Respect For Performers

This has nothing to do with law. I'm just tired of audience members being so rude.

I'm talking to you, parents of student musicians at James Madison Memorial High School in Madison, Wisconsin. It is not OK to take cell phone calls during the concert. It is not OK to text during the concert. (Did you ever notice that the screen on your phone glows at roughly the same wattage as the Times Square marquee?) It is not OK to march down to your seat in the middle of a selection or a scene.

It is not OK to help your other child with her math homework, during the concert. And the babies and toddlers? Bringing them along isn't fair to them, or to the performers, or to the other audience members.

Didn't anyone ever teach you that when you attend a performance it is your job to sit there, pay attention and shut up?

More importantly: if you never learned, how are your kids going to learn? We're devolving into a rude, thoughtless society of self-centered boors. Nice legacy, parents. It's bad enough our kids have to fight to even have art, music and drama in school. They work and practice; they produce and share truly amazing gifts of art -- and you behave like neanderthals.

And not so fast, high brow audience members of the Madison Symphony Orchestra in Overture Hall in Madison, Wisconsin. You aren't much better. Shut up! That goes for your comments and your candy wrappers and snapping your gum. You are an embarrassment and an annoyance and quite frankly you are a major contributor to the decline in attendance at classical performances.

Those who wish to "save" the performing arts should focus some attention on audience education.