Theater Etiquette 101

Proper Theater Etiquette:

• Remember that it is not a movie. The people on the stage can hear and see you. Your reactions fuel them. Your negative actions can also affect them. Although you may never see this reaction, because being performers, they are skilled at hiding them, you are affecting them. The performers and all those people behind the scenes have worked very hard to create an evening of entertainment for you. Please show them the respect they deserve.
• This is not a concert either, these characters do not your sympathy-the actors are simply playing these roles.
• Also remember that the people sitting near you did not come to hear your conversation with your buddy, either in the theatre or on the phone. They did not come to hear you rattle paper or your kid fuss. They came to enjoy the performance.
• No cell phones: Don't let them ring or buzz during a performance. Do not speak on them during a performance. If you must take an emergency call, leave the auditorium and only begin speaking to your caller once you are away from the rest of the audience. Even your neat watch that chimes or beeps the hour is a distraction.
• Coming and Going: Please do not enter or leave the auditorium during a performance unless it is an emergency. Please arrive before the performance begins. The time posted is the time the show actually starts... there are no commercials or previews! It is the option of the theatre to prevent audience members from entering the auditorium until intermission or at least a scene change.
• Noises: You may not notice it, but candy or cough drop wrappers, whether unwrapped quickly or slowly, make a lot of noise! Please don't unwrap them during the performance. If you suspect you will need one, have a supply on hand already unwrapped.
• Fidgeting: Please sit still. Ramming elbows into your neighbor or kicking the seat in front of you is highly annoying.
• Sight Lines: Be aware that hats and large hairdos impede sight lines.

Well, I just got home from seeing "The Color Purple"at the beautiful Pantages Theater in Hollywood and I must say that I was very disappointed with the audience-specifically the group of obnoxious ladies sitting right behind Gina and I. They were absolutely ridiculous and felt the need to comment about anything and everything going on up on stage. Geez! How rude! Comments like, "You tell him girl", "Amen sister!", "Hell No!" and even singing along with some of the actors! Ugh! I've never been to a show and experienced this kind of rude behavior. I felt like I was at a concert or something. The people sitting next to us even complained to an usher but there wasn't much that they could do about it. Not only were these ladies being extremely rude to their fellow audience members but also to the performers. Damn, I'm still just so upset by this. It could have been so much more of an enjoyable theater experience if they has just shut up!

"The play was a great success, but the audience was a disaster." -Oscar Wilde

Despite all this activity, it was a great show and I was blown away by all the wonderful singing. These people have serious vocal chops! Fantasia played the lead character, Celie, and she has such a unique and amazing voice with lots of power behind it. She certainly found her calling in musical theater. It doesn't even seem like they are working, it seems like too much fun to be considered a job. I would love to be in musical theater. . . maybe in my next life.