Broadway legend and mobile phone etiquette champion Patti Lupone has struck once again! The diva literally snatched a smartphone from a texting audience member's hand during a performance of her latest play Shows For Days.
The proverbial ink hadn't even dried on our recent article recalling the famous onstage antics of Broadway diva extraordinaire Lupone—when faced with rude audience members disturbing her performances with their disruptive smartphone use—when the legendary diva suddenly struck again in her greatest hit so far.
As you may recall, earlier this week we were reminded of Patti's previous classic anti-cellphone smackdowns when a clueless audience member of the Broadway show Hand To God literally jumped onto the stage and attempted to plug his smartphone into a fake outlet on the set. The shocking scenario had us wondering, "What would Patti do?" had she been a member of that Broadway cast and confronted with such unbelievably ignorant and uncivilized behavior.
Well, it didn't take long to find out, as the stars magically aligned only days later and presented us with another Patti-actionable mobile violation. During a performance of Lupone's latest Broadway vehicle Shows For Days, the testy diva noticed a woman in the audience texting throughout practically the entire first act.
In the show, Patti regularly walks into the audience and shakes the hands of a random audience member as the first half curtain drops, but in this case, she snatched the phone from the impolite woman's hand and, amazingly remaining in character the entire time, walked off with the stunned audience member's device to audience cheers. The humiliated SMS violator had to sheepishly retrieve her handset from the stage manager at the end of the show.
Lupone later echoed the sentiments of most of the theatergoing world when she explained: "We work hard onstage to create a world that is being totally destroyed by a few, rude, self-absorbed and inconsiderate audience members who are controlled by their phones ... When a phone goes off or when a LED screen can be seen in the dark, it ruins the experience for everyone else."
Having now completed a troika of spectacular civility-saving smackdowns, Lupone now ranks not only as a legendary and iconic stage performer, but also as a bona fide Broadway superhero, courageously keeping the Great White Way safe from barbaric crimes upon manners and respect.
