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Theatre Etiquette

Public Domain / Wikimedia Commons

We are lucky to live in a city that supports a number and a variety of theatres—whether you’re looking for burlesque or stand-up comedy, children’s shows or improv, musical or opera, tragedy or comedy, melodrama or revue, professional or student or community, the chances are good you can find it on stage in Wichita.

And of the literally hundreds of crew members, cast members, administration and staff who are hard at work at producing entertainment for us, a very few are paid to do this work. And it is hard work, done mostly out of love for the art.

One way you can show your appreciation is by being a good audience member. Don’t come late to a show; the players are trying to establish a place and time outside of reality and your late entrance jars that effort. Make certain your cell phone is off and don’t text during the show. You may think you are being unobtrusive, but even the small light you are creating is distracting to the players and the other audience members. It is also impolite.

Please do introduce your children to theatre, but make sure the shows are appropriate to their level of understanding and behavior. And of course, don’t talk to each other during a performance.

In other words, be considerate of the entertainers, who work so hard for free, and be considerate to the other patrons, who’ve paid their money to see live theatre. It is worth every penny.

Sanda Moore Coleman received an MFA in creative writing from Wichita State University in 1991. Since then, she has been the arts and community editor for The Martha's Vineyard Times, a teaching fellow at Harvard University, and an assistant editor at Image. In 2011, she received the Maureen Egan Writers Exchange prize for fiction from Poets & Writers magazine. She has spent more than 30 years performing, reviewing, and writing for theatre.