the EPITOME of tasteless audiences.....- Page 6

[Sumofallthings]

Posted: 4/27/05 at 5:15pm

Get a load of this story:

I was at a performance of Jekyll & Hyde minding my own business, when I notice a movement out of the corner of my eye. It is an ~85 year old woman leaving the side aisle to go to the bathroom during "A New Life". Well, well, well that didn't sit well with Ms. Linda Eder. Linda stopped the song and asked the woman:

"Where the hell are you going you worthless excuse for a person?"
"Ummm, the powda room!" The woman replied
"Really?"
"Yes"
"Get her"

Linda snapped her fingers and in 5 seconds Frank Wildhorn Apparated into the theatre, he took out a piece of paper and gave this woman the worst papercut she ever got. She died shortly thereafter. True Story.

The moral of this story is: Fosse beat Civil War fair and square, it should have gone to Parade if anything.

[JbaraFan1]

Posted: 4/27/05 at 5:26pm

Magnum, you can always put someone on ignore status if you don't like reading their posts. Just a thought.

[DefyGravity23]

Posted: 4/27/05 at 6:14pm

I forgot to say that all these posts make me want to beat all the rude people in this world.

As far as dress goes again, theatre/show definetely makes a difference. Still, I personally wouldn't wear jeans to anything but high school theatre.

[gavrochegirl]

Posted: 4/27/05 at 7:52pm

Sumofallthings...Carl Magnum was right...you aren't funny.

[Yankeefan007]

Posted: 4/27/05 at 8:19pm

today at Sweet Charity, the audience wouldnt stop talking during the entracte and overture, and well into the first song of each act

[My Fair Lady]

Posted: 4/27/05 at 9:00pm

When I saw The Boy from Oz, the woman next to me kept telling her boyfriend, "I don't get it." Loudly, in a false whisepr type of thing. Also, my sister can be rude. She kept telling me "This show sucks" during The Light in the Piazza and she kept laughing during random parts.

[thejcm]

Posted: 4/27/05 at 10:58pm

I had to join the boards just so I could share some stories...

When I saw RENT on tour the 2nd time in February this year, we missed rush, so we got tickets in the 2nd to last row of the balcony for like, $10. Anyways there were some undeducated-but-still-enthusiastic-about-the-show rentheads with their black book and all, gushing about how they wanted the $20 front row seats or something. Not a problem, all of us RENTheads were there at some point. They weren't the nuisance. It was this girl behind me, who would pull out her cell phone every 5 seconds, she kept dropping things out of her purse, and kept rummaging around inside her purse making all kinds of noise, and used her cell phone as the flashlight. So distracting. I called some people during some songs but made sure my phone was as dim as possible and under my jacket so the light didn't illuminate three rows in front of me. Plus she kept laughing and many, many times sang (loudly and off-key) along with the show. I didn't say anything but at intermission I know she overheard my friend and I complaining about her, so she stopped for the most part.

Then when I was in "Up the Down Staircase" a few years ago, during a student matinee, this sixth grader farted right in the middle of a dramatic pause. We all had to keep ourselves in check so we didn't laugh, becuase at the time, we were all supposed to be frozen.

I also get annoyed at the old people who see Sunday matinees and feel the need to clap obnoxiously when the overture doesn't start the millisecond that it's supposed to. There was a large group of old people doing that at the junior ring ceremony last week at my school and I was so annoyed. I don't know if this is an old tradition to let the cast and crew know that they need to start..or what. In any case it's obnoxious and rude, there could be so many reasons why a show starts a little late.

[RENT-head1]

Posted: 4/28/05 at 12:30am

When I saw Mamma Mia in March, my friends and I were sitting in the balcony and right before the show started 4 tourists from somewhere in Europe (couldn't quite place the accent) came up to us and told us they couldn't get 4 seats together, so we had to move so they could all sit together. We wouldn't, so during the whole first act they kept yelling across us to comment on the show. When we went to the restroom during Intermission, they took it upon themselves to move our things and take the seats. I wound up next to one of the women, and she proceeded to sing along loudly through the second act.

[scooter38432]

Posted: 4/28/05 at 7:36am

Nobody said anything about blowing up any state!

[yodamarie78]

Posted: 4/28/05 at 10:47am

RENT-Head that is horrible! I so would have gotten an usher and had them removed. Last weekend my husband and I did rush for Chicago and couldn't get seats together. The woman next to me was alone and offered to switch seats with him so we could sit together, which was so nice over her, but I never would have asked her to. If it's going to be that big of a deal you shouldn't have bought the tickets.

Last year I was at a college production of Six Characters In Search of an Author and apparently most of the audience had to go home and write a paper about the show when they left because many of them were taking notes and using their cell phones as flashlights. It got so distracting that they had to make a special announcement about it at intermission.

[Rose_MacShane]

Posted: 4/28/05 at 11:11am

This didn't happen to me (my parents witnessed this) and it happened at a movie, but it's too good not to share:
My parents saw the movie "Philadelphia" when it was in theaters. At the very start of the movie, when the title PHILADELPHIA comes on screen and Bruce Springsteen's title song starts, a woman behind them said to a friend, "That's the Golden Gate Bridge."
Not tasteless, but incredibly stupid...

[treyisthekiller]

Posted: 5/2/06 at 10:57pm

geeeez. being from texas, i apoligize on there behalf, but dont let them spoil your mindset towards texans. I am a houstonian, born and raised, and i am very much involved with the arts =)

[bigrab1018]

Posted: 5/3/06 at 12:22am

The lady sitting next to me at The Lion King back in November stared filming Hakuna Matata. She was Japanese, obviously a tourist, so I let it slide...it still pissed me off though.

She wouldn't have understood me if I told her to turn it off anyway.

[Brokenlizard14]

Posted: 5/3/06 at 7:35am

As long as some other people are saying movies (and because I haven't had a truly horrible experience at the theater (yet) I'll give ya this one.

Sunday went to see United 93. During the scene on the airplane where the terrorists start to take control of the plane, I heard a phone ring. It was the lady across the aisle from me who then proceeded to answer it and talk loudly. I could hear "Hello? No I can't talk, I'm at a...no she didn't." OMG

Letting it ring is bad enough, but to answer it?! And at a movie like that? I wanted to get up and punch her

[fairygodmother]

Posted: 5/3/06 at 9:51am

at christmas i was doing panto and those audiences are always killers - full of really tiny kids who would normally be considered too young to be in a theatre.
well, the girl playing cinderella came stumbling off stage after one of her ballads to fumy that a woman had been breast feeding her baby on the second row! cinders couldn't take her eyes off it/them!

[Dawn Davenport]

Posted: 5/3/06 at 9:58am

I've been blessed with good luck with live show audiences in general, but the one time my head almost exploded at a live performance was during a k.d. lang concert.

I was lucky enough to be in the front row at one of her concerts at an open air theatre on a warm summer night----two rows behind me were a young couple who had obviously gotten their tickets for free because they weren't there to listen to ms. lang sing. They talked loudly, made out with each other several times, and then proceded to take out noisily-wrapped hero sandwiches and eat them over the course of the entire concert. They were so close to the stage, you could hear everything they did during k.d.'s softer songs, and I'm sure she could see them as well. How rude is it to behave that way when you know the performer can see you????

It was infuriating. I wanted to go back there and bash their heads together!

As to theatre audiences, I remember reading about something Katherine Hepburn did years ago when she was attending a play and an audience member had their feet on the stage. I wish I could remember exactly (I read this so long ago), but she either pushed their feet off the stage herself or gave them such a withering comment that they took their feet down in mortification.

Where are you when we need you, Kate?

[LyTeMyCanDyI]

Posted: 5/3/06 at 12:06pm

"Israelis in back of me constantly explaining Gem of the Ocean to each other. Of course, they had to be speaking Hebrew. If it was Mandarin or something I might have been able to tune it out as incomprehensible background noise. "

What makes Hebrew different from any other language Plum? It's no less annyonig than English, Spanish, French, etc. Yes, the talking was rude, but not especially so because of the language it was in.

[Tom1071]

Posted: 5/3/06 at 12:42pm

I don't think he/she meant that the Hebrew language was annoying. I think they meant that it was annoying hearing two different languages at once and that it was difficult for them to focus on the play.

[ElphabaRose]

Posted: 5/3/06 at 12:43pm

I think it is because Hebrew is a language that Plum understands, so it was much harder to tune out.

[NightLaughs]

Posted: 5/3/06 at 2:03pm

Wicked matinee.
Enough said.

[once a month]

Posted: 5/3/06 at 2:59pm

At Lincoln Center when Patti Lupone was in ANything Goes...the guy next to me kept sniffing loudly, but sporadically. I finally saw him in the corner of my eye snorting what I thought to be cocaine. I was too intimidated to say anything.

The opening weekend of Les Mis, I had 6th row center, and the guy next to me who reaked of booze not only fell asleep, but slid onto the floor until the standing ovation. I got a little panicky, thinking he was dead. Both instances the guy appeared to be at the theatre alone.

I recall when Kate Hepburn stopped West Side Waltz in Boston when some woman took a flash pic from the balcony. Miss Kate came to the edge of the stage, demanded the house lights brought up and publicly reamed the poor embarrassed woman out, as she was led from the building to applause.

[Shiksa Goddess2]

Posted: 5/3/06 at 5:35pm

Snorting cocaine at the theatre... Of course! Why not? *headdesk*

[klutzyduckzy]

Posted: 5/3/06 at 5:44pm

Wow. Sniffing coke -- that's really not good to sit there and watch. I'd be really distracted, and frankly that's not what you need in a theatre...

I went to see Phantom of the Opera, and someone tapped me on the shoulder during intermission and asked when Rent was starting. I was too horrified to reply.

[jimmycurry01]

Posted: 5/3/06 at 5:45pm

I am a professional house manager in a professional theatre in Indiana. It is true that rules are not always followed, but we rely on the audience to let us know when a problem exists. We can not always stand in the asiles because we are then a fire hazard and get into issues with the fire marshal.

[allofmylife]

Posted: 5/3/06 at 6:15pm

I was in nthe theatre in London and this cretin pulls out his cell phone and is telling someone, "Naw, naw, really man, he sucks. Then he looks at the stage and says to one of the ators, I guess,"YOU SUCK!" A few rows in front of me, this big guy, I mean really big turns around, sees who it is and points it out to the guy beside him. They get up, walk back grab the guy and HAUL him out of the house.

After the show, the house manager is talking to two policemen. I guess they wanted him to identify the improptu "house manager" but he let the two bruisers walk right past him and obviously he didn't point them out.

Hell, I'd have given them free passes.