What Happened to Manners?

For those of you who know me or follow me on Facebook, you know that I recently completed a 20 show run at Shreveport Little Theatre as Donna in the musical Mamma Mia. It was SO much fun! I loved the show, the cast, my role, and for the most part, I loved our audiences. But several times during the run I was forced to wonder if people had just completely lost their marbles.

If not their marbles, they've certainly lost their manners.

Allow me to explain.

When you attend a live theatre production, like Mamma Mia, you are surrounded by close to 200 people you don't know who have each paid over $30 for a ticket to see the show. There are also living, breathing people on the stage who have worked for countless hours - months! -  to memorize a script, music and choreography. These people are working very hard to stay in character and not forget their lines, lyrics and dance moves. They are working their tails off to take their audiences away from their daily lives and into a different reality that will, hopefully, create emotion, laughter and a couple of hours of fun.

And a single distraction can take an actor out of character, and possibly make him/her forget lines and lyrics. It can cause a dancer to mess up choreography, and at worst, can cause an injury. And it can disturb all 200 of the nice people around you who paid good money to see a show.

Now, I am not talking about distractions that can't be helped. Sometimes a sneeze comes out of nowhere. So does a cough. Sometimes something you are wearing unknowingly reflects light back up onto the stage and into an actor's eyes, like a silver name tag that got me while I was standing on a chair singing Super Trouper. But none of those things were really foreseeable as causing a distraction. These things sometimes happen. And they are the kinds of things we, as actors, have to learn to get past.

But let's talk about cell phones, shall we?

I will be the first to say that I'm a big fan of a cell phone. I use mine all the time! I talk to people on it. I text people on it. I do a lot of my day to day job on it. And I am an active user of social media.

BUT I have the common courtesy to know when it's just not appropriate to use it. You know, like during a live theatre production when surrounded by 200 paying patrons and live actors on a stage who could be distracted by it. ESPECIALLY when a person doing the pre-show welcome tells you, the audience, before the show to TURN IT OFF.

True story -- Opening night, I was in the middle of an emotional scene with my onstage daughter -- we were delivering dialogue -- and someone's phone starts ringing. AND SHE ANSWERED IT!!!! I mean, SERIOUSLY?! What is wrong with people? It was absolutely ridiculous, and one of the rudest things I've ever witnessed in the theatre.

But there's more...

Texting. TEXTING! The audience is dark and then all of a sudden, someone's phone light comes on... do you think we can't see it? People near you can see it and are distracted, and the people on the stage can see it. You are not that important, nor is the message you are sending. If it is, then you probably shouldn't be sitting in the audience of a live theatre show.

Talking. Another true, yet very hard to believe story -- The last Friday of the run, there was a couple sitting in the front row, nearly center. They carried on a conversation for the entire first act. It was so loud that the video of the show that was filmed that night as a keepsake for the cast and crew picked it up. The video camera was in the last row! Can you imagine how distracting it was for those of us on the stage to try to talk over those people? Geez. At one point I nearly walked down the stage to them and asked them to please stop talking. I would have probably received an ovation. But my commitment to professionalism outweighed my frustration, and instead, I asked the crew to please ask them at intermission to refrain from talking during the show.

There were other things, too... the loud front row candy wrappers. (There are ALWAYS loud candy wrappers.) Also front row, the late folks coming in and being seated during a scene. (That was a theatre issue, though. People coming in late should never be seated during a scene; they should only be seated at the change of a scene. Rookie mistake, but no less of a distraction.) Babies crying. Who brings a baby to a live theatre production of a grown up show? I mean, if it's Disney or a junior production, I get it. But not this one.

Anyway, I think it goes beyond just theatre. Rudeness is a daily experience. I think, sadly, we've become a society that is so engrossed in our own little world and our own desires to even bother to think about those around us. Either that, or we just don't care. And that alone can make this world a difficult place to live in. I'm only one person, but I'll continue to do my best to think about the people I share it with, and be as kind and compassionate as I can be. And in a theatre, I will always silence my cellphone.