But if you go to a pop concert you don't sit quietly and listen to the professional performers perform their music, people usually clap, sing, shout, dance- I hope anyway. I wonder why musicals performing popular hits that everyone knows the words to are expecting a different reaction?
I'm not excusing rowdy behaviour and I know that generally at a theatre audience participation is not encouraged. But I'm suggesting that perhaps musicals that advertise themselves as a fun night out with friends and try and sell plenty of alcohol should perhaps do what they say on the tin and provide more of a gig/concert type experience? It's not only me who is rethinking this.
https://inews.co.uk/culture/theatre-audiences-behaviour-since-covid-pandemic-fights-takeaways-1787819
Since the pandemic, House Theatre has started to provide a different style of theatre which enhances audience participation and offers outdoor performances.
“This is a chance to look at why we give off an intimidating atmosphere being in the theatre and how we can change that,” said Mr Summers-Mileman.
“Maybe audiences do want to talk and be involved,” he added.
The company tours relaxed performances for children, such as an outdoor production of Shakespeare’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, which includes modern live music to encourage the audience to sing along.
Outdoor performances offer “more freedom” than being in a dark enclosed space, with greater opportunity for “interaction with your friends”, he said.
People complaining about bad audience behaviour is not new, but it has increased since the pandemic, said Dr Sedgman, an expert in audience behaviour who wrote the book The Reasonable Audience.
From surveying hundreds of guides to theatre etiquette she found that discussion of declining audience behaviour correlated with a post-2000s urge for theatres to widen participation.
“That’s led to a rise in productions like jukebox musicals and theatres selling shows as a fun day or night out to people who might have previously thought the theatre is not for them,” said Dr Sedgman.
“The rise in marketing is desperately trying to do a good thing to get more people into the theatre, but it’s potentially not setting them up for the kind of experience that the show itself is inviting,” she added.
Therefore, traditional theatregoers used to “reverent silence” may find themselves sitting with people who came for an “exuberant, sociable experience”, she said.
Perhaps this is more what people want when they go out these days. A more sociable, interactive experience when they go out now that at home, when there is plenty of opportunity to experience dramas and films quietly as a solo experience on devices. Perhaps it's a cultural shift rather than a few people being rowdy.