All Things Broadway Posts

Between 2018 and 2020, I was on the blogging team for All Things Broadway, one of the most popular Broadway groups on Facebook. As their blog recently went offline, I recently reblogged my posts. I thought it might be convenient to post links to them here.

Outside the Schoenfeld Theatre on Broadway,
where Come from Away played 2017-2022
Picture taken September 2022

Come from Away: Stories and lessons from those who lived it

I interviewed several come from aways and Newfoundlanders whose stories inspired Come from Away. This is the result, along with my own memories from that horrible day. This was my first and most popular post. It also set records for All Things Broadway's blog in terms of readership.

The Showtunes of Christmas

My thoughts and suggestions if you are planning to make a Broadway Christmas album. Which showtune is and isn't a Christmas song?

All I Really Need to Know I Learned on Broadway

Inspired by Robert Fulghum's All I Really Need to Know I Learned in Kindergarten, I share some valuable lessons learned in Broadway shows.

The Magic of Carol

Along with two other bloggers, we paid tribute to the late, great Carol Channing.

Writing Your Very Own Rodgers & Hammerstein Musical

My thoughts on common threads between Rodgers & Hammerstein musicals and how you can write your own R&H musical.

A Look Back, 2016-2018 (give or take)

Reviews of the shows I attended in the past 2 years, as of December 2018.

Theatre Etiquette, Part 1: Putting on the Ritz!

Etiquette for producers, directors and performers when putting on a show.

Theatre Etiquette, Part 2: A Night on the Town

Etiquette for attending a show.

Prayer, Come from Away

My thoughts on the "Prayer" in Come from Away; this was my part of a collaborative blog on songs that were particularly meaningful to us at Christmas.

You Are Here: A Come from Away Story

This was a collaborative blog about the HBO Canada documentary You Are Here: A Come from Away Story. It was one of the most moving documentaries I've ever seen.

Quarantine Playlist

This was my last post on the blog. I wrote it at the beginning of the pandemic about songs that I have found encouraging in tough times. Thanks to the pandemic, this was one of the last posts in the blog, though it would be a couple years before the blog went offline.

Times Square, September 2022

Theatre Etiquette, Part 2: A Night on the Town

 “It’s poo-LONK!”

I was attending a singalong featuring works of French composers Gabriel Fauré and Francis Jean Marcel Poulenc. Between movements, the host recounted the lives and inspirations of the two composers. I don’t remember what he said about them. They passed out sheet music when we arrived. We sight read Fauré’s Requiem, and I can’t remember which of Poulenc’s works we learned. Remembering the occasion, I had to think hard to remember that much, because the main thing I remember about the occasion was a person behind me. Every time the host mispronounced Poulenc’s name (he pronounced it “poo-lenk”), the person behind me corrected him under their breath. They likely assumed nobody could hear them, but it overshadowed the memory of the evening for me. I could hear the mutters loud and clear, and it drove me bonkers. Partly because I have the same habit, and that was when I realized the effect it has to people around me. That day I determined I would stop doing that. (I have had varying degrees of success acting on that resolution, but I’m working on it!)

I have had other incidents where people around me have distracted from the performance, but that is one of the more memorable ones. Perhaps you have stories of people’s cell phones lighting up the theatre, or maybe your amazing brother belting out “Evermore” during the credits of the recent movie remake of Beauty and the Beast so loudly that it sounded like Josh Groban was his backup singer. Perhaps you were in the theatre when Patti LuPone confiscated an audience member’s cell phone.

A couple weeks ago, I went over etiquette for people putting on a show. Now it’s time for etiquette for the audience.

Before the Show

• Arrive early. Entering late can be disruptive, and you’ll miss part of the show. If seats aren’t assigned, this can also help you to get a good seat.
• If something comes up and you can’t make it to the show, let the theatre know so they can reassign your seat. The person who gets your ticket will thank you. (I got a ticket to Come from Away at the last minute once because someone did this. I have no idea if that person is reading this, but if it’s you, thank you!)
• Do your research. If a show is of an adult nature, do not bring children. This can also save you from seeing shows that you may find surprisingly offensive. It can also save you from seeing a show with strobe lights if you’re sensitive to them.

Phones and Cameras

• Turn your cell phone completely off, or at least silence it and put it in airplane mode. Phones ringing during the show can be disruptive both for the audience and the actors. The same holds true for bright lights in the audience. If your phone is on during the performance (silenced and in airplane mode, I hope!), don’t check it during the show.
• Don’t take pictures during the performance.
• Don’t video the show or any part of it (unless you are invited to do so by someone onstage).
• If you look at your phone before or after the show, it’s best to dim your screen so it doesn’t blind people, especially if the theatre lights are somewhat dim. On most smartphones, this can be accomplished by swiping down from the top and adjusting the slider to the left.
• If you absolutely must have your phone on during the show (for example, if you are in the medical field and need to be on call), you may want to speak to an usher for guidance, as different theatres have varying policies on that. If you must take a call, at least exit the theatre and take it in the lobby. (If that is the case, you may want to request an aisle seat so you don’t have to squeeze past people.)
• While it is difficult to read your program in the dark, don’t use your phone or a flashlight to read it during the show.

Other Noises

• Avoid correcting pronunciation or other mistakes under your breath. You might be surprised how far your voice carries. (See above.)
• If you know how the show ends, avoid mentioning spoilers.
• Don’t talk during the show. This includes excited comments when someone you know walks onstage, wondering what just happened, less-than-complimentary comments on a performer you dislike, loudly deciding you dislike the hairstyle of the person in front of you, etc. Save the RiffTrax for Mystery Science Theater 3000.
• Get plenty of rest before the show, as your fellow audience members don’t need to be treated to snores.
• Do not recite or sing along, unless you are at a rock concert or you are invited to sing along. People came to hear the people onstage sing and act, not you.
• Laugh and clap at appropriate times. If you feel the need to laugh during a scene that would make most people cry, at least try to keep it quiet so it doesn’t ruin others’ experience.

Consideration of Others

• Don’t wear tall hats or beehive hairstyles, as it can obstruct the view of people behind you.
• If you must use perfume or cologne, please use it in moderation, as strong smells can dampen others’ experience.
• Keep your feet off the backs of the seats ahead of you, and avoid hitting them with your knees or anything else.
• Once the show starts, do not stand up unless there’s an emergency, or a standing ovation is warranted during the bows.
• Try to keep bathroom trips to before the show, during intermission, or after the show.
• Don’t use laser pointers. In fact, don’t bring them to the show.
• If you see an outlet on the stage, do not go up and try to charge your phone. (Unlikely this will happen, but I did read an article once about it happening!)

Dress

• Dress appropriately. Different theatres have different policies on this, so you may want to call ahead if in doubt. This also varies depending on what you are going to see. A high school production would be a much more casual occasion than, say, an opera.

Food

• Check your theatre’s policy before bringing outside food in. Most theatres don’t allow it.
• Avoid opening candy wrappers during the show, or eating said candy while holding the wrapper.
• Avoid crunchy food, such as chips. People around you don’t need to hear *crunch crunch crunch* when they’re trying to listen to the show. (They can also be crumbly and make a mess.)
• Avoid greasy or messy food, including soda (pop, Coke, soft drinks, whatever you call it where you live) that can spill and make for a sticky floor. If your hands are messy from eating greasy food before the show, wash them before entering the theatre.

After the Show

• Avoid booing a person’s performance, unless they played a villain and their character’s personality warrants it. In that case, boo the character, not the performance.
• If you aren’t planning on keeping your program or Playbill, give it to an usher. This cuts down on clutter, and if it’s in good enough condition, they can reuse it. (This can also cut down on costs for the theatre.)
• Take your trash with you. The people who have to clean up after the show will thank you.
• After leaving the theatre, avoid discussing spoilers, as passersby may be planning to see the next show and don’t need to know yet how the show ends. You can always discuss that in the car or at home when you know everyone around has seen it.

Stage Door

• If you do stage door, be patient as the actors often have to remove makeup and costumes before meeting people.
• Respect the actors and fellow people in line at the stage door.
• If the actor you were hoping to meet doesn’t come out, don’t take it personally. Perhaps they had a particularly exhausting performance and need to rest up for the next one.
• Don’t crowd the actors.
• Don’t spend too much time with an actor, as others are also waiting to talk to them. Pay attention to any restrictions on signatures and pictures.
• You may want to check with the theatre ahead of time whether they have a policy on gifts for the actors. While it is thoughtful and may mean a lot to the actor, they sometimes get mountains of gifts and then don’t know what to do with them.
• Basically, as much as you may admire them, remember the actors are human and need to be treated as such. (That’s sometimes easy to forget when someone is particularly talented.)

To sum up, all of this can be consolidated into two words: Be respectful!

Enjoy the show, and do what you can to help others enjoy it!

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I wrote this in October 2019 for the All Things Broadway blog, which is no longer online.

Theatre Etiquette, Part 1: Putting on the Ritz!

“Hello?”

RING RING!!

This is what happens when the person doing the sound effects is so enthralled with the stellar acting in John Olive’s The Voice of the Prairie that he forgets he is supposed to trigger the sound cue for the telephone, causing the actors to have to ad lib until they finally answer the silent phone because the show must go on. It is only then that the sound guy jumps and presses the button to make the phone ring. After the character has answered the phone. Embarrassing? Absolutely! If you haven’t guessed, that sound guy was me. For actors, crew members and everyone else putting on a show, it pays to remember your cues!

When putting on a show, it is important to follow some guidelines that will help to create a memorable experience for the people who will be paying to see your show. I thought it might be useful to include some of those here to help future productions. Some of these may seem obvious to some, but not to others.

Directors and Producers

• Congratulations! You have chosen a show to put on! Have you secured the rights? Be sure to review the contract carefully and abide by the terms. Shows have been cancelled by the rights holders in the past because people didn’t read the terms and didn’t know the laws well enough.
• Don’t make changes to the script without permission from the playwright or rights holders. This includes cutting songs, removing swear words, rearranging scenes, and any other changes you might want to make. Depending on your situation (for example, a school putting on a play that includes swear words in the script), there may be good reason to make minor tweaks, but it is essential to get permission before doing so. The artist wrote it the way they did for a reason, and they need a say in any tweaks in the script. If you don’t want to seek permission, or if the permission is denied and it is important enough to you, you may do better to choose a different show. Arranging videos of the performances also falls under this area. If you want to the show recorded, be sure you have permission from the copyright owners first (and pay any additional royalties if they require that for recording it). This also sometimes includes when you are allowed to announce the show you are doing.
• Respect your cast and crew. They are here to bring your vision (and the playwright’s vision) to the stage. As you know, blocking involves telling actors where to step, how to move, etc. Sound and light cues need to come in a precise part of the show and spot on the stage. You need to be able to give more precise instructions than you would in other situations, but it is important that the cast and crew not feel micromanaged. There is a balance between encouraging actors’ creative juices and overregulating and over-criticizing. When you give stage notes, be sure you aren’t coming across as upset that they did something wrong, or that they are in trouble. The more respectful you are to the actors and crew members, the more they will respect you and be willing to take direction.
• Though rehearsals can run late for various reasons, be conscious of the time and needs of your cast and crew. If rehearsal runs too late, it can affect other parts of their lives, and they (and you) may have trouble staying awake the following day! Tiredness can also lead to tempers flaring. 
• Take into account dietary needs of everyone in the show. Since it is common to have food at rehearsals and cast parties, it would be a shame for someone to have to leave the show because they accidentally ate something they were allergic to. (For that matter, avoid having messy food backstage during the run of the show. For example, banana peels on a dark floor backstage could be a recipe for disaster.)

Cast and Crew

• Remember that theatrical communities are often tight-knit, and theatre groups communicate with each other. Don’t get blacklisted with one company, as other companies may find out and blacklist you as well. You may never be told, but you may suddenly find yourself having a lot of difficulty being cast in a show. (Of course, there are plenty of other reasons you might have trouble being cast, but that is an important one.) 
• Let your creative juices flow, but don’t take it personally when your director tells you to change something in the way you portray your character.
• Listen to and do what your director and stage manager tell you. Even if you don’t like a stage direction, be willing to make changes in the way you portray a character if told to do so. Inability to take directions is a surefire way of being blacklisted, and even dismissed from a show on occasion.
• Be careful how you talk to and about others in the production. Badmouthing others is another way to be blacklisted.
• Remember your cues. This may mean marking up your script with reminders. (If the script doesn’t belong to you, be sure to use pencil!) After my mistake I mentioned earlier, I made notes in my script every page for several pages back, “Phone coming in ten pages”… “Phone coming in nine pages”… etc. I also highlighted and circled the sound cue. (My script belonged to me.) Whatever works for you so that you remember, be sure you do that.
• Memorize your lines. There are various techniques for doing this, and it might behoove you to talk to more experienced actors, or your director, if that is an issue. It can be embarrassing when you are standing onstage and you forget your lines. At that point, you don’t have the option of saying, “Line?” I speak from experience.
• Do not give stage notes or suggestions to fellow actors. That is the job of the director and stage manager. If you have ideas to improve someone’s performance (or correct an error you notice), by all means talk to the stage manager about it. But do not talk to the actor in question. That said, you will want to keep the suggestions to the stage manager in moderation, because you also don’t want to be a pest. You want others to see you as helpful, not arrogant.
• Maintain a certain amount of humility. It is good to be proud of your talent, but you don’t want to come across like Carlotta in The Phantom of the Opera, looking down on others in the production and treating them as less than you.
• If you see another person’s prop backstage, do not touch it. Props are where they are so they will be handy when the actor who needs it can take it onstage. If a person’s prop isn’t on the prop table at the moment they need it, that could cause serious issues onstage.
• Don’t take your props, costumes or makeup home during the run of the show. If you forget to bring it to a performance, you may be out of luck. They need to stay at the theatre so they are there when you need them.
• Turn off your phones, or at least put them in airplane mode and make sure they are silenced. Let’s just say your show is set in ancient Greece. Unless archaeologists discover something heretofore unknown, the ancient Greeks did not have cell phones, and it would ruin the ambiance for a phone to start ringing backstage. (Well, I wouldn’t put some shenanigans past Apollo, but that’s another matter.) Even in shows set in modern times, a phone at the wrong time can disrupt a show.
• Keep talk backstage to a minimum and as quiet as possible. The audience should not be able to hear it, and depending on the theatre where you are performing, you might be surprised how much the audience can hear. In fact, as a general rule of thumb, if it is typically mentioned in the pre-show instructions to the audience (turn off your phones, don’t talk during the show, don’t open candy wrappers during the show, no filming or photography, etc.), follow those directions backstage as well. This is also important because actors need to be able to hear what is going on onstage, so they don’t miss their cues.
• If you make a mistake onstage, just go with it. Making it look like you intended to do that is an important skill to master. Wincing or breaking character is worse than making the mistake in the first place, and if you recover right, the audience may never know you did anything wrong. (When you get offstage, you may want to make a note in your script or take other measures to avoid that mistake in future performances.) If a fellow actor makes a mistake that affects someone else, cover for them. But stay in character!
• Remember the fourth wall. You can’t see it, but there is an imaginary wall that separates you from the audience. Unless the script calls for it (such as for certain parts of Into the Woods, Jersey Boys and others), it looks far less convincing when you try to make eye contact with the audience. For the duration of the show, your world is onstage. That said, avoid having your back to the audience, unless the script and/or your director calls for it.
• If you have a matinee and evening show in the same day, avoid leaving the theatre or taking unnecessary risks between performances. If the unexpected were to happen (such as a car accident or the like), that could negatively affect the rest of the run, and it wouldn’t be pleasant for you.
• If you do stage door or are otherwise able to greet audience members after the show, follow your director’s instructions. Some directors allow the actors to leave the stage and greet their friends, family and fans right away. Others require actors to change and remove makeup before doing so. Since this varies between theatre groups, you will want to clarify that with your director if they don’t mention it before the show.
• While pranks can be fun during the final performance, make sure they aren’t noticeable to the audience. They paid to see the same show you’ve done throughout the run, with the same quality. If your director tells you not to do pranks the final performance, don’t do them!
• To quote J.K. Rowling, #KeeptheSecrets. Promoting your production is great, but don’t give spoilers to people who aren’t involved, as that can affect how people seeing it for the first time appreciate the show.
• Under no circumstances should you say the name of the Scottish Play (unless you are performing said play) or tell anyone “Good luck” in the theatre! It would be a shame to have to delay a show because you had to go outside, spin around 3 times, spit, curse, and then have to knock on the theatre door to be allowed back in! Best to avoid the “M” word and tell everyone to break a leg instead. Theatre superstitions are very important!

Most important: Enjoy yourself! Pulling off a show successfully is an exhilarating feeling and something to be intensely proud of. It’s a lot of hard work, but it’s worth it.

Break a leg!

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I wrote this in September 2019 for the All Things Broadway blog, which is no longer online.