I still think I should have had the last word in terms of stopping and re-starting the show, esp as we were only a few minutes into it - and am thinking of ways it might have been handled better by all, including me, without hanging up the actors and the audience any more than necessary.
There's only so much you can do short of giving ushers headsets, though. (A bad [and expensive] idea in most circumstances.)
It's not telling you anything you don't already know, I'm sure, but that sounds like a FoH screwup.
It's a very easy bad habit for FoH staff to fall into: you've shut the doors, and someone comes running up frantic to get inside, and the overture hasn't
quite started yet, and the lights are still on, and even though you've had the call, you fudge it and let them in, completely forgetting that it's going to take them 30 seconds to find their seats, mostly because you've had that argument one time too many. ("I'm afraid I won't be able to seat you until late call. It should be in about five minutes. If you'd like to watch on the monitor..." "The show hasn't even started yet! Look, the lights are still on! Why can't I go to my seat?! WHO DO YOU THINK YOU ARE?! I'M A
~*SUBSCRIBER*~! I DEMAND TO SPEAK TO THE MANAGER! HULK SMAAAAAAAAASH!")
The person who throws that kind of fit is also the kind of person who will ignore the usher's instructions and make a beeline for their "rightful" seats, and then... well. Lights go off, curtain goes up, usher can't do anything about it, but
they're still going to their seat, so there, and then...
The best solutions I've come across:
- Have a super-early late call, if at all possible. (I'm talking 60 -180 seconds into the show.
Really super-early early. This allows house management to sneak last-minute latecomers into the theatre without having arguments about "YOU EXPECT ME TO WAIT
TWENTY-FIVE MINUTES?!".) It's been my experience that there's a significant difference in morale and compliance between patrons who are 20 seconds late and patrons who are 5 minutes late: the 20-second people saw the doors wide open and feel kind of cheated, while the 5 minute people are more likely to take their lumps willingly. Having a super-early call makes it much easier to placate the 20-second crowd, since you're sending them straight inside. This also means your ushers are still fresh and wide awake from the initial load, which can help enormously.
- Train ushers to use their bodies to control the flow of traffic. In the ordinary course of things, ushers tend to stand back and use gestures to suggest patrons follow a certain route--but this leads to situations where the usher gestures to the left, and the patron rolls her eyes and goes to the right, and
then what? You
never touch a patron (except under very limited and consenting circumstances), but you can certainly use your body and physical presence to compel patrons to follow a certain route. If you want a patron to turn left en route to late seating, then instead of standing around generally, stand in a way which prevents the patron from going to the right: stand in the aisle, block the doorway, or whatever else. Limit their options and they're more likely to take the one you want them to take.
- ***If possible, it may be desirable to have house management lock the doors after a show goes up, unlocking them only for late calls and intermission. This not only gives ushers a useful degree of plausible deniability (Patrons tend to hear "I'm afraid I can't seat you until late call" as if you're saying "I
don't want to seat you until late call", and will tend to argue to that end. "I'm afraid the theatre is locked until late call" is much less open to interpretation and argument.), but it prevents the real disaster scenario from popping up. (Even if the patron forces their way past the ushers and starts tugging on the doors, no dice.)
- Encourage house management to be utterly consistent and hardcore about late-seating policy, ideally by getting the producer to agree with you. No exceptions, no fudging it ("Well, the call's gone out, but the lights are still on... I guess we can sneak
one more in..."), no arguments. Late is late is late. Getting the producer on board gives the ushers a little more leverage here. ("I'm very sorry for the inconvenience, but I'm afraid we've had orders
from the producer herself to be extremely strict about late seating.")
***Almost goes without saying, but you should
only do this in a house with crashbars or doors which can otherwise be opened from the inside, even if locked. (I can't imagine building code would allow any other type of doors on a theatre, but just in case.)
