What is the lowlight of your theatre going experiences? — Page 4

Dating myself--

Dr. Jazz, which lasted for three abominable and offensive performances at The Winter Garden in 1975.

JustAnotherNewYorker said: "bholtzinger544 said: "Hands down seeing King Kong on Broadway in 2019."

I jokingly told some of the my friends that the animatronic ape called its agent and asked to be let out of its contract.



I have too many to name. I've only left once at intermission, and I can't for the life of me remember what show it was...apparently a coping mechanism to deal with the PTSD: post theater stress disorder."

I really enjoyed King Kong. It's trash but the technology is quite impressive, so, for that, I really enjoyed it.

For me it was Beetlejuice. I've probably seen shows that are worse on paper, but something about the corporate slickness of it all, despite how hollow the product itself was, really did me in.

dwirth said: "Several...

- Robert Goulet as King Arthur in the 90s tour of Camelot.. He had about two full pages of swlf-loving bio - starting something like this - "Mr Goulet burst on the scene like a comet in the original Broadway production of Camelot..." and it went downhill from there... (There *might* have been a video of this on YouTube, until Goulet's widow saw the video and the harsh comments and got me, er, the vidwo's poster kicked off YouTube...). Steve Blanchard was Lancelot."

I know someone who worked on that tour and they said Goulet was just absolutely unbearable to work with and that his wife was even worse (his wife would even draw maps for the crew members of exactly where every item he needed had to be placed and if it was even slightly outside the lines she drew he would threaten to not go on).

Some of the comments on this site are lowlights about once every month or two.

DJD4 said: "Loving this thread!!

I have a few that come to mind.

-I went and saw a student matinee ofAfter The Warat American Conservatory theatre in San Francisco. The conservatory producers very good productions, and this one was no exception. Here's the thing, the play would probably be recommended for a more mature/serious audience considering its material. I was literally in a large theatre full of high school and middle schoolers who have probably never seen a play before in their lives. Every time the lights would dim for a set change the entire theatre just erupted with chatter, and every time there was a slightly suggestive joke or sexual moment the audience burst into inappropriate laughter and excessive catcalling. the play also had a lot of commentary about race issues at the time it takes place, and any time a racist comment was made it would illicit more inappropriate laughter and cheering. It was one of the most uncomfortable experiences I have ever had in a theatre, I felt so terrible for the actors (who were all giving a great performance). I am all for young people experiencing theatre, but maybe a theatre full of rowdy teenagers wasn't the target audience for this play.

- Chicago on broadway in 2009. I saw the national tour of Chicago in San Francisco a few years prior and it was absolutely wonderful. On my New York trip we grabbed day of tickets at TKTS for the matinee, expecting to love it just as much. It had to have been the most phoned in, uninspired performance I have ever seen in my life. The three leads (Bonnie Langford, Deidre Goodwin, and Tom Hewitt) were all good, but nearly every other member of the cast just looked bored and tired. It didn't help that it was September and the theatre was only about half full, so the energy in the theatre was incredibly low. I know at that point there were numerous cast members that had been with the show for years, and they all just looked over it and that greatly affected the audiences response to the show. Seems like they were just rushing to get the performance over with so they could go home.

- I saw a touring production ofMidsummerNights Dreamin San Francisco directed by Tim Supple. The production originated in India and the entire cast was from India. In all honesty it was a very good production and the cast was incredibly talented. The problem was, the mainstream, theatre goers in the audience just didn't seem to get it. Midsummer isn't the most confusing play of all time, but it does have quite a lot of characters and interconnected storylines that could get a little confusing if you aren't familiar with the play. Add onto that the fact that all the costuming was very simple and similar amongst all the characters, and that the cast were all reciting Shakespeare with very thick accents, the audience was clearly a little lost. The lowlight of the evening came at the end during the curtain call. As the cast left the stage after the bows, the applause died down fairly quickly. The cast then walked back out onstage to do an "encore bow" that is usually reserved for when the audience is still applauding. Problem was, the audience had stopped applauding, so the cast just walked back out awkwardly to silence followed by a confused smattering of half hearted applause from the audience that were already halfway out of their row. Not a major lowlight, but I did feel bad for the cast.

-The Les Miserablesnational tour in 2018. The show itself was very good, and the cast was absolutely fabulous as well. The problem was the lighting was so dim the entire performance. Every single scene, the stage was so incredibly dark that we could hardly see any of the detail. I know that Les Mis probably shouldn't be too brightly lit, but man this was dark. I guess you could say this was the "Low-light" of my theatre experience (sorry I had to...)"



Thanks for the laughs. I did a spit take at the cast of Midsummer having to do an encore curtain call with no "call".

Hands down, Mr. and Mrs. Fitch starring John Lithgow and Jennifer Ehle. Written by Douglas Carter Beane, it was just horrible and didn't belong anywhere near Broadway. Beane decided to grace us with an after show talk and all I saw on stage was a big blob of lazy ego. This piece of dreck will never be revived anywhere (I predict).

Seeing the touring company of Titanic in San Francisco. Firstly, when picking up our tickets at the box office, our seats were moved to row 7 or so, having been originally ticketed further back in the orchestra (should have been an indication that performances hadn’t been going well). Secondly, there was a scene where a small (tiny actually) model of the ship was to move across the stage but it fell over and was dragged off stage. Thirdly, and most importantly, the leading man was horribly off key and just a terrible singer in all respects that people were actually leaving mid song. When the intermission came, it appeared as if nearly everyone left — nearly everyone! We stayed for the first song of the second act and then we left — it was dreadful. At that point maybe a dozen people were left in the audience, in a Broadway-size theatre. It was a monumental disaster (no pun intended).

I recently (two months ago) saw a play at a major institution in Chicago in which a couple sitting behind me engaged in sexual behaviors over and over and over again (with plenty of moaning) after being asked to stop several times.

The woman across the aisle summoned front of house multiple times as I, and my date, were completely frozen, stymied by the "do you like that? stay awake" comments behind us.

Yet somehow these people managed to clean up their act and then get into it over and over and over again.

Eventually my date confronted them ("WILL YOU JUST STOP, AND LEAVE", to which we were faced with a seemingly unassuming, early 60's, cis white couple. The response to which, my date was told to "pay attention to the play, boy". My date, btw, is in his early 50's. Rather than punching the guy across the face, he turned around and bristled against his better judgement.

On the fifth company management approach, the police were there to investigate claims of public indecency. The couple finally succumbed, got up, and left; but not without full on falling over onto their sides in the aisle and needing to be carried out.

They left but I am still haunted by the bed talk that happened DIRECTLY BEHIND ME.