I did a summer run of Forever Plaid some years back, and a number of times we could hear people in the audience trying to sing along. It could be very annoying.
But the worst were 2 incidents where overzealous clapping (to the beat of a song) really became untenable. One was a kids' production of The Wizard Of Oz, where indeed the audience was invited to clap along with something like "Ding Dong, The Witch Is Dead," but we had one audience with a school group that then started clapping along with EVERYTHING. We got to "If I Only Had A Heart" and the poor kid singing couldn't compete, and I did something I still can't quite believe I did - I stopped the show. (The band was visible in front, just below the stage.) As gently as I could, I thanked the audience for their involvement, but spoke up for the actors who were working so hard onstage, and suggested that the clapping might be better AFTER the songs, instead of during them. That seemed to work. ;-)
The other time was another school group situation, during "Reviewing The Situation" in Oliver. Whenever the uptempo parts kicked in, this one group just started clapping along. Which was not only disrespectful to the (adult) actor trying to sing the song, but with the tempo changes it was really hard to keep things together. But in this case I was down in the pit and couldn't do anything to stop or control it - we just had to soldier on. It was awful. |
