Critics Ravage Broadway Audiences...The Worst Performances are in the Seats

[KoKo]

When it comes to acting in a respectable manner, theater professionals say many theater audiences have lost the plot. If marquees were emblazoned with critics’ opinions of audiences, they might read something like, “The spotlight is meant to be on the stage — not on you!” or “Balconies are for serenading — not for vomiting.”
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The rough and tumble in the audience sometimes resembles the action sequences in the musical “Rocky.” “The behavior of patrons has greatly deteriorated over the last five to 10 years,” says Suzy Ziller, a freelance theater producer in Pittsburgh. At a 2012 performance of “Bring it On” in New York, she says, a group of teenage girls were taking selfies during the show. “People act like they’re at home in their living rooms,” adds Paul Bongiorno, president of Starvox Booking, a South Orange, N.J.-based talent agency.

Ushers are starting to act more like air stewards, standing over patrons until they turn off their phones, says Robert Hickey, the New York-based deputy director at the Protocol School of Washington, who recently attended “Hedwig and the Angry Inch,” starring television star Neil Patrick Harris at the Belasco Theatre. “They are really starting to get more active and enforce their house rules,” he says.

Incidents appear to be on the rise. In 2012, a patron projectile-vomited over the balcony during “Grace,” starring Paul Rudd at the Cort Theater. During a 2009 performance of “Gypsy,” Patti LuPone broke the “fourth wall” by confronting a patron who was snapping a photo. This year, a fan called out “I love you, Neil” at Harris, who yelled back, “I’m doing something up here, mother******!” Harris, who is playing an outrageous German transsexual punk rocker, later said his response was in character.

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Others act like they’re at a rock concert. There was a sea of smartphones held aloft as people videotaped a key soliloquy of “Of Mice and Men,” with Franco and Chris O’Dowd at the Longacre Theatre, Williamson says. During “Breakfast at Tiffany’s,” the short-lived play at the Cort Theatre last year, “it was like the red carpet on Oscar night” as patrons used their smartphones to snap photos during a brief nude scene featuring “Game of Thrones” star Emilia Clarke.

There’s been a general relaxing of social mores by the theaters themselves as well, as they focus on selling T-shirts, candy, beer, popcorn and other souvenirs, says theater producer Elizabeth McCann. “There was a time when nothing was served in theater,” she says. “It’s becoming a little carnival-like…Obviously it’s about moneymaking, but is this the best thing that people should be doing in the theater? Going inside a theater is like going to Macy’s basement.”

http://www.marketwatch.com/story/critics-ravage-broadway-audiences-2014-06-28?link=MW_popular

[Bluenorthwest]

1. Broadway is a bit of a circus, but the good news is that good theater comes to Broadway

it is not made there. This year's Best Play " All The Way" about the first part of the LBJ administration, came from the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, as did Best Director Bill Rauch. I saw it year before last, when it was brand spanking new, in a theater packed with an intelligent and respectful audience. Soon I'll see the sequel, 'The Great Society' also at OSF Ashland.
Broadway no longer creates, it outsources.

[elleng]

2. Golly, I guess I should be glad I haven't gone to NYC in recent years.

[KurtNYC]

9. With open kitchens and an explosion of cuisine, restaurants are the new Broadway

Last edited Thu Jul 3, 2014, 07:07 PM - Edit history (1)

the dinner IS the show:

http://www.eataly.com/nyc-restaurants

http://www.ottopizzeria.com/home.cfm

http://www.delposto.com/

http://fedoranyc.com/#/home

And for 'audience participation'...

http://recreational.ice.edu/Home/CookingClasses

[elleng]

10. Well, I COULD go for that!

[KoKo]

11. Agree...moved away from there some years ago...but it's a NEW WORLD..

the "SELFIES" REIGN.

Thought it was an interesting change as to how far things have moved......forward?

[elleng]

13. I only moved away when I went to college,

and high school classmates still live there and/or moved back and are happy there. One of my friends attends concerts OFTEN, and doesn't experience the b.s. referred to. She LOVES living there!

[KoKo]

16. If you have money "after the crash" it's a good place to live. Times are GOOD THERE....I read

in the Financial News Sites. "It's ALL COME BACK!"

So...yes..I could see great Restaurants, Broadway, lively Commerce giving a LIFT!

The rest of us who left out here and there in other Pockets of our USA...are not in such fortunate areas of GROWTH.

I should have moved to TEXAS after I left NYC...I hear that it's "GOOD STUFF" there and THRIVING!

Didn't choose there.....Wouldn't choose there....

[elleng]

18. My classmate doesn't have lots of money,

from what I can tell. She's a retired teacher (taught in Maryland,) may have some alimony (???) and often discusses the many discounts seniors receive in NYC. She was very lucky to find an apparently great (small) apartment off of Central Park west.

I don't think she attends great restaurants, and not much Broadway, more like Lincoln Center, Carnegie, but she does, I think, act as a tourguide around the park.

[KoKo]

22. Still with that and Central Park West! She has a good life for those of us who

remember those amenities of living in a city like NYC....

But, if Broadway Theater is filled with Selfies and Rudies.......

Maybe it's not all so good....but, where is "really great" in USA these days....unless one is a RW Fundie that the SUPREMES just can't love enough with Koch Brothers and other Resources Backing them.....

Just a Rueful ...here.. From someone who remembers the "Reform Days" fondly of NYC...when I lived there....some years ago when it was a Wonderful Place of Opportunity for kids like me from places that weren't so "enlightened," who were Seeking More.

So...it's a nostalgia with me for that time.

[elleng]

25. She has a great life,

and often exclaims about it.

And yes, today's universal rudeness suggests its not all so good. I'm glad you had a time of enjoyment in The City. Dad (and I) were born there, he had an office across 40th St. from The Library, overlooking Bryant Park, BEFORE its resurrection, and loved his daily experience walking to/from Penn Station and/or subway, through Macy's (I think) 'deli' department, examining the goodies!

And took us yearly to the ballet, and then to The Village for dinner.

Nostalgia X 100!

[Dreamer Tatum]

3. In general, people have forgotten how to experience things genuinely. nt

[theHandpuppet]

5. They've also forgotten this little thing called manners

Being considerate of others is so passe'.

[Dreamer Tatum]

6. I think authenticity implies manners

I think a lot of what goes on these days is the following: people seem to think that they are part of
the show, or part of the experience. They feel entitled to record the show on their phone so they
can blog about it, put it on YouTube, or some other place so they're part of the experience. They want
to be purveyors rather than consumers, because they operate under the delusion that there is room
for interpretation between content and consumer.

It's why assholes insist on taking pictures of plates of food instead of simply ordering and eating. It's why
every television show of any repute has hundreds of rehashes and recaps on the web. It's also why
some bike riders insist that every crank of the pedal needs to be documented in HD on their GoPro. A certain strain
of highly delusional people believe that their purpose in life is to experience things on some fictional, higher
level. They cannot imagine shutting up, sitting down, and enjoying themselves. Because it isn't enjoyment
unless someone observes them enjoying it.

No one did this stupid crap when there were no recording devices and no internet.

[theHandpuppet]

7. Good points and very well put.

[Eleanors38]

20. Therein is our salvation. Attachment to style means soon enough

It's out, along with a lot of the dull, prayerful tech-driven stoop that has lingered with us for years, like bell bottoms and bad farts.

[LuckyLib]

27. This is it in a nutshell:

"They cannot imagine shutting up, sitting down, and enjoying themselves. Because it isn't enjoyment
unless someone observes them enjoying it."

Great summation: folks just can't live.

[KoKo]

12. In a "Dog Eat Dog World" to SURVIVE...Manners are the least things one worries about...BUT..

THAT's the PROBLEM!

How can one have a "Civilized Society" without some "Code of Manners?"

"Lord of the Flies" comes to mind.

[a kennedy]

14. 5. They've also forgotten this little thing called manners......

And that's it in a nutshell, and civility is a trait of the past also. I cry for my country.

[Enrique]

4. i blame white culture

if we ever get a white president, I hope he/she will set an example for the white race.

[n2doc]

8. The last one sure didn't set a good example n/t

[KoKo]

15. Well...there's that disappointment...but, then, it was the Repugs who did it!

[kiva]

23. Wow, four posts in before

you felt the need to do this...do you take selfies in theaters too?

[Eleanors38]

17. 'Read about this in Hunchback of Notre Dame.

[JHB]

19. Does Broadway even have plays that aren't derived from a movie anymore?

The Disney stable, Spamalot, Rocky, not to mention...

[Eleanors38]

21. When in doubt, parody.

[bullwinkle428]

24. Easily one of the best "Simpsons" episodes ever!

[Hippo_Tron]

29. Musicals? They're almost all movies, jukebox musicals, or revivals

I mind it less when they take a lesser known movie (Hairspray, for example) and turn it into a musical than when they adapt a huge blockbuster (especially a Disney movie) just to fill seats.

[jberryhill]

26. Meh

As if Shakespeare was solemnly observed by people in suits.

[Manifestor_of_Light]

28. Speaking of ignoring performances

I was once at Benihana and the other people at the table were ignoring the chef's moves and staring at their cell phones.

I thought "Benihana isn't cheap. The chef's show is the entertainment. Why did these people bother coming here?"