Isa Briones Calls Out Disruptive Audience Behavior at ‘Just in Time’
(Photo: Heather Gershonowitz)
by Chris Peterson
Reports coming out of Just in Time this week have put the spotlight back on an audience behavior issue that Broadway really should not still be dealing with.
Multiple outlets reported on April 13th that Isa Briones spoke out after a man in the audience shouted “Dr. Santos” at her during a performance, referencing her character from The Pitt while she was on stage in the Broadway musical. Briones joined Just in Time on April 1 in the role of Connie Francis.
And honestly, good for her.
Because the fact that she even had to say anything is ridiculous. This is not some complicated gray area about audience engagement or modern fandom. This is basic theater etiquette.
As Briones put it on social media, “Do not talk to the performers while they are performing on stage.” She also reportedly reminded the audience member that she is “not Dr. Santos” but “Isa Briones, one of the actors in the show you have paid to enjoy.”
That is what makes this so irritating. Somewhere along the way, too many people started treating live performance like a space they get to interrupt just because they recognize someone. A Broadway house is not your living room. It is not a fan convention. It is not a place where shouting out a TV character’s name suddenly becomes charming because you are excited. It is disruptive, self-centered, and unfair to everyone else in the room, including the people on stage trying to do their jobs.
And I think that is the larger issue here. More and more, audiences seem to approach theater with the same habits they bring to the internet. Everything feels interactive. Everything feels like it deserves a response. But live theatre does not work that way. It depends on a very simple agreement. The performers hold the room. The audience respects that space. Once that starts to slip, the entire experience starts to erode.
What Briones said also cuts right to the heart of a problem performers are having to manage more often now. Actors are no longer just expected to perform. They are increasingly being forced to police the room in real time, or at least publicly clean up after it once the curtain comes down. That should not be part of the job. A grown adult should not need to be reminded that yelling at an actor mid-performance is unacceptable.
So yes, Isa Briones was right to call it out. More performers probably should. Because “act like an adult at a Broadway show” really should not need to be restated in 2026, and yet here we are.