Dear Theater Patrons,
It's 2016, and I'm a college student. I fully understand the importance to stay connected through electronic devices. However, there is an appropriate place and time for looking at your phone. In the theater is not one of those appropriate locations. I am fully guilty of being way too connected to my iPhone. The problem with phones nowadays is that they are way more than just a way to call or text someone - now it gives us the ability to access the internet, listen to music, take pictures - the uses are endless.
Phone use in the theater during shows have always been an issue, but was always less of a problem until the popularity of the smartphone. Sure, before we all got bootleg videos that were taken on actual video cameras, shocking I know. The major difference between video cameras and cell phone use is cell phones light up, cell phones ring and buzz and you can do a lot more on a cell phone.
Not only is it extremely distracting for your fellow audience, but incredibly rude to the actors onstage. Most theater goers don't truly understand how much work goes into putting on a show. As a performer and actor, I can easily say it takes a lot of blood, sweat and tears to put on a good production. Seeing phones lit up while you're performing makes you feel like people don't care about what you're doing onstage.
Quite a few actors have actually stopped performances to address a cell phone using patron. One of the most famous accounts is from Broadway legend Patti Lupone. During a performance of "Shows for Days" back in 2015, an audience member was texting during the show, and Patti Lupone stopped the show, grabbed the cell phone from the audience and walked off stage. More recently, writer, composer and actor Lin-Manuel Miranda has taken to Twitter to express grievances about people with their phones on during runs of "Hamilton," and this is coming from a performer who is heavily involved on social media and is fairly accessible to his fans.
If you look at the comments in the first two tweets, it goes to show it's not simply a few actors being defensive about phone use. Sierra Boggess, a Broadway leading lady, and actor/comedian Billy Eichner both agree with Miranda's simple request to put your phones away during a show. There are several other Broadway performers that have stories of phones being used during shows. These range from phones going off, to recording, to full-fledged video chatting a person during a show.
What I wholeheartedly believe is that my generation just isn't taught theater etiquette anymore. We are the generation so dependent on our electronics. Although my specific age range is in that awkward in-between stage, born in the mid to late '90s and knew a world without touch phones and iWhatevers. I know personally I didn't get a cell phone until the day I "graduated" eighth grade, and I didn't get my first smartphone until after I graduated high school. I still have friends who don't have smartphones. This is not to say that my age group isn't bad when it comes to not being able to put our phones down at the table or anywhere, we are, but there are kids now who don't know a world that didn't have smartphones and touch screen everything.
As a kid heavily involved in the arts, I was instilled with certain rules and etiquette to follow when at a show or concert. They were what I thought to be common knowledge rules such as, If have to go to the bathroom, wait until the applause and upon return wait again until applause, or Don't talk through plays and concerts, and the most relevant, TURN OFF YOUR CELL PHONES, PAGERS, AND OTHER DEVICES. The irony is that for the most part, the people being told these "rules" on a fairly regular basis were the people who needed to hear it the least. (Although there are quite a few choir concerts that I can recall that would have benefited from respecting these matters of etiquette). Performers understand other performers - we realize the work and effort that goes into putting on the performance. It is the other audience members that need to be taught.
But then, how can people be expected to follow these rules if the media is telling them otherwise? I mean in all seriousness, more people watch shows, movies and television online rather than going to the theater. In 2015, AT&T released the ad below.
Of course, the theater community was outraged by the ad, as this was released during the time a college kid went up onstage of Hand to God to try to charge his phone on a prop outlet built on the set.
The problem is, before each show there is always a fire speech. It's the speech that vaguely goes, "The exits are located on either side. In case of emergency, stay calm and go out the nearest exit. At this time please shut off all cell phones, pagers and other beeping devices out of consideration of the actors. Thank you and enjoy the show." It's a very important speech made, but one that is now usually ignored because people are too busy looking at, what one of my professors calls, our "magic little boxes."
So if no one listens to the fire speech, or rather no one cares about what the fire speech says, what can be done? Well, in my opinion, we need to educate. Teach theater etiquette, show people when is the appropriate situation to have your phone out and when it's not appropriate. Share this message on social media, call your friends out on it. Start small - if you're out at dinner with friends, put all your phones face down on the table, the first one to check their phone has to pay. Or set a reminder on your phone before a show starts to turn it off and put it out of sight, in a bag or pocket.
If you are a performer, please respect your fellow performers and the hard work they are putting into their performances. If you're not a performer, just enjoy the show, let the actors take you on this journey, forget about the outside world for a bit, it will still be there when you get out. And remember, actors are people too - we can see lights, flashes and oddly illuminated faces.
Sincererly,
An Actress in the Making
