It’s no secret that I love live performances. There’s just
something special about a performance that unfolds right before you. This past
season I’ve gone to three Thibodaux Playhouse plays, five Broadway Across
America musicals, and a Cirque du Soleil show. I’d say I was able to enjoy one
of my favorite things this past year in abundance.
But at most of these performances, there are two shows. The
one I pay for and the one that I don’t. I’m of course talking about the
behavior of some of the audience members. And though I can’t say the audience has
ever been more entertaining than the performances, in some cases it has come
pretty close.
Maybe it’s because I’m an observer of people that I tend to
notice people at what I hope is their worse behavior, but the point is I do
notice. And at this past weekend’s performance of Million Dollar Quartet, I came up with a few items I think everyone
should keep in mind when attending a performance because people are watching
not just the performers. People are there after all to see a show, even the
ones they haven’t paid for.
#1 You can live without technology for two hours. At the Cirque
du Soleil show, a woman decided to spend much of the performance on her cell
phone. Why, I’m not sure. I mean why pay good money to see a live performance
and then remain on your phone the entire time? It doesn’t make sense to me. The
side performance came in when the woman behind her asked her to turn her phone
off. Contrary to cell phone addicts’ opinion, the light from those smart phones
is distracting during a performance. The cell phone junkie didn’t appreciate
being asked to conform to common decency, which led to an argument where she
actually told the woman that she wasn’t going to put her cell phone away and
she didn’t really care if it was distracting to her. (I have had to translate
into a clean version. The woman’s actual word choice was much more colorful.)
We see this all the time these days. Go to a movie theater and
see how many lights glow from the different cell phones in use even though the
theater has cute ways of letting you know to turn the phones off. At Saturday
night’s performance, a burly manger walked up and down the aisles barking at
people to put their cell phones away, after the announcer had already asked the
audience to turn them off. How can you really enjoy anything if you spend your
time glued to your phone? But more importantly, if you can’t respect your
fellow theater goers by remaining off the phone, then stay home.
#2 Arrive on Time. I have balcony season tickets to the New
Orleans Broadway shows. I have the same seats each time I go, and those seats
happen to be near an entrance. Every time the show begins and people arrive
late to the show, they block my view of the stage as they stumble around in the
dark unable to locate their seats. Now if they’ve decided the beginning isn’t
worth the planning ahead to arrive on time that is their business. But I don’t
want to miss a second of the performance and I’ve arrived on time so that I
don’t. Common courtesy would seem to dictate that someone should be respectful
of that. The beginning is usually worth arriving on time for anyway.
#3 Dress the Part. I absolutely love dressing up. I have a
closet full of fancy clothes to prove it. It’s one of the reasons I love the
Broadway series. People go dressed in their finest, and it is wonderful. That
is except for this past Saturday night’s performance. Apparently, the sun
setting later led people to believe that casual daytime wear was appropriate. I
know we live in a casual era, and that many people will disagree with me about
this one. I hear many comments about how people dress for church, with equal
amounts of people on both sides of the shorts are okay vs. people should dress
up issue. But where are our standards then? I want to have places to dress up
for, and I believe certain places should be kept that way. Going to the theater
should be one of those places as its long history indicates. I’d like to keep
it as a place that I can dress up for and not have jeans and t-shirts or even
that one guy in shorts Saturday night become acceptable.
#4 Stay to the End. At Saturday night’s performance, as in many
others of the season, people are itching to leave. I’m sure it is to beat the
traffic, which of course only puts them about five minutes ahead of the others
and missing out on the end of the performance. But again, it is disrespectful
because when you get up, others can’t see. Not to mention it is disrespectful
to the actors that you are walking out on. At the end of Million Dollar Quartet, the play portion of the evening ended and
many, many people got up and left, only to miss the entire concert portion of
the evening where Elvis, Johnny Cash, Clive Perkins, and Jerry Lee Lewis came
back onstage and performed fantastically, complete with sequined jackets.
Of course, there were many other things I observed during
these season’s performances. These shows do attract an eclectic mix of
attendees. In an unforgettable entrance, a young teenage girl had decided to
wear stilettos that she’d obviously not practiced walking in. She fell on her
butt going down the stairs only a few feet from me. There are all kinds of
shows to keep you entertained. I already have my season tickets ready to go for
next season, not to mention my Wicked tickets
ready for a few weeks from now. I do love all kinds of entertainment.
What would you add the your list of annoyances?
