Dial down theater rudeness
Patti LuPone will perform in concert at the Patchogue Theatre for the Performing Arts. Credit: Getty Images / Monica Schipper
Few experiences are as magical as going to a Broadway show.
It starts with the theater itself -- often old and grandiose. Then the curtain rises, the music begins. Soon, you're enveloped in song, dance and a story that'll often make you laugh or cry -- or both.
And just as the music crescendos, your seatmate whips out a cellphone, to send an all-important text.
The breaking point for Broadway star Patti LuPone came on Wednesday, when she spied someone texting during her performance in "Shows for Days" (now Off-Broadway at Lincoln Center). According to other audience members, LuPone delivered her exit line, and then apparently swiped the audience member's cellphone and took it with her backstage.
LuPone said she's had enough.
"We work hard on stage to create a world that is being destroyed by a few, rude, self-absorbed and inconsiderate audience members who are controlled by their phones," she wrote in a statement to Playbill.com. "I am so defeated by this issue that I seriously question whether I want to work on stage anymore."
LuPone's cellphone snatch comes days after a patron at the Broadway play "Hand to God" crawled onto the stage to try to charge his phone from an outlet on the set -- an outlet that turned out to be fake.
The misuse of cellphones before and during Broadway performances is not new. LuPone stopped her own performance in "Gypsy" in 2009 to yell at an audience member who was taking pictures with his cellphone.
But it has become more of an epidemic over the years and something has to change.
It's unrealistic for Broadway theaters to ban cellphones or collect them all before a performance begins. So, the change has to come from the audience members themselves.
It's simple, really. Show some respect for the performers and the hundreds of others involved in putting theatrical productions together. Show some respect for the audience members around you. And if those reasons aren't enough, remember that you likely spent nearly $100 a ticket -- or more if your seats are decent. Did you do that to sit in a comfy chair and text?
As a regular theater goer, I love capturing a quick picture of the stage or Playbill before the show begins, if the theater allows it. I love tweeting about the show at intermission or afterward, posting a review, and encouraging friends to experience live theater.
But once the show starts, and until it ends, it should take center stage. Turn off the phone and put it away. Then sit back and let the magic take over.
The text, as they say, can wait.
Randi F. Marshall is a member of Newsday's editorial board.
Randi Marshall is a member of the Newsday editorial board.
