2009-2010 Most Annoying Audience Member Awards

My World's a Stage of Bad Theater Etiquette
By Lauren Yarger
In between the Drama Desks, the Outer Critics and Tony Awards honoring the best in theater performance, we mustn’t forget to award the other top folks in the theater -- the people attending the shows – so here are the 2009-2010 Most Annoying Audience Members, presented annually by yours truly.

Just when I think I can’t observe any more rude or annoying behavior, another audience member, usually seated right next to me, proves me wrong. And this year, we have 15 honorees instead of just 10 like we did last season. It seems like a lot, but take heart. For the number of shows I attend, this doesn’t even mean that I’m annoyed at 10 percent of the performances, so overall, good audience members far outweigh the bad. (For last season’s winners, click here).

Here are this year's winners in ascending order (saving the bext for last). I hope you enjoy reading about them more than I enjoyed encountering them. Each one happened at a different theater. The names have been left out to protect the innocent:

15.) The two very tall teenage girls who sat on booster seats to form a virtual Amazon wall past which no one behind them could see.

14.) The guy who snored through a play. He was across the theater in a different section from where I was seated, so I didn‘t have the pleasure of hitting him with my program, but he could be heard throughout the orchestra section of the theater. It wasn’t a boring play. There was no need for the log sawing -- and what’s wrong with the person or persons who were with him that they didn’t stir him to interrupt the rude, constant noise? I did take a little guilty pleasure, however, when I saw the person behind him kick the back of the seat and jar him awake.

13.) The woman next to me with the Japanese fan. She flipped it open and closed and fanned herself all night long wreaking havoc with my peripheral vision. It wasn’t hot in the theater -- in fact it was a little chilly and the constant wind chill factor from my left made it even more so. I sympathize with women experiencing hot flashes, but seriously, be a little more considerate of your neighbor.

12.) The guy whose I-phone protruded from his pocket into my seat (the seats were VERY cramped with no arm rest in between) and jabbed me all the way through the first act. At intermission, assuming he was unaware of the assault, I politely explained that my hip was bruised and asked if he couldn’t switch it the other pocket (thereby giving his wife, seated on his other side, the pleasure of being prodded). He exploded and told me that his wallet was in his other pocket and gave me a choice of being poked by his wallet or his phone. “Well, I choose neither you clod,” I wanted to respond. I think he had had a few too many before arriving at the theater, so maybe that explains his rude response and his droning on for the rest of intermission to his wife about the rude person seated next to him. To his credit, while he didn’t switch pockets, he did readjust the phone several times to keep it from visiting me during the second act.

11.) The guy in front of me who scratched his head, his back, his neck, his face, his armpits, his chest, his butt and a few other parts during the entire show. He was more active than the dancers performing on stage. And he never clapped-- a legitimate use for hands at the theater.

10.) One of my favorites-- a 6-year-old kid who kept talking loudly and yelling at Charles Ross during his performance of One Man Star Wars. The performer finally stopped the performance and said, “Kid, you don’t know how badly I need you to shut up right now” and went on to question why his parents hadn’t told him to be quiet. He was greeted with cheering applause from the audience. Parents, ushers, where were you?

9.) Another kid-- whose cute loud giggle at a joke early in the show brought laughter from the audience. Suddenly consumed with a need to perform, the child laughed out loud obnoxiously at everything, funny or not, for the rest of the evening. The first natural response was amusing. The subsequent 100 forced responses were annoying. Again, where are the parents?

8.) The guy with the camera who took about 300 photos of the set before the start of the show, then continued snapping after the curtain rose. I walked down the aisle and told him to power off, which to his credit, he did, though I think he was startled at intermission to discover that I was an audience member and not the theater manager (those old House manager authoritative tones still come in handy). Where the heck were the ushers? Oh, that's right -- standing there watching him snap away.

7.) The woman who texted five times during the first act after an announcement specifically asking audience members not to test during the show.

6.) The woman who unzipped and zipped her purse about 12,000 times rummaging incessantly for something during the first act. When intermission was almost over, she announced, “I found it!” (I am not making this up). My favorite part was that she did it again during the second act -- then shushed a woman in front of her for talking to her companion (This, by the way, was the only time the other woman had spoken during the show. She probably was saying, “Is that woman behind us ever going to stop rummaging around in her purse?”) Then Purse-zilla noisily unwrapped some candy for a while.

5.) The couple in front of me who were more interesting than the play we were watching. He was bald and she had a unbelievably big curly mop, which in itself was kind of funny, but they fought about everything all night long, which would have been amusing if it hadn’t been so sad and annoying (There probably was some good dialogue there for a scene showing the disintegration of a marriage. I should have taken notes.) They threw barbs all night and were genuinely unpleasant with each other. He had a broken leg. I could only speculate as to how that had happened…..

4.) The woman who commandeered a seat because she decided she didn’t want to walk down a few steps to get to hers, The usher tried to explain that someone else would be arriving with a ticket for the seat she had selected, but the woman simply replied that he or she could have her other seat instead. She had attached herself to an aisle seat. Her real seat, of course was not. The usher was super nice and went to get the manager, who told the woman the same thing. She refused to move from her new seat. Eventually, of course, the ticket holder arrived and she had to move and was VERY upset…..

3.) The woman who left during the second act, then returned toward the end of the show. Her companion welcomed her back loudly, then proceeded to tell her what she had missed during the last 40 minutes.

2.) The guy with the smelly feet. At a musical, I suddenly was nauseated by a horrible odor. Everyone started looking at me, as though I were the cause, and in fact, I did seem to be, though I knew it wasn’t me and wanted desperately for everyone to know that. At intermission I discovered the cause: the guy behind me had removed his shoes, then stretched his legs out placing his feet directly under my chair.

1.) And my personal favorite from this season, the one that can make a trip to the theater seem very surreal: The Pizza Lady. A woman plopped down next to me with a full-sized pizza box, opened it and started to chomp. I glanced around the theater thinking that perhaps I had missed advertising about this being “bring your own dinner” or “pizza and beer” night at the theater. No one else was eating anything. No one was even chewing gum.

She turned to me and asked in pizza breath with bits of mozzarella and sausage flying in my direction, whether I got to the theater much. “Yes,” I wanted to reply, “and this is the first time anyone has brought their own pizza.” Instead, I engaged in polite conversation (by polite I mean I didn’t gag at the flying food) and refused (again I was polite) to switch my seat with her companion who had a ticket in the cheap seats (and who probably was hoping to have a chance to chomp his half of the pizza).

This woman produced the loudest laugh I ever have heard and proceeded to force it and her pizza breath on all of us throughout the performance. She also repeated every punch line out loud. Then she threw her jacket on me (I had to ask her to remove it four times) and told everyone around us to be quiet if they even breathed loudly.

For being offensive on so many levels and for making me pinch myself 100 times to convince myself that this was a real person and not some dream, The Pizza Lady wins the 2009-2010 Most Annoying Audience Member Award!