"Who do you think you are!?!" LuPone throws jerk out of the theater

[SzczerbiakManiac]

This is an audio-only recording of Patti LuPone stopping "Rose's Turn" to read the riot act to some as$hole taking pictures from the audience during a performance of Gypsy:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dw6-Tp4UVVA

While it is technically inappropriate for an actor to break character while on stage, I fully support Patti's actions. Theater-goers today have gotten completely out of control and do not comply with basic courtesies. (Don't get me started with people talking on cell phones during a performance!) Shaming them seems like the only course of action that will be effective.

What do you think?

[wendybeth]

I think she was right on. It's an incredible distraction, for both actors and theatergoers, and I don't blame her a bit.

[Alex]

While I enjoyed it, and in person would be great if it were a one time thing. But if this were to start a trend of a show stopping every time a camera goes off or the actors are distracted by something in the audience I'd quickly come to be pissed at them just as much.

The theater should just try to deal with it quietly but forcefully but I know that wouldn't always be possible.

And, of course, there's the fact that the person who recorded this from the audience was also breaking the rules and, even if less distracting, is also an ass.

[lashbear]

That was just Show-stopping ! No. Really.

Patty LuPone IS a Diva.

[lizziebith]

I found her outburst quite satisfying.

[Strangler Lewis]

I think Katharine Hepburn did a similar thing twenty years ago.

[alphabassettgrrl]

It only takes a few well-publicized happenings for people to get the message. Fear of humiliation will keep some of them behaving.

[Chernabog]

I heard this yesterday -- SO freaking cool. I heart Patti Lupone.

[ozron]

Working in an interactive show, we often have audience members who go overboard in their "interactions". However, we also have the luxury of staying in character and dealing with them.

Just last weekend, when one inebriated woman kept making loud interjections, one of the cast finally bellowed, "Will you shut up! I'm trying to tell the woman I love how I feel!"

She got the message, and the show never missed a beat!

[flippyshark]

And at my interactive theater venue (Sleuths Mystery Dinner Theater in Orlando) - tonight, JUST after the murder had occurred, an audience member had a seizure. The show was halted as an ambulance was called. It took the cast a while to reestablish what was part of the intended mystery and what was actual emergency. (I hear the guest was just fine, thankfully.)

We often have to hush, ask, cajole, nudge or blatantly demand polite consideration from certain drunk or obnoxious members of the audience, and we are usually helped a great deal by the other paying guests. Not long ago, one intoxicated lady was so offended by one of our characters asking her to be quiet, she picked up her key lime pie and threw it at the actor.

Perhaps we shall add a new line in such situations - "Please be considerate of others, or we shall be forced to go Patty LuPone on your ass!"