Don't piss off Patti LuPone while she's performing.
The two-time Tony Award winner was onstage in Shows for Days at the Lincoln Center in New York City on Wednesday night when she noticed an audience member engrossed in a cell phone. That was enough for the actress to stop, mid-performance, and take the phone right out of the audience member's hand.
Several eyewitnesses tweeted about the performer's soon to be iconic phone snatch.
[seealso slug="charging-iphone-on-broadway-stage"]
PATTI LUPONE TOOK SOMEONE'S PHONE MID-SHOW BECAUSE THEY WERE TEXTING
— Travis (@heytravistravis) July 9, 2015
#showsfordays Patti Lupone stole a phone that some girl was texting on. As of curtain call, not sure it was returned. #legendary
— stephanie tipon catu (@HeyCatu) July 9, 2015
The actress soon afterward released a statement about the ordeal:
"We work hard on stage 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. They cannot put them down. When a phone goes off or when a LED screen can be seen in the dark it ruins the experience for everyone else -- the majority of the audience at that performance and the actors on stage. I am so defeated by this issue that I seriously question whether I want to work on stage anymore." she said. "Now I'm putting battle gear on over my costume to marshal the audience as well as perform."
It's common theater etiquette for patrons to turn off their phones, or at least put them on silent and out of sight, before the curtain rises. Because of this latest incident, LuPone is now questioning the future of her theater career.
You hear that, texting audience member? You might be the reason a legend like LuPone quits the stage for good.
This incident follows a similarly foolish phone-related event at a recent Broadway performance of Hand to God. An audience member desperate to charge his iPhone jumped onstage and tried to plug it into an outlet on the set...without realizing the outlet was a fake prop.
LuPone and phones have tangled before as well: In 2009, LuPone famously stopped performing mid-song to yell at a theatergoer who was taking her picture.