Say goodbye, cell phone!
National Review blogger and theater critic Kevin Williamson raises an issue that especially interests me, as part of the management of a professional theater company. How far can an audience member ethically go to quite a persistently rude and disruptive spectator who insists on using her cell phone during a performance? Here’s how far Williamson went while viewing the musical Natasha, Pierre, and the Great Comet of 1812 that a woman was in the process of ruining for him, after he complained to the management without success and received this series of responses from the woman:
“I asked her to turn it off. She answered: “So don’t look.” I asked her whether I had missed something during the very pointed announcements to please turn off your phones, perhaps a special exemption granted for her. She suggested that I should mind my own business.”
Williamson then grabbed the phone from her and hurled it against the wall. She slapped him, and complained. He, not she, was then escorted from the theater.
Let’s stipulate that hurling the phone was over the line. But let’s suppose that he had just confiscated the phone, walked into the lobby, and hidden it in a planter, promising to reveal the hiding place after the performance (having already failed to police the situation as was their duty, Williamson can not be blamed for bypassing management).
Your Ethics Alarms Ethics Quiz Question:
Ethics Alarms 