219 posts
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Post by PalelyLaura on Apr 27, 2017 10:37:45 GMT
Normally I hate it (except for immersive theatre, when it's expected). However, at the end of Moby Dick at the Union the cast were getting people to stand up and dance. I'd enjoyed the show so much that I was in a really great mood and was happy to join in!
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Post by Deleted on Apr 27, 2017 10:43:25 GMT
Normally I hate it (except for immersive theatre, when it's expected). However, at the end of Moby Dick at the Union the cast were getting people to stand up and dance. I'd enjoyed the show so much that I was in a really great mood and was happy to join in! Oh God the enforced 'get up and dance' at some musicals makes me want to make a slightly rude early exit (however if you're in the mood it can be fun!!)
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Post by Deleted on Apr 27, 2017 10:54:45 GMT
Oh if we are talking finale audience participation of up and dance, I cannot tell a lie, I am usually the first one twerking in the aisle.
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816 posts
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Post by stefy69 on Apr 27, 2017 10:55:01 GMT
Normally I hate it (except for immersive theatre, when it's expected). However, at the end of Moby Dick at the Union the cast were getting people to stand up and dance. I'd enjoyed the show so much that I was in a really great mood and was happy to join in! Oh God the enforced 'get up and dance' at some musicals makes me want to make a slightly rude early exit (however if you're in the mood it can be fun!!) Oh gosh yes ! that's one of those times when suddenly root canal surgery becomes oddly appealing....
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Post by Deleted on Apr 27, 2017 10:57:44 GMT
Oh if we are talking finale audience participation of up and dance, I cannot tell a lie, I am usually the first one twerking in the aisle. Darling you're probably twerking up the aisle (and onto the stage WELL before then)
But yes the dreaded 'megamix' moment...
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Post by Honoured Guest on Apr 27, 2017 11:09:49 GMT
In the finale of Hair at the Hope Mill (and soon to be in London) the cast invite the audience to get up and dance. Ha! That has reminded me of a solo show I saw at Chapter by Annie Sprinkle, performance artist and former porn film star. The show culminated with a general invitation to the audience to come onstage, take off all their clothes and engage in any sexual activity that they chose, while being filmed. To encourage us, two prepared volunteers, one male and one female, popped on to the stage to kick things off as she was asking us. Annie Sprinkle seemed genuinely crestfallen when no one in the audience took up the offer because her show should really have made us all open to this public experience. It was a good show though!
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Post by Deleted on Apr 27, 2017 11:20:17 GMT
Normally I hate it (except for immersive theatre, when it's expected). However, at the end of Moby Dick at the Union the cast were getting people to stand up and dance. I'd enjoyed the show so much that I was in a really great mood and was happy to join in! Oh God the enforced 'get up and dance' at some musicals makes me want to make a slightly rude early exit (however if you're in the mood it can be fun!!) If I'd known Sunny Afternoon was going to end with a megamix, I'd have left at the interval.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 27, 2017 11:30:20 GMT
Oh God the enforced 'get up and dance' at some musicals makes me want to make a slightly rude early exit (however if you're in the mood it can be fun!!) If I'd known Sunny Afternoon was going to end with a megamix, I'd have left at the interval. Didn't it also go on for what felt like another three days after that or am I imagining it?
Fun (spoiler not fun) story related to that. I injured my leg really badly on the way to the theatre- I wiped out on a kerb near Leicester Square and was in agonising pain the entire performance, and COULDN'T stand up and join in the frivolity even if I wanted to. So I basically sat, wincing, while people danced to Waterloo Sunset around me for 10 minutes.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 27, 2017 11:38:54 GMT
I must admit, other tha the megamix style endings of shows, I have rarely been to an audience participation show, in London especially. Other than Play That Goes Wrong and Jest End of course.
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18,845 posts
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Post by BurlyBeaR on Apr 27, 2017 11:42:46 GMT
The audience participation at Priscilla would make me want to curl up and die, however. This female member of the chorus tried to pull me on stage for the act 2 opener and I just wedged myself into the seat (not difficult!) so she was literally pulling and tugging at my arm trying to get me up with me just sat there totally immovable shaking my head. It must have looked hilarious. She was about 4'11" and teeny I'm 6'3" and err.. not! I felt a bit sorry for her because they have very little time to find a victim and she wasted it all on me. In the end she did that "aaaaargh" thing with her hands in her hair and literally pleaded with the folk around me "Pleeeeeaaaaaase!" until some gullible fool got up. I felt all hot after
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Post by d'James on Apr 27, 2017 11:45:30 GMT
The audience participation at Priscilla would make me want to curl up and die, however. This female member of the chorus tried to pull me on stage for the act 2 opener and I just wedged myself into the seat (not difficult!) so she was literally pulling and tugging at my arm trying to get me up with me just sat there totally immovable shaking my head. It must have looked hilarious. She was about 4'11" and teeny I'm 6'3" and err.. not! I felt a bit sorry for her because they have very little time to find a victim and she wasted it all on me. In the end she did that "aaaaargh" thing with her hands in her hair and literally pleaded with the folk around me "Pleeeeeaaaaaase!" until some gullible fool got up. I felt all hot after I know. I stupidly forgot about that part and when I went a second time I sat at the end of a row in the Stalls (well it wasn't the end of the row but there was no one between me and the end). When they started coming into the audience I clenched everything started feeling hot and sick, but thankfully they didn't pick me. That sort of thing really is not for me as it's designed to get the audience to laugh at you. Definitely not what I pay for. I don't mind some mega-mixes.
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Post by Honoured Guest on Apr 27, 2017 11:49:55 GMT
I'm usually willing to participate but it was awkward once to have to do jive-type dancing because I'm incapable of it. At the end, the actor quietly apologised and explained that she could tell that no one else in the on-stage audience would have agreed to do it!
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18,845 posts
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Post by BurlyBeaR on Apr 27, 2017 11:50:11 GMT
It's not helped by the fact that they're probably told to pick someone who looks like they'll be "good value" in some way. In other words will look a right numpty doing the dance etc. They're not gonna pick someone who's going to look dead cool up there on stage are they.
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18,845 posts
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Post by BurlyBeaR on Apr 27, 2017 11:51:25 GMT
I'm usually willing to participate but it was awkward once to have to do jive-type dancing because I'm incapable of it. At the end, the actor quietly apologised and explained that she could tell that no one else in the on-stage audience would have agreed to do it! I'd KILL to see a video of that!
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Post by Deleted on Apr 27, 2017 12:02:58 GMT
Loathe it. For all the reasons others have mentioned. I'm terribly shy and hate speaking in any kind of group bigger than about 5 people (and it's taken me years even to do that confidently!). What makes entertainers think I'd be remotely interested in messing about on a stage in front of a crowd?
If I go to comedy gigs, I make sure I sit well out of the danger zone. Same with magic shows (though that can be harder to avoid as they often draw from throughout the room to show there are no stooges). I think with Impossible they mainly asked for volunteers, but could be my memory playing tricks...?
There are some situations where, though I wouldn't want to be picked, I wouldn't curl up and die if I was. Penn and Teller, say, or the Mischief Theatre lot. Their shows are laid back and funny, so you feel the audience laugh with the unsuspecting victim rather than at them.
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2,389 posts
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Post by peggs on Apr 27, 2017 12:14:35 GMT
As a child at panto's was terrified someone was going to drag me onto the stage and that hasn't changed, I like to think I'd be cool but in reality get hit with the feeling of dread and fear. Have been at the Globe quite a lot when someone has been dragged on stage or one time when the whole play stopped until an identified groundling made up a line to say back at someone, I think being short helps in these occasions. I can't even manage to respond when you go to some old stately home or something and they have people dressed up and interacting, in my head I can do a perfectly sane response but actually just look horrified and try and back away.
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279 posts
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Post by fossil on Apr 27, 2017 13:42:31 GMT
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223 posts
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Post by Kim_Bahorel on Apr 27, 2017 15:08:53 GMT
A drama teacher I had said she never sits front row of shows because the cast probably wouldn't like what she might do. One time she sat front row. The cast started giving audience things to hold for later on. She got an apple and to the horror of the actors started to eat it 😂.
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Post by Honoured Guest on Apr 27, 2017 15:23:09 GMT
I sat front row at Protest Song in the NT's Temporary Theatre. I was one of the people who had to deal with the persistent attentions of Rhys Ifans's character. I obviously made an impression on him because after the curtain call he approached me to return the pound coin his character had successfully begged in the show. But it had actually been donated by someone else.
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4,799 posts
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Post by The Matthew on Apr 27, 2017 15:54:29 GMT
I'm OK with minor involvement of the audience if it doesn't involve making me the unwilling centre of attention or leaving me in a position where I don't know what to do. Examples where it's been OK have been things like Cats where the cast come into the house and play with the audience, a production of Salad Days where the cast took the audience to their seats, and one show whose name I forget where one of the cast cooked a pancake on stage and handed it to me to eat (but left me in peace to eat it).
What I absolutely can't stand is when I'm made the centre of attention but don't know exactly what to do, or where I'm expected to do something I don't know how to do or can't do.
Perhaps it's time to retell my Sweeney Todd pie story.
(That's not a "please ask me" comment. I just can't be bothered to type it out right now.)
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196 posts
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Post by rockinrobin on Apr 27, 2017 18:08:32 GMT
I try to avoid it at all costs (whenever I notice that an actor is clearly looking for a "victim" in the audience, I become hugely interested in watching my shoes, the carpet, the ceiling, ANYTHING but not the said actor) but it's not always possible. I was shouted at by an actor at the Globe once - oh, the joys of being a groundling - and when I went to see "Measure for Measure" there, I got a naughty proposal from one of the actors fooling around among the audience before the show. Oh the horror. People around me had great fun though so at least my utter embarrassment made someone smile. And I still enjoy being a groundling.
By the way, I couple of years ago I saw a partially improvised show in my home town. At some point the actors took the handbag of a poor lady sitting in the front row, opened it on stage and started taking all the stuff out - and yes, they were commenting on it all! One of them also had a bite of her sandwich. Other audience members guffawed but the lady was petrified.
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18,845 posts
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Post by BurlyBeaR on Apr 27, 2017 20:09:07 GMT
I sat front row at Protest Song in the NT's Temporary Theatre. I was one of the people who had to deal with the persistent attentions of Rhys Ifans's character. I obviously made an impression on him because after the curtain call he approached me to return the pound coin his character had successfully begged in the show. But it had actually been donated by someone else. Were you wearing that hat? Does anyone still wear a hat?
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60 posts
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Post by skullion on Apr 27, 2017 20:26:24 GMT
Personally I can't imagine anything worse than being dragged up on stage to do something. I'd also like to think that where a production does have an element of this built into it, people should be given an element of choice as to whether they wish to participate and that whatever the interaction is it should be thought through sufficiently as to what happens when it doesn't go the way it's intended to. Reading a comment on the Arturo Ui thread it sounds like the bulk of the audience didn't do what was intended at the end and it all got a bit muddled as a result. Not ideal if people are paying decent money and the thing has fallen apart because they have tried to be a bit too clever.
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376 posts
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Post by sherriebythesea on Apr 27, 2017 20:31:59 GMT
I would have to chug down an incredible amount of wine before performance (which has been known to happen) in order to agree to any participation. Before wine: Hide under seat After wine: Hell yea, let's go for it
I'm usually embarrassed for the person picked as it so often goes really wrong.
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Post by d'James on Apr 27, 2017 20:48:14 GMT
Not fussed either way. If I like the look of what I'm being asked to do, great. If not, I'm fast enough with a line to shut them down. Ooh. Give us some lines to use! (Please.)
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36 posts
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Post by greenice on Apr 27, 2017 21:05:28 GMT
Can't stand it, not what I go to the theatre for. Instead of relaxing and losing myself in the performance I spend the whole time stressed about it. Theatres should make clear it's involved when selling tickets. The only time I left before the interval, shortly after the beginning actually, was at the rsc when Rufus Hound started going through his audience participation routine.
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4,799 posts
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Post by The Matthew on Apr 28, 2017 5:14:12 GMT
Not fussed either way. If I like the look of what I'm being asked to do, great. If not, I'm fast enough with a line to shut them down. Ooh. Give us some lines to use! (Please.) I would imagine that the following would work, if delivered in a voice that brings the word "stentorian" to the mind of every person in the theatre: "F**K!! OFF!!" Doesn't quite work as far as not being the centre of attention is concerned, but probably effective.
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Post by Jan on Apr 28, 2017 5:59:22 GMT
At some point the actors took the handbag of a poor lady sitting in the front row, opened it on stage and started taking all the stuff out - and yes, they were commenting on it all! That used to be part of Michael Barrymore's routine. After his problems he tried to make a comeback and in his first show back he got a woman up on stage and did the same thing, tipped her handbag out on stage - she was genuinely furious and shouted at him to put it all back in immediately which shamefacedly he did, pretty much killed his comeback right there.
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Post by Deleted on Apr 28, 2017 9:13:53 GMT
Participate?
Not while I'm alive, possibly not even after I've died.
You don't pop in for an operation and expect the surgeon to ask you to do the sutures do you? I wouldn't ask my barrister to park their backside while I gave the summation.
Obviously if you've paid for that kind of thing, enjoy and good luck, I'll be in the bar with my book
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Post by Deleted on Apr 28, 2017 9:26:57 GMT
Rocky Horror.......I have been going to it for years....I LOVE it! Dragged my partner for the first time last year, even though he had voiced on numerous occasions he didn't want to go as he doesn't like audience participation....Cut to the end of the show, EVERY single audience member apart from one are on their feet doing the timewarp.....All except one, my fiancé......FRONT ROW AND CENTRE!! Stony faced, arms folded, he was having none of it. Even the cast were looking at him......
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