it because you've been allowed into this exclusive environment (like I said, you're legitimized) but ultimately to me it's always felt like it's the other person who's in charge; yeah, I'm "supposed" to be there, but they're more important than me any day. But again, I think that very much depends on the two people.

I've seen it from both sides of the barricades, too. One of the most surreal things I have ever experienced was walking through a set of doors into a sea of cheering and flashing camera lights with a friend after a backstage visit. I found it terrifying and overwhelming, and I have a lot of respect for people who can handle all of that every night.

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Updated On: 7/27/12 at 02:12 PM

LuvtheEmcee, I can see where you're coming from about the possibly unprovable correlation between mental illness or being emotionally disturbed and being one who stagedoors, but as I've stated many times in this thread, I am making that correlation between people who stagedoor 4-5 times a week without having seen the show, who leave gifts backstage for actors, who chase after friendships that will never be mutual, etc. If you are not doing this then I am not calling you mentally ill! I'm just saying that seeking for fulfillment from others instead of yourself is indicative of a larger emotional issue and when that void is filled, I find, most people do not feel as great of a need to be outside the stagedoor.

As far as my personal experience...I never talked to actors as though they were above me in any way. I don't really believe in one person being "above" another person in most circumstances. And because of that, I remember being called a lot of things and it struck me as the height of arrogance for an actor to believe that they were better than anyone simply because of their profession. As I often say, of course Patti LuPone could sing me under the table, but I highly doubt she could manage in my profession as well as I could.

The idea that people who are worthwhile have skills and a measure of intelligence shouldn't be treated the same as the "crazy people" was an inaccurate view. The sooner you learn that because of that "power dynamic" you will never be seen as a fully realized human being by most actors but rather as a source of validation and self-worth for them is hard to take for the younger set but important to realize. The difference in how I was treated then vs. how I was treated when I managed to land a fairly high-profile job was like night and day, and it was very clear to me how shallow and self-interested theatre people are (like most of the world, really). The point I'm trying to make, I guess, is that by treating these people as gods and goddesses in some modern mythological world is damaging to one's self-esteem and mental well-being because they are not gods or goddesses. They are people who are selfish and flawed and sometimes kind and wonderful but mostly human. Those who stagedoor regularly mostly do it because they enjoy the adulation and those who don't are under no obligation to do so purely because someone else wants them to. Furthermore, the amount of actors I have seen smile and encourage these people and then turn around and slam them to anyone who will listen is disgustingly high. I'm sorry, to me, there is a toxic culture in this and to be too involved in it is really a poor prioritization of the important things in one's life.

Whew. That was a mouthful.

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