Standing ovation in a theatre

I've experienced this in every show I've seen in the last two years. As a wheelchair user it's extremely selfish and frustrating.

I love a standing ovation! It makes me quite emotional actually.

How are standing ovations new?! I do a lot of performing (very rarely professionally) and standing ovations from the audience make the cast and crew's night. It feels amazing to bow to an audience on their feet for what we have all created. I can still remember my first one (as Marta in a local am dram production of The Sound of Music in th early 90s 😆).

I'm a little mean with my standing ovations as an audience member because I do agree that they should be for 'out of the ordinary' performances, not every show. But that's of course subjective. For example, looking upthread, I completely agree Operation Mincemeat, Standing at the Sky's Edge and Benjamin Button were exceptional and hugely deserved standing ovations. But II completely disagree with this:
2:22 is a very simple and not particularly challenging play, and has always gone for crowd-pleasing celebrity casts of former pop stars, minor soap actors and similar types with limited or no previous stage acting experience. Hence it attracts a certain audience who are not regular theatre goers, and are just hysterical at seeing a certain ‘celebrity’ on stage
I don't know who was in it when I saw it (nobody I recognised) but it really stayed with me. I found it gripping and the ending felt like someone had punched me. I loved it. And definitely gave it a standing ovation. But of course the same show, to someone else, gets a view like the above. So there can't be a right or wrong with what deserves standing ovations, just personal taste.

Urgh, as a very regular concert-goer standing ovations drive me crazy.

Sat through a hugely boring rendition of Mahler 2, I don't know one person there who wasn't wishing for it to be over already, and just like that everyone is standing to applaud at the end. I didn't want to look like an absolute Scrooge so also stood. No one can see the stage when everyone is standing, so you lose interest in the applause anyway. Rude, rude, rude.

But if the lights had come up, surely you were about to stand up to leave anyway, so you could just look past the person in front, look at the cast and then leave? You were going to have to stand anyway, I'm not sure it matters it was a minute or so earlier than you might have preferred.

But yes, most performances have standing ovations now.

It’s been a “thing” for years now - I saw Cats, Phantom and Les Mis in the 90’s and they all had a standing ovation at the end. More recently saw Six and that had one too 🤷‍♀️

I'm still confused at to why people want to be able to see the cast for 5 more minutes after seeing them for 2h.

First time I remember it was at Joseph and his dream coat over 30 years ago.

👏😂

I hate standing ovations. So unnecessary and it means only the people on the front row can actually see the cast at that point. Everyone else - especially if you remain seated - has to look at the back of the person in front

Oh no he doesn’t

Actually, i think ive got that wrong - lights coming on means the house lights - i was thinking stage lights .
I can still see why it was annoying though.

It is now you’ve pointed it out. But the use of smalls twice in one post, when I didn’t know what the op meant in the first instance, confused me somewhat.

An ovation at the end of a great show I can understand, and yes, it's a nice thing to do for the cast - but the OP said this was at the start of the performance
"As soon as the lights came on about 3/4 of the audience stood to clap"
I quite agree with her that this is not usual, and really annoying! Not everyone can stand, or wants to, and those behind were unable to see the start of the play. It's just selfish and bad mannered.
And dont get me started on the phones...

I go to the theatre quite a lot. I'm finding that it's less common than it was immediately post COVID. There was a time when people stood up for every play because they were so glad to have theatre again. It's calmed down over the last couple of years.

Unfortunately once a few rows stand everyone has to stand in order to see the curtain call.

Seriously?? Unbelievable

was this at the beginning or end of the show? You mention as soon as the lights came up, which happens when a play starts, but also happens when a show ends and when the cast take a bow. A standing ovation isn’t a new thing, although I’ve only been to a a few shows which has had them; thespians come out on stage a couple at a time, audience claps, finally the full troop are on stage, clapping is more exuberant and audience stands (if it’s been an exceptional performance). To be fair I haven’t been to the theatre for some years.

I'm not anti-American if you're referring to my comment on voice. If an actor is an American, crack on! It's a British cast singing in American accents when it's not a show set in the US that's weird. I went to one show when they were all channelling Ariana grande.

So many snobs and know it alls on this thread. And anti-Americans.

God forbid people might just be happy with the performance and want to express that 🙄

Were you at the Bristol Hippodrome? The seats there are so uncomfortable and tightly squashed that i think everyone ends up in pain sitting through a performance there.

But to answer your point, standing ovations have been a thing forever. Wouldn't you be glad of the opportunity to stand if your tail bone is sore?

Fairly obvious this is a typo for stalls, from the context of a theatre.

There seems to be a trend for a lot of the singing to be very American and nasal in the last few years. I wonder if it's easier on the vocal chords if they haven't learnt proper technique?

haha that’s true - we were at a Broadway show and at the end everyone stood up. I don’t recall that happening in any shows I’ve seen here.

I seem to recall as well that it used to be fine for pockets of the audience to stand up, but it wasn’t done by everyone. Now it seems that you’re the odd one out if you don’t do it. It maybe is because people go to the theatre less often and don’t understand the historical etiquette behind it, because it devalues the gesture if everyone does it for every performance.

Standing ‘ovations’ are really irritating, I want to be able to see the cast at the end, and if someone stands in front of me I cannot see them. Loud clapping, cheering, stamping of feet all ways of showing your appreciation without inconveniencing everyone behind you.

Grump over!