To Prevent Cellphone Charging and Bathroom Breaks, Make Them Viral

Chris Peterson

In the next 24 hours, you're going to hear an outrageous story about how a woman walked onto a stage of a musical, looking for the bathroom....in the middle of the show. 

The woman managed to walk onto the stage during Signature Theatre’s performance of "The Fix" on Saturday night. The woman exited through an onstage door, making her way to the backstage area, according to Playbill.com.

Actress Christine Sherrill was waiting to make her entrance when the door suddenly opened the wrong way. The woman asked Sherrill, "Where is the bathroom? I have to pee," Playbill reported.

Now while it has been reported that the woman was indeed intoxicated, we can file this one under another incident of bad audience behavior during live theatre. 

Part of me would like to give some of these people the benefit of the doubt. For instance in this case, the Signature Theatre is an arena stage. So the floor you walk on to enter the theater, is the stage (see below). So theoretically, in the dark, drunk, I can realistically see someone mistaking backstage for an exit to the lobby.

Arlington's Signature Theatre

And while incidents like these annoy and stupefy us, the only way we can prevent them in the future is to keep making these incidents go viral. 

With the amount of attention that the Hand to God and Patti LuPone incidents received, one can only hope that the viral discussion at least raised awareness that behavior like that, isn't tolerated in live theatre. 

So just like public safety, if you see something, say something. If you see an unruly audience member pulling a stunt like this, tell everyone you know about it. Take a pic, record a video, do whatever you can to spread the word. 

The hope is that when people see how these folks are ridiculed for their actions, maybe they'll leave their phones in the car and visit the restrooms before the show begins.