Audience Antics

Good news: I'm too busy working on theatrical productions to write about theatre.

Bad news: I'm too busy working on theatrical productions to write about theatre.

So for some brief entertainment, a quick anecdote from Saturday night's performance.

We had a very engaged audience. They seemed to be an intellectual bunch, and I think may have understood the material better than some other audiences we've had. They got more of the jokes (this being a Shakespearean tragedy, I'm not sure everyone realized there were jokes) and would nod and "hm" in appreciation at moments of deep truth and understanding. They gave us a lot of energy and were very involved, and generally a pleasure to perform for.

At the start of the second act, I was standing at the stage left crossover entrance behind the audience with a few other actors waiting for our cues to come on stage, when I heard a prolonged and loud crashing and scuffling from the audience. We looked at each other in confusion, but no one could figure out what was going on. After the show, I got a chance to ask the lead actress, who was on stage at the time and could see everything, what had happened.

To illustrate, here is a diagram I made of the stage in MS Paint:

So, at the start of Act 2 our stage manager made sure the lobby and restrooms were cleared before bringing down the lights and starting the show. At this point, someone apparently made a last-minute dash for the bathroom, which you can see on the right side of the drawing is right next to the backstage area, and in the middle of where the actors go to cross behind the audience for entrances on the left side of the stage.

Having come out of the bathroom and seen that the show was in full swing, instead of going around the front of the seating area, he decided to bust through the curtains blocking the audience off from the actor cross over. This did not work very well, as the curtains are pinned closed to prevent gapping. Also, there were a bunch of people sitting right on the other side of the curtain, and he had to climb over them, creating the aforementioned ruckus.

Major props to our lead actress for keeping her cool through a dramatic monologue while having to watch this ridiculousness right in front of her, since most of the opening scene is addressed directly to the audience.