When did it become acceptable for the audience to scream during a performance? — Page 5

Perhaps this is splitting hairs, but:

There *is* a difference between "woo"ing and screaming.

"Maybe the real question is...when did it stop being appropriate to shout and yell during performances?"

Good question. Remember, people are spending a fair amount of money on the theater and the whole point of theater is to suspend to disbelief so expecting a completely quite or polite theater is not going to happen. Unless you move to Japan.

It sucks, but hey, watching a live show always come with risks, like sitting next to someone who is irritating.

Unfortunately, even our acting schools are not teaching their students theatre etiquette.

Last year I went to a production of "Reefer Madness" that a local university with a performing arts conservatory put on. I made the mistake of going on the last performance, a Sunday matinee. There was so much yelling and screaming going on in the audience that I was tempted to leave during the opening number. But I thought, "Well, they are basically kids and this is the last performance..."

This year I went to the same school's production of "Assassins" and, while it wasn't the noisefest that "Reefer Madness" was, there was still a lot of whooping going on during the show. I was sitting next to a girl who was in the conservatory and she whooped whenever one of her friends appeared in the show.

Having said that, I save any vocal demonstrations that I feel the need to give until the curtain calls.

When I saw "Wicked" on tour, I don't remember any whooping during the show itself. Though, at the end of "Defying Gravity" such a roar went up that I wondered if a Brazilian Soccer team had scored a goal somewhere in the theatre...

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