Audience Etiquette

Unfortunate to say there is apparently a need to have better discipline among performers now too.

This weekend a performer took her cell phone on stage with her and stood next to a person with a live wireless mic which caused interference over the sound system as calls came in and the phone performed its various functions.

Then after intermission she neglected to turn her ringer off and the phone started ringing while she stood near me in the wings.

Paul, I agree with you, and because in my art history graduate work we spent many a symposium hour talking about how to make museums more inviting and accessible (and about the architecture, implied codes, etc.), I do consider this for the theater as well. And especially for classical music performances--I've blogged about and spoken with our Symphony's PR person about, um, creating at least one concert a year that's a bit less about drinking the Classical Milieu Kool-Aid.

Not that I'm opposed to some dressing up, some lobby networking, some quiet during the performance, etc. I'm not. But I do think that there's a reason people enjoy attending summer outdoor concerts (something our symphony is working on for this year), and part of it has to do with more freedom. How the musicians and conductors feel about them, I don't know. I wonder why it matters if one is playing in black and white or in spaghetti strap shirt and flip-flops (does it matter, musicians?).

Re: Theaters and Meaningful Prosceniums (Proscenia?) etc.: I appreciate going backstage at our large concert hall, the Hult Center, and I really love the backstage tour at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival. I think more backstage tours where things are demystified (a bit) could be helpful, as can those audience-on-stage concerts with orchestras where people get to see what the heck is really going on. I've written about our stagehands and their process before big shows, and I've written about the backstage tours, but perhaps I could do more of the "this is how theater/music/art works" articles. Hm. Helping demystify codes/signs/signifiers can only be a good thing. Er, in the space available, of course.

Well, judging from the increasing length of curtain speeches in Milwaukee, some of which have developed into full-blown standup routines, I think most theaters and performing groups are doing a lot to promote good manners. More important, I think, for the future of the art forms is to recognize that the biggest barrier to theater attendance for many is the simple fear of leaping into a new cultural milieu. When I taught college theater courses, I used to spend a week getting students to reflect on the various trappings of the theater experience--implied dress codes, expected behaviors, the messages that lobby and theater architecture send. Habitues like us are probably not likely to notice these restrictions and assumptions. But it's good that we keep an eye to them and good that we also keep an eye to the "snob level" of our own conversations. If we really want to help the arts grow, we have to be sure that people of all sorts feel like they Belong in the most fundamental way.