Audience Etiquette Quotes

I don't like to watch golf on television because I can't stand people who whisper.

You can't get down and dirty at the opera.

I loathe hecklers. I haven't got a good syllable to say. When you come out of the club circuit and into the concert hall, they should be gone. There's an element of manners that should tell you that the ticket is dear and it's a different venue.

Don't clap I'm not a jazz band for Christ's sake.

I heckled somebody at the U.S. Open once. And you know, tennis, it's not a good place for that.

Behind the proscenium arch, you can't always hear what people in the audience are saying.

Coughing in the theater is not a respiratory ailment. It is a criticism.

After years in white theaters I dreaded working in colored houses. The noise, the stomping, whistling, and cheering that hadn't annoyed me when I was young was now something I dreaded.

I hate it when I see people texting at a show. And talking to each other. They're at a performance; they should respect the performer.

If there were no rules about when to applaud, we in the audience would have the right response almost always.

What most infuriates me is the cell phones. If I see someone texting during the show, I walk off the stage.

I've been an audience member for friends in plays that I don't enjoy and I have to lie to their faces. It's just part of that lifestyle unfortunately, especially in New York.

Many actors have protested about mobile phones going off in theatres, but the real menace now is people texting during a show. It may only disturb a few people around them, but for me, as an actor, when I spot them answering their emails, I am outraged.

When I directed the 'Ring' cycle at the Metropolitan Opera in New York recently, there were people texting all through the show. But theatre isn't a communication device: it's a communion.

It's fine with me if people want to applaud between movements of a concerto. It doesn't bother me - it's part of performance experience.

Sometimes, occasionally, people will make out in the audience, completely not aware that there's a human being onstage just yards away from them, who can see them. Sometimes people think that you're on television while you're onstage, so you're not even a person.

I feel like people used to leave their homes and go to their local theatre, and they used to watch ballet dancers and musical theatre performers and tap dancers and orchestras and dog acts. You had to leave your home, be in the presence of other people, know how to behave, and enjoy the human being whose beating heart was in front of you.

At a music hall, I'll get upset if someone coughs or if someone's cellphone goes off.

Even if you don't like a concert of mine, please, please applaud at the end anyway.

You know, a lot of people are loath to go to an orchestral concert because they are intimidated by the thought.

Using telephones, they would be so intrusive and would really disrupt the show.

I like babies, but not in the front row. I don't want to sing directly to a baby.

We always had chocolates and my mother was careful to make sure they were unwrapped in advance so the paper wouldn't rustle in the middle of a performance.

I went off at a person who threw a plastic thing at one of my shows once. After I shamed them, I realised it was a little lipstick and felt bad for days.