# Patrons



## Charc (Jan 31, 2008)

I don't believe we've covered this topic before, but it's something that came up today at my internship. I'm sure you've all had interesting/troubling/humorous interactions with those stubborn/dim-witted/know-it-all patrons, care to share some stories? (Is this too vague? I may need to clarify tomorrow.)

Example:
Patrons that claim to have been season subscribers for 10 years longer than your theatre company has been around.


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## derekleffew (Jan 31, 2008)

There's a reason the British and the Australians call them punters:

For those who don't know, the (former) _Buccaneer Bay Sea Battle_ (now the _Sirens of TI_) is a free outdoor show, that takes place, weather permitting, outdoors in a man-made, ten million gallon, body of water in front of the Treasure Island Hotel & Casino in Las Vegas.

After a performance, while the crowd was dispersing, an audience member, who had just witnessed the twenty stuntmen dive into the drink, stopped me and asked "Is that real water?" Incredulously, I answered "yes." 

But later upon recounting the story to others, consensus was I should have responded "No, it's imitation water."


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## miriam (Jan 31, 2008)

Imitation water: just add water.


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## tenor_singer (Jan 31, 2008)

When I A.D.ed a theater back in the 90's, I initiated a program at our theater stressing "informed show viewing".

Our biggest problems were when patrons left shows in some form of emotional distress because "[they] didn't know that the show involved [the topic that caused their distress]".

Our worst was, believe it or not, a very religious patron who came to see Godspell[\u] and who left highly offended because of the way the the authors described the life of Christ.

My response to him was that if he took a couple of minutes to look up the show that he was going to see so that he could be an informed audience member, then he could have avoided his discomfort. 

No matter how crazy our patrons made me, though... I never once lost sight of the fact that as annoying as they may be, it was their money that afforded us the opportunity to produce our shows.


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## Van (Jan 31, 2008)

I don't know if I posted this story here yet. We recently closed Mars on LIfe: A Holiday Cabaret. We have a wonderfull Nationally known cabaret singer/Actress named Susanna Mars, she's somewhat of a local celebrity, and an all around great human being. She and the director put together an musical review for the holiday season, a little Christmas, a little Chanukka, a lot of laughs and good cheer. So this year they put in a song called "Taj" well that's how you pronounce it I dont; know if that's the way you spell it., Anyaway, it's a Christmas/Winter song in Arabic, Taj means snow. After telling a story about visiting the Holy Lands this last summer, and explaining that " It really is Christmas all over the world...." she starts singing this song. A guy in the house right section of seating stands up and screams at the top of his lungs, " How Dare You!?!", "How Dare you sing a song in Arabic at this time of year?" He runs down onto the stage and gets into Susanas face! Foaming at the mouth and screaming at her. He finally turns and walks out. < band didn't miss a beat and Sus only missed a couple of lyrics. Then another couple gets up and follows him out. Our House manager stopped the couple and asked if they would like to share the reason for their Leaving, as they were not with the other patron. The Woman explained that they had thought it was, " An Adult Cabaret". _< I think she confused Cabaret and Burlesque> _ "Oh and We thought the Arabic song was offensive too.."

Then there is the patron that mails in Critiques of every shows costumes.......


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## Grog12 (Feb 1, 2008)

This one is for the people in Las Vegas....

I worked out at Super Summer Theatre which is basically outdoor theatre in a barn for anyone who's never been there. One one of the occasion we had to cancel because of Thunder and Lighting being to close by I happened to notice a family underneath the largest tree alongside the venue arguing about whether or not they should be standing under that tree.

Quickly remembering what I was taught in kindegarten I decided that since I looked proffesional I might want to help out the wife who really didn't want to be standing under a tree during a lightning storm. I walked up and said.."You might not want to be standing under that tree with all the lightning around."

To which her husband replied with the dumbest thing I've ever heard.....please don't think about this for too long as your head may explode.

"What? Its not like its made of metal or anything!"


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## Eboy87 (Feb 1, 2008)

A few words: Miss Preteen St. Louis, and all the associated mothers with said contestants. My god, I've never wished for a security team more in my life.


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## avkid (Feb 1, 2008)

Eboy87 said:


> A few words: Miss Preteen St. Louis, and all the associated mothers with said contestants. My god, I've never wished for a security team more in my life.


One of those pageant companies wanted to hire me.
I declined.


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## derekleffew (Feb 1, 2008)

Eboy87 said:


> A few words: Miss Preteen St. Louis, and all the associated mothers with said contestants. My god, I've never wished for a security team more in my life.


The only thing worse is a Mr. Universe contest!


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## bobgaggle (Feb 1, 2008)

Peeves:

4. Dad's who walk onto the stage after your show and start knocking on set pieces, determining their "soundness".

3. The Mom who gives her crying kid her car keys to play with and calm down, "For never was there a *jingle* of more woe, than this of Juliet and *WAHHHHH!!!!*"

2. After the show, greeting moms and dads and grandmas. And the random guy walks up to you and says, "when you sing that one line in that one song when you're looking at the audience, you should cross to the chair and sit down."......................................."Umm, who are you?"

1. And the greatest. A full gown, "intelligent and learned" adult, comes up and says, "I see that you played Mr. Hyde, designed the lights, and built the set...was that a lot of work?".
...
...
...
...
...
...
"No, my alter-ego played Mr. Hyde, the lights were just a bunch of LightBrights that we flipped on, and I bought the set pre-assembled at Costco."


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## Pie4Weebl (Feb 5, 2008)

avkid said:


> One of those pageant companies wanted to hire me.
> I declined.


Hey don't knock all the pageants, I worked one and during the pageant week I had a bunch of good looking females flirting with me who were for the most part nice, and one of them was even a radiohead fan! 

Now those dance competitions for little kids are a whole different story *shudder*


Anyhow my best patron story is I was ushering a show I was running spot for to make a better paycheck and there was a man who walked in wearing a hat with a pig stuffed animal covering most of it and I complemented him and he turned around and handed me a small rubber pig which now resides on my dash board.


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## Eboy87 (Feb 5, 2008)

A good point pie, the contestants in the Miss Missouri lead-ups can be quite the pleasure to work with. Met a very nice redhead who was as big a Dave Matthews fan as me. Their mothers on the other hand....

Now, India Dance, that was fun  The quote of that show said to me, "More Light! More Light!". I was running the sound board.


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## avkid (Feb 5, 2008)

Pie4Weebl said:


> Now those dance competitions for little kids are a whole different story *shudder*


That's what it was.
I have no issues with "grown up" pageants.


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## Spikesgirl (Apr 5, 2008)

This is an older thread, but I just found it.

Thank you all for making me very glad I haven't worked any pageants.

My dumb story - we had a sick actor who got through with his part and headed home instead of taking a curtain call. He'd been 'run down' (off stage) in a previous scene. On their way out, the older man and woman stopped me, wanting to make sure that the young man hadn't actually been killed off stage. Huh? That would be a little limiting. Just like the patron who, when I mentined we were thinking about doing "Misery" said, "You're not really going to cut off his foot on stage, are you?" Sigh, people and their children...

Char5lie


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## Grog12 (Apr 5, 2008)

Spikesgirl said:


> This is an older thread, but I just found it.
> Thank you all for making me very glad I haven't worked any pageants.
> My dumb story - we had a sick actor who got through with his part and headed home instead of taking a curtain call. He'd been 'run down' (off stage) in a previous scene. On their way out, the older man and woman stopped me, wanting to make sure that the young man hadn't actually been killed off stage. Huh? That would be a little limiting. Just like the patron who, when I mentined we were thinking about doing "Misery" said, "You're not really going to cut off his foot on stage, are you?" Sigh, people and their children...
> Char5lie


Yes yes we are going to cut off his foot. We find the realism adds a sense of urgency that keeps the audience on the edge of their seat don't ya think?


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## Spikesgirl (Apr 5, 2008)

Grog12 said:


> Yes yes we are going to cut off his foot. We find the realism adds a sense of urgency that keeps the audience on the edge of their seat don't ya think?



And then replace him each night with another actor willing to be permanently maimed in the course of the show. You gotta love folks...

Char5lie


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## Van (Apr 7, 2008)

Spikesgirl said:


> And then replace him each night with another actor willing to be permanently maimed in the course of the show. You gotta love folks...
> 
> Char5lie


 
Well if Actors were as committed to their Art as we are .......


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## punktech (Apr 7, 2008)

you know what's better? 

audiences that think that they're hearing the people in the sound-proofed booth, when in actuality they're hearing the tons of people that hang out in the lobby at my school...

i've been chewed out so much for that one. i'm sorry i'm talking during your silly classical music (which doesn't have any visible emotional effect on you at all, yeah i can tell you *really* love it), but it was not me you heard talking, you heard the freshmen boys that do photo and are really loud and uncouth that hang out for hours at a time in the lobby of our arts center.


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## Marius (Apr 8, 2008)

I used to be the ATD for a community college theatre/road house, and the worst patrons were the parents for the dance recital rentals every summer. We begged the companies to sell reserved seating, but most couldn't be bothered. Even though we'd post numerous 'The Doors Open at 7:30' signs, there were always hordes of self-important goobs banging on the doors at 6:30. Then, once we did open, Aunt Bessie would rush into the theatre, storm down to the second row, and then strip down as far as her modesty would allow so she could put an article of clothing on as many seats as possible since the entire clan 'might' show up. For one such recital, despite having the evening's host ask the audience several times to move in and fill the empty seats, there were so many people sitting in the aisles(we had a continental style house) I literally had to stop the show, go out on stage myself, and inform the audience that until the aisles were clear the show would not continue. 
Then there was the year that on two separate recitals one of the little darlings pulled the fire alarm during the show. Our smoke doors and fire curtain were tied in to the alarm, so even once we got the alarm shut off, and the fire dept. sent away, it took another 45 minutes to reset the machinery.

Good times. 
;-)


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## Spikesgirl (Apr 8, 2008)

You don't know how grateful I am that we don't have any of these! patrons sitting in the aisles-not a fun time.

We do have fire alarms and bomb threats on a regular basis though during finals. Nothing I like more than hanging around out of the dock waiting for them to clear the building so we can go back in - not bad in May, pretty cold in December.

Char5lie


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## Van (Apr 8, 2008)

I'm waiting for the complaints to start rolling in. We open _A Streetcar Named Desire_ on Friday night. Hmmm Tennessee Williams, set in the south in the late '40's, what do people do ? 
Smoke, A lot! Of course since we are now so cuturally, and medicinally, sensitive we no longer smoke cigarettes on stage we smoke herbal cigarettes. God I hate the smell of herbal cigarettes. I'd rather smell a real cigarette than an herbal one. I got home from techs the other night and all I could smell was those nasty herbal cigarettes. I know the patrons are going to freak. People will be runing for the doors, and it's really not fair. It's a wonderful script, and this is an incredible production of it. I wish someone would invent a non-smelly, realistic, combusting cigarette. The fake ones with the powder in them suck, the herbals either smell like a fire in a poppuri factory or a _Grateful Dead_ concert.
Oh well this is one time I'm going to be very glad I don't work front of house!


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## Eboy87 (Apr 8, 2008)

Van said:


> ... or (smell like) a _Grateful Dead_ concert.



:shock: What kind of herbs are they using! 

Has anyone brought up the point about the 4k feedback from the hearing aids during the senior matinee? 

Just remember... they're paying our salary, smile, nod your head and say, "yes ma'am".


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## kiilljoy (Apr 14, 2008)

Van said:


> I I wish someone would invent a non-smelly, realistic, combusting cigarette. The fake ones with the powder in them suck, the herbals either smell like a fire in a poppuri factory or a _Grateful Dead_ concert.



We had smoking in my last show, and one of the actors suggested this cigarette brand called "Eclipse". It's in a kind of a new-agey blue box. We got them gas stations, I know Quik-Trip had them, at least here. They light, smoke, show the cherry, but don't produce any ash. The cigarettes actually steam the tobacco or something, and they virtually don't smell. We were using them in a 90-seat house in a basement with bad ventalition and I could smell them during run-throughs about 5 minutes after the cigarette was lit, then for about another 5 minutes, and then the smell was gone. Others involved claimed not to be able to smell them at all.

Except that Dallas has a law about smoking tobacco inside public places that are not bars. So we had to revert to the tried and true nasty herbal cigs.

I don't exactly have a patron story, but one summer theatre I worked at for a couple years housed us in some dorms that we shared occasionally with high-school and jr high cheerleaders doing their summer camps. They would scream and run around outside our rooms in the wee hours of sleep time.


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## Charc (Apr 15, 2008)

Cheerleaders you say...?


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## kiilljoy (Apr 15, 2008)

charcoaldabs said:


> Cheerleaders you say...?



We had the ice machine on our floor, so they would come down in loud groups of 20 and fill large coolers at 3am in the morning. 

And I'm not even sure if they were high schoolers. I think most of them were Jr High, and we college kids didn't have a lot of patience for them. I was walking back to the dorm, and three of them were walking side-by-side down the sidewalk in the opposite direction, not paying attention, and had I not moved, they would have walked right into me.


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## Spikesgirl (Apr 15, 2008)

Van said:


> I'm waiting for the complaints to start rolling in. We open _A Streetcar Named Desire_ on Friday night. Hmmm Tennessee Williams, set in the south in the late '40's, what do people do ?
> Smoke, A lot! Of course since we are now so cuturally, and medicinally, sensitive we no longer smoke cigarettes on stage we smoke herbal cigarettes. God I hate the smell of herbal cigarettes. I'd rather smell a real cigarette than an herbal one. I got home from techs the other night and all I could smell was those nasty herbal cigarettes. I know the patrons are going to freak. People will be runing for the doors, and it's really not fair. It's a wonderful script, and this is an incredible production of it. I wish someone would invent a non-smelly, realistic, combusting cigarette. The fake ones with the powder in them suck, the herbals either smell like a fire in a poppuri factory or a _Grateful Dead_ concert.
> Oh well this is one time I'm going to be very glad I don't work front of house!



Oh, Van, you have my sympathies - we just went through that with "Wait Until Dark" - our bad guy has to light up in the first scene, our husband in the second and the heroine in the last. They wrote us up on the Editorial Page for smoking on stage. Yes, we were using herbals and and the longest a cig was lit was less than three minutes. That didn't stop the mass - the office manager was actually able to swing it around and glean us some publicity from it. We did have to post a warning in the lobby that we were using herbals. 

Nothing is so good or correct that it can't be taken to an extreme and cause more harm than good. 

Char5lie

P.S. ours smelled like a locker room - sure glad I was in the booth!


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## Van (Apr 15, 2008)

Well... Guess what it wasn't the Smoking that everyone's talking about, read this. 
http://www.oregonlive.com/performance/index.ssf/2008/04/theater_review_a_violent_inven.html

If you don't want to read the whole thing just scroll down to about the 6 or 7th paragraph. You'll see what everyone in town is talking about.......


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## Spikesgirl (Apr 15, 2008)

Van said:


> Well... Guess what it wasn't the Smoking that everyone's talking about, read this.
> http://www.oregonlive.com/performance/index.ssf/2008/04/theater_review_a_violent_inven.html
> If you don't want to read the whole thing just scroll down to about the 6 or 7th paragraph. You'll see what everyone in town is talking about.......




Many a times I've wanted to hurl something at a columnist. Are you sure it was an accident?

Seriously, great review though. We did "Streetcar" in the same old traditional way and it would have been great if our SD had stretched a little more. Just goes to prove what you can do with some 'thinking outside of the box"

Char5lie


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## Grog12 (Apr 15, 2008)

Lets see...I've done Wait until Dark and The Glass Menagerie in the past 2 years and had all the same problems as Spikes and Van....silly audience..."Does he really have to smoke on stage?" God I just want to strangle them sometimes...

On an unrelated side note Char5lie how in the hell did you get a lit cig into a building in CA...don't FBI agents come shooting out of the toilets if you just light a match?



And Van...that is probably one of the funniest things I've read in a while!


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## Spikesgirl (Apr 22, 2008)

Grog12 said:


> Lets see...I've done Wait until Dark and The Glass Menagerie in the past 2 years and had all the same problems as Spikes and Van....silly audience..."Does he really have to smoke on stage?" God I just want to strangle them sometimes...
> On an unrelated side note Char5lie how in the hell did you get a lit cig into a building in CA...don't FBI agents come shooting out of the toilets if you just light a match?
> !



Sorry, didn't notice your question earlier, Grog. Well, we didn't take a lit cigarette into a building. We lit up once we were inside - do it all the time. I think the Feds are busy trying to track down all the 'undesirables' who try to fly in and out of the state and keeping parents from smoking in their cars to come after us.

Interesting visual, though Guess that could be considered 'standard' behavior? 

Char5lie


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