Broadway Audiences Are Making Theatre Unbearable

These people are paying top dollar to annoy me!

One of my favorite parts of living in New York City is access to incredible theatre. It’s an art form I’ve dedicated my life to and hope to continue working in for the rest of my life. There’s nothing I love more than sitting in a theater and seeing magic performed onstage by some of the most incredible artists in the world. The only problem besides high ticket prices? Other people in the audience.

The last handful of shows I have been to, on and off Broadway, have been marred by the actions of inconsiderate audience members. It’s gotten so bad to the point where I expect to hear a phone go off or a fellow audience member yapping to their friend at every show I go. So, because I have a Substack, and it’s an outlet for me to complain, I decided to go through my most recent stack of Playbills and detail audience member etiquette.

Last week, my boyfriend, a few friends, and I went to see From Here, a musical playing off Broadway about the queer community in Orlando, FL in the wake of the Pulse nightclub massacre. My boyfriend and I sat behind a couple in their 70s that was incredibly disruptive. They muttered to each other through the show while the cast was performing, opened bags of candy and crinkled the wrappers during quiet parts of the show, and one of them pulled out her phone at various points in the show, scrolling, texting, and taking photos of the cast performing. There was a moment where a character states, “At this moment Pulse was the deadliest mass shooting in U.S. history.” The woman in front of me said aloud, “No, that’s Vegas.” My boyfriend and I stifled groans and slid down in our seats. From Here takes place in 2016, the Las Vegas shooting would occur in 2017.

Another date night on Broadway was at Water for Elephants. It was my second time seeing the show and my boyfriend’s first, and I was looking forward to having a romantic date night. The first big ensemble number is a song called “The Road Don’t Make You Young” where the performers are setting up the tents for a traveling circus. I was engrossed in the performance, but during a quiet moment towards the end of the number, I noticed the man next to me was on his phone. I hoped he was just sending a quick text and would put his phone away. To my dismay, he was on a video call! In the middle of the orchestra of the Imperial Theater! He put his phone away eventually, but to my dismay, his companion was scrolling on her phone throughout the entire show. The audacity!

I saw the recent revival of The Who’s Tommy with a group of coworkers. The first act went by smoothly without any audience misbehavior. During the middle of the second act, shortly after Tommy regains his senses, we heard a rough “Shut the fuck up!” from an audience member a few rows away from where we were sitting. Apparently, someone in the crowd was singing along with the actors. While I agree the singalong should have stopped, there is a way to handle such behavior without drawing the attention of the entire orchestra section.

I think my worst audience behavior experience on Broadway was at my second viewing of The Outsiders. I went with my friend Maia, who wasn’t familiar with the original book or movie. Behind us were a group of women in their 50s-60s, and they clearly had had too much to drink at dinner beforehand, and each clutched a sweaty souvenir cup of overpriced wine. They laughed at inappropriate moments (such as a scene where a character is physically assaulted), spoke the most famous lines of the show along with the performers, swooned over the actors, and kept whispering, giggling, and tittering to each other. At every small outburst, I swiveled my head around to glare at them. They didn’t care that they were ruining the night of everyone else around them.

At intermission, I finally had enough. I stood up and waved down an usher. “These women sitting behind me are being incredibly distracting, can someone please talk to them?”

The usher grinned at me. “Oh no worries, security is already talking to them!” I spun around and a few grumpy looking security guards were giving the women a severe talking to. A fellow audience member scolded the women for being disruptive as well. But alas, they were not to be deterred. In the second act of the show, the character of Ponyboy Curtis recites a famous Robert Frost poem, “Nothing Gold Can Stay”:

“Nature’s first green is gold,

Her hardest hue to hold.

Her early leaf’s a flower;

But only so an hour.

Then leaf subsides to leaf.

So Eden sank to grief,

So dawn goes down to day.

Nothing gold can stay.”

And one of the nasty, wine-drunk women behind me was compelled to recite it along with the actor who plays Ponyboy. I wanted to sink down into my seat and explode of secondhand embarrassment. If I went to the theatre with a friend who behaved such a way, I’d never speak to them again.

At The Outsiders, the misbehavior of the middle aged women behind me was contradicted by the audience members sitting in front of me - two moms and their 13 year old boys. The boys were politely clapping, laughing when appropriate, and cheering whenever the dancers onstage performed something impressive. At intermission, they ran to the merchandise stand and returned with matching t-shirts. My friends and I left the show impressed. How could a few tween boys behave so well, but adults who knew better couldn’t.

I know I just spend this entire article ranting about audience behavior. But it truly boggles my mind that some of these people are paying top dollar for their tickets, and for what? To answer a text that can wait an hour? To scroll through social media? To recite the lines along with the actors? I’m exasperated, especially because most of the offenders are older than me, and should know better!

I know that not everyone goes to the theatre on a near-weekly basis like I do. I know we all interact with art differently. I know we all come from different backgrounds. I hope that I don’t come across as some pretentious, classist snob. I just wish that everyone would read the little insert in the Playbill that gives audience members a refresher on proper audience etiquette. I wish that we could all be kinder to each other as well as to the hardworking artists that make theatre possible. I just know that my experience enjoying this art form is going to keep being marred by fellow audience members until something drastically changes.