#1
Posted: 4/22/04 at 11:58pm
This one's long. I've been sitting on this topic for about a week and I just can't be quiet about anymore.
I officially had my worst stagedoor experience ever at Wicked April the 14th's night show.
It started out pretty normally. The ensemble and the band came out pretty quickly and William Youmans even came out within 10 minutes to sign some Playbills. But what happened shortly after he left makes me very angry.
At least thrity people (and I'm not exaggerating) 30 people walked right up to the barricades and climbed over, under, and through the limo pass and walked through the stagedoor. With no supervision whatsoever, I mean literally pushed their way through the crowd to walk into the backstage. I still have a bruise on my leg from someone crawling through my legs to get under the barricade!!!
Needless to say, several other bystanders were mad because we had been waiting 20 minutes in our spots and these folks just pushed and shoved their way through.
About 5 minutes later a secruity guard comes out and I thought "Great, now he can explain it to us" but instead he pushed us back and said that Eden (she played Elphaba that night) was coming and that you could only take one picture and only have one Playbill signed. Still no explaination. Well Eden came out and she was very sweet and friendly and gracious when we all told her how wonderful she was and then she left. Then the guard took down the barricades and said that Kristin and Joel had left already and we should all go home. Well, I'm shocked because no one else came out so I ask him "What about Norbert and Christopher?" and he told me rather bluntly that he was only responsible for Joel, Kristin, and Eden that night and I should go home.
To add insult to injury, as soon as he takes the barricades down, the group (all 30 of them) came out and asks who signed stuff. Someone bolder than me asked quite frankly "Why the hell were you all in there?!" and one of them answered offhandly they knew someone in the cast.
Now please understand people, I love Wicked and I completely understand that it was a Wednesday night show and the cast had two performances that day and I'm sure they all wanted to go home. I'm not mad at them. What I am mad about was the completely inappropiate behaviour of that group and how unsupervised the stagedoor sucruity was until it too late. I think it's great that these people came to support a show their friend was in (if that part's true). But who's to say some stalker with a restraining order couldn't have snuck in with that group? Secruity at The Producers was present as soon as the show was over until the last principal had left and the same goes for when I saw Nine (both of which, I'd like to add, starred Nathan Lane, Matthew Broderick and Antonio Banderas respectively... and on Wednesday nights).
In the 20 plus shows I have groupied for over the last few years I've never seen a situation that disorganized. It was completely disgraceful.
I officially had my worst stagedoor experience ever at Wicked April the 14th's night show.
It started out pretty normally. The ensemble and the band came out pretty quickly and William Youmans even came out within 10 minutes to sign some Playbills. But what happened shortly after he left makes me very angry.
At least thrity people (and I'm not exaggerating) 30 people walked right up to the barricades and climbed over, under, and through the limo pass and walked through the stagedoor. With no supervision whatsoever, I mean literally pushed their way through the crowd to walk into the backstage. I still have a bruise on my leg from someone crawling through my legs to get under the barricade!!!
Needless to say, several other bystanders were mad because we had been waiting 20 minutes in our spots and these folks just pushed and shoved their way through.
About 5 minutes later a secruity guard comes out and I thought "Great, now he can explain it to us" but instead he pushed us back and said that Eden (she played Elphaba that night) was coming and that you could only take one picture and only have one Playbill signed. Still no explaination. Well Eden came out and she was very sweet and friendly and gracious when we all told her how wonderful she was and then she left. Then the guard took down the barricades and said that Kristin and Joel had left already and we should all go home. Well, I'm shocked because no one else came out so I ask him "What about Norbert and Christopher?" and he told me rather bluntly that he was only responsible for Joel, Kristin, and Eden that night and I should go home.
To add insult to injury, as soon as he takes the barricades down, the group (all 30 of them) came out and asks who signed stuff. Someone bolder than me asked quite frankly "Why the hell were you all in there?!" and one of them answered offhandly they knew someone in the cast.
Now please understand people, I love Wicked and I completely understand that it was a Wednesday night show and the cast had two performances that day and I'm sure they all wanted to go home. I'm not mad at them. What I am mad about was the completely inappropiate behaviour of that group and how unsupervised the stagedoor sucruity was until it too late. I think it's great that these people came to support a show their friend was in (if that part's true). But who's to say some stalker with a restraining order couldn't have snuck in with that group? Secruity at The Producers was present as soon as the show was over until the last principal had left and the same goes for when I saw Nine (both of which, I'd like to add, starred Nathan Lane, Matthew Broderick and Antonio Banderas respectively... and on Wednesday nights).
In the 20 plus shows I have groupied for over the last few years I've never seen a situation that disorganized. It was completely disgraceful.
