Are you ever watching a live entertainment or a movie and you see somebody constantly taking out their cell phone? For actors, singers, and performers, this can be very disheartening and even distracting. Patti LuPone, who has starred in Sweeney Todd, Sunset Boulevard, The Roommate, and many other Broadway shows, took things to an all-new level when she saw that people were using cell phones during shows even when the theater said that use was not permitted.
Patti stated, “I’ve got eagle eyes,” during Variety’s Actors on Actors Broadway edition featuring George Clooney. If she spotted a cell phone being used during a show, she was supposed to go to her stage manager. They would go to the house manager and then send an usher in. Rinse and repeat. When she was performing a production of Shows for Days, Patti took things into her own hands. She saw a woman texting for some time and approached her, recalling, “I put my right hand on her shoulder and my left hand in her lap and palmed her phone, and the audience saw it. Some of them gasped; some of them applauded.”
Michael Urie, Patti’s at-the-time costar, remarked, “There was a woman texting throughout the entire show. She was not in the front row, she was in the second row, and she happened to be in a spot where Patti could get it. She just took it. Patti LuPone will take your phone away from you, and you will deserve it!”
It’s not just actors and actresses who find the use of cell phones rude during a performance. Not only is the fear of recording and redistribution a concern, but it breaks the immersion of the experience. After all, you aren’t the only one who paid for a ticket.
Patti feels like many other performers—helpless and even “defeated,” as she has put it. We deal with a world that pressures people to engage with their phones as often as possible. The nuisance has made her reconsider working in theater. “We work hard on stage to create a world that is being totally destroyed by a few rude, self-absorbed and inconsiderate audience members who are controlled by their phones.”
It begs the question—if you’re paying to see a show with some of your favorite performers, why are you disrespecting their time and effort by worrying about your phone? Emergencies aside, give the performers your attention. Live in the moment. Give technology a break. Those tweets can wait.
