As the Arts and Entertainment editor of this publication, I attend many events including theatre performances and concerts. Attending a performance can be extremely rewarding, especially when you allow yourself to forget reality and step into an imaginary world. But it is not always easy to slip away from reality and get into a performance when the people around you are cutting up and causing a distraction.
Recently, rowdy audiences disrupted my theatre experience during Blood Wedding and again during Baby with the Bathwater. I enjoy focusing on the stage and forgetting that I am sitting in an audience watching people act. It is both entertaining and at times relaxing to take a journey outside of reality for a few hours. However, nothing is more annoying than phones lighting up in front of you, obnoxious applause and the people behind you talking through a performance. I’m not the only one who finds poor theatre etiquette annoying.
“When the audience is rude it angers me because I know how it can throw off the actors’ performances and pull the audience out of the journey they are taking,” said Chad Winters, instructor of theatre and acting.
I believe that the theatre is a place where people go to be entertained. When people are disrespectful as audience members it affects the entire performance. Disruptions can throw off the actors as well as ruin other attendees’ experience.
Winters went on to say that a good audience member should be aware they are the final ingredient in making the story come together. During a live performance, the storytellers and the audience share the experience. Therefore one small disruption of theatre etiquette can bring everyone out of the story world.
Theatre etiquette is really simple. People should enter the theatre with an open mind. All attendees should turn off their cell phones, face the front and shut their mouths until the end. Also, everyone should applaud at the end, not when an actor says something funny or agreeable. A significant amount of work goes into a production, and everyone involved deserves a round of applause for that.
What is the point of even going to a performance if you aren’t going to pay attention and attempt to enjoy it? People who are not open to the theatre experience should not go at all. It does not matter if a professor offers bonus points for attending or a friend wants to drag someone along with them. People who are not open to the full experience of a theatre performance have no place in an audience.
I hope that in the future everyone who enters the theatre will have the intention of sitting quietly and being transported to another world for a few hours. Otherwise, they should just go home.