Worst Broadway Audience Ever? — Page 5

I confess that I was once a late comer! I was late to The Magic Flute because we couldn't find parking. And because I was sick and couldn't unwrap my cough drops before the opera started, I had to do it during the opera. I still feel terribly about it.

I definitely can't compare with some of these stories, but...

When I saw the RENT tour, these RENT heads in the front row were singing along, standing up and dancing. In general, the audience was so loud, it was hard to hear the lyrics and whatnot. It's great that they're enthusiastic, but this isn't a concert...

When I saw All Shook Up, everyone was singing along. So annoying.

But the one that takes the cake for my experience is when I saw Othello with my school. The people from my school behaved fantastically. But there were people from other schools who were just terrible. In Act VI when Desdemona was in her nightgown, they catcalled, hooted, and hollered. You know, right before Othello's heartwrenching monologue and her murder.

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I've been really lucky with my audiences, but there are still a few stories.

When I saw the Lion King tour in Orange County, CA, someone very close to us FARTED about 5 times during the show. And they were the NASTIEST, rotten-egg smelling farts I've ever smelled in my entire life. It was horrible.

Wicked audiences infuriate me like no other. I've sat in the VIP section of Wicked twice, once as a Christmas present several years ago, and once as a birthday present more recently. At one performance I was surrounded by families and their YOUNG children (no one older than 9 or 10). Honestly...you do not take your kids to the theatre and sit in the $125 seats, especially in the case of one man, who's daughter, who couldn't have been more than 5 spent the whole show in his lap, looking through the program.

Spork - I don't imagine you were that obnoxious when you showed up late, so don't feel bad.

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At Spring Awakening on Friday, I was seated in the front row center section and the person next to my friend and I was clearly drunk and made comments throughout the whole show. In addition, he had a drink in each hand and once he finished one, he dumped the other one into that cup and started spilling the drink and shaking the cup of ice noisily. If this were not enough, he takes out a bag of M&M's and starts chomping on them one by one. It was clearly distracting to the cast, as they were giving him dirty looks. Also, at Spring Awakening on Sunday night, there were people in the 2nd and 3rd row, who took rocking out to new level (not in a good way). Seriously, they were so obnoxious and were literally shaking the whole row and mouthing along to every song. It was quite obnoxious and got the attention of various cast members.

I was at August:Osage County on Dec. 6th. I was sitting in row M right orchestra 3rd seat in. Not two seconds after the lights went down people around me starting talking. The man behind me started checking his blackberry (I could see the reflection in my glasses) For the 1st 15 minutes of the show you could hear people shushing other people all over the place. It was so bad a few of us missed what was being said in the 1st 5 to 10 minutes of the show. I missed some of the TS Elliott stuff. And then the cell phones started. And there was at least one or two rings duriing each of the 3 acts. The two worst were one during the middle of Act 2 where some woman's phone went off twice and her ringtown was the song "Redneck Woman". (I kid you not!) She got up and left the auditorium to take the call. And the worst was the phone that went off right near me during the closing moments of the show. People were audibly ticked off by this. It was awful. Not to mention catching those blue screens out of the corner of my eye from people having to check their blackberries. I have never experienced an audience this bad. I spoke to the ushers twice and they were really upset and very apologetic. They said they were running around trying to find the ringing phones. I think they got to the "Redneck Woman" person. There is a moment in the show when a character's cell phone goes off and the audience at first thought it was another phone going off in the theater. It was meant to get a laugh, and did by a lot of us, but I think may have gotten a bigger one had we not had to deal with so many phones going off. People would have realized it was actually part of the show. I know a lot of people in my section were really upset.

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When I saw Mauritius this year, some older people starting making a big fuss about God-knows-what. They were sitting pretty far up and were hollering at each other about something at the beginning of the 2nd Act. Bobby Canavale stopped talking and gave them a deadly glare, but they still didn't shut up. When I saw him at the stage door, he asked "What the h___ was that all about?"

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At Mary Poppins a few weeks ago, the guy sitting next to my aunt TAKES OFF HIS SHOES and puts his feet up on the seat infront of him, where someone was sitting. So that poor person had to watch the entire show with some guy's feet on either side of their head.

Also, at Spring Awakening back in October, there was this lady and her ten year-old daughter down in the front row. As soon as I saw them I thought, "Oh, this is gonna be good." As I had suspected, they left at the end of My Junk. But they didn't just crouch down and quietly go up the aisle. No. The mother takes the daugther by the hand and drags her up the aisle, saying loudly, "I can't believe I took you to see this crap." What an idiot.

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Little Mermaid - 12/5/07 was like the audience for Dora the Explorer or Barney Live or something. Screeching children all over the place. Very unfortunate.

Oh Gosh. The first time I saw A Chorus Line, there was this lady OOZING over the seat next to my friend. Not only was she, well... huge and practically sqashing the person next to me, but she decided that during Paul's heart-wrenching monologue was the perfect time to open and start eating her bag of M&Ms. She ate like 3 handfulls of M&Ms and put them away... then 5 minutes later she pulled them out again and ate more. Twas rediculous.

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I saw The Homecoming last week and this lady right behind me kept blowing her nose REALLY loudly. And then an older couple in front of me were eating candy throughout the first act. It was obnoxious.

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I worked at the New Am and the audiences were atrocious.

I don't know how many times I had to run down the aisles repeatedly to stop people from taking pictures.

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Cyrano tonight, there are actors onstage, there's a scene going on, Kevin Kline is speaking, all of a sudden someone in the audience yells out "LOUDER PLEASE!!" at him. Like, where I seriously paused for a second and was all "huh?" thinking it was some (weird) part of the show, until Kline looked around and ad libbed something about "there are ghosts in this old theatre" then composed himself and carried on.

And then after the curtain call, before the BC/EFA speech (the nose went for $900 tonight) Kline started with "you were a great audience tonight- well, all except one." snerk.


Actually Cyrano tonight, between the late arrivals, the early leavers, the LOUDER PLEASE, the people who managed to pull the trifecta of arriving late, not shutting the hell up, *and* checking their Crackberries during the show, Cyrano was possibly the worst audience I have been in in a while now.