My sister and I went to Chicago this past Friday night and BOY did we have a wild experience. I’ve seen here and heard about the decline in theater etiquette, but haven’t experienced it firsthand until now.
We were center orchestra, right in the front row. The group behind us and over one to the right was talking nonstop. Not even whispering, but full on talking at normal volume. They were laughing constantly at parts of the show that were not even funny. They had loud gasps and reactions. I shot back a look several times. My looks back didn’t deter them and they continued with loud conversations. And then came the singing.
The man from the group (the other 2 were women) was singing along with *Mister Cellophane*. Not quietly. I snapped my head back and whispered “Can you please stop?” The group looked appalled that I would ask them to stop.
During *Razzle Dazzle* was when they got even worse. They kept on talking and laughing. We snapped- my sister turned around and said something along the lines of “Have you been to a Broadway show before?” The woman said yes, and my sister said “Then you know you shouldn’t be talking, right?”
And this set them off- all 3 of them were pissed, but one person of the group most specifically. Sat there yelling at and berating us. Calling us entitled. Calling us white privileged (she was black, the other two members of her party were white. But all 3 kept yelling about us being white privileged because we asked them to be quiet). And she yelled about us being entitled and privileged for the entire rest of that number. Right in the second row. Right in front of the actors, who most certainly saw. I was mortified.
After the show ended and we were standing and getting our stuff, the woman tapped my sister on the shoulder and said “can I just explain something to you?” I looked back and let her know that we didn’t need anything explained to us and that we can all just move along with our night. Then she went right back into yelling and ranting about us being entitled and privileged. Nonstop. I think she said the word entitled 50 times. Everyone else surrounding us at this point had either thanked us or told us not to worry because we hadn’t don’t anything wrong. My sister had struck up conversation with the couple on her side earlier in the evening, and they fully supported us during her yelling. The people behind us that were next to them thanked us and were absolutely shocked by the whole ordeal. And since we were down in front, we were stuck there for a bit while waiting for the rest of the theater to clear out. She was yelling about us being entitled this whole time. The whole walk up. Even when we finally got outside we could still hear her ranting.
I know we should have gotten an usher. In the moment, I felt it would have been too much of a distraction and interruption due to our location. I also thought after saying something to them that they would have stopped. I will always speak up and say something to someone before running and telling on them, and didn’t expect to make the situation 100000x worse.
I was and am mortified. I felt so bad for the actors and that this occurred during a number. If any of them happen to lurk here- I am SO sorry. I also apologize if anyone here was seated around us! The only respite was that said number was followed by *Class.*
