Why Has Audience Behavior Gotten So Bad?
by Chris Peterson
We tell audiences to silence their phones, stop taking photos, and remember that the actors can see them. And still, the phones come out, the conversations continue, and the candy wrappers are opened with the delicate restraint of a raccoon in a dumpster.
Lately, there have been some notable and shocking incidents involving audience behavior in theatres on Broadway and even the West End.
At Just in Time, Isa Briones criticized audience members for shouting references to The Pitt while she was onstage. At Beaches, Jessica Vosk described a “super fan” getting backstage and into the dressing-room area. In London, Cynthia Erivo stopped a performance of Dracula after reportedly spotting someone filming. These incidents differ, but they share the same confusion: audience members forget (or never knew) where the boundary is.
The easy explanation is that attention, fandom, phones, and consumer entitlement have all changed the way people behave in public.
Theatre is one of the last places in life where you are asked, plainly and without apology, not to be the center of attention, and this has sadly become a big ask of people in 2026.
However, this is not only a theatre problem. Pew Research Center found that 47% of U.S. adults believe public behavior has become ruder since the COVID-19 pandemic, and 34% say they almost always or often see people behaving rudely in public.
Phones are the most obvious villain, but this is not just about phones. Nearly every audience member walks in with a device that has trained them to document, share, react, and turn private experience into public proof. Theatre says, “Be present.” The phone says, “Prove you were here.”
Fandom has made the situation even more complicated. Broadway has always had stars, but social media has created a new illusion of intimacy. We see enough rehearsal videos, dressing rooms, pets, and closing-night tears to feel close, but feeling close is not the same as knowing someone.
Following an actor on Instagram does not make you friends, and loving someone’s work does not give you the right to shout at them, film them, follow them, or enter the private spaces where they are trying to do their job.
Performers are not theme-park characters, but they are sadly treated as such. In a 2025 Bectu survey of theatre and live-events workers, 31% said they had personally experienced antisocial behavior, violence, aggression, or harassment from an audience member in the previous year; among front-of-house staff, the figure was 77%. Bad audience behavior is not just annoying; it is a labor issue and a safety issue.
Money is part of this, too. When people spend hundreds of dollars, some begin to confuse buying a ticket with buying control of their experience.
Let us clarify something important: you bought a seat. You did not buy the show. You did not buy the actor, the right to sing along unless invited, permission to film, or control over the room.
The answer is not to make theatre colder or more elitist. Not every sound is bad behavior, and theatre should not require a finishing-school diploma. But it does require respect for the performers, the staff, and the people around you.
A live performance depends on hundreds of strangers entering a room, sitting in the dark, looking in the same direction, and agreeing to listen. In a world that encourages everyone to brand, broadcast, and narrate themselves, the theatre asks for something almost embarrassingly simple: be present.
You can love something without owning it. You can admire a performer without demanding access to them. You can be part of an audience without becoming the main character. You can have an experience that matters even if no one online sees it. That is the contract. It’s time we remembered that again in all walks of life, especially in theatre.