Sunday, June 04, 2006

Actor Versus Cell phone: The Battle Rages On!

In this corner, we have a sleek sexy fellow: handsome, slender, charming, and great at communicating - and it fits in a purse or pocket. Yes that elegant cell phone! In the other corner, a live theater performance. Live people who often are unpaid and have spent hundreds of hours in rehearsal working very hard to bring together the best show possible.

Why oh why does that elegant electric device win out? It doesn't matter if it is a professional performance or a community production, or even a school production of children. In can be a free production or one in which anywhere from 100 to 1,000 people have paid $$$ to see. There are always polite messages to turn off or make silent those devices.

As an onstage performer I find it disrespectful and disruptive, and as an audience member I find it unspeakably rude. I ask those cell phone owners - Why spend money for a ticket to a show, if clearly your "connectivity" is more important? By the way I do own a cell phone, and no - I've never forgotten to shut it off or make it silent.

Not that this is a new issue: One performers reaction is mentioned in the independent (thanks to playgoer) and previous posts are here: Theater Bits

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Community Theater in the Mid Hudson Valley of New York. Information on shows, auditions, and our general adventures onstage, backstage and in the audience.