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I loved the pre-show announcement at Spamalot, where John Cleese implored audience members to leave cell phones on===as there were heavily armed knights on stage who would help you take care of the problem!

I work at a small professional theater. My favorite is when we say, "...and no TEXTING during the show!" in the curtain speech, and people continue to do it. We've had stage managers ask us to remove people from the audience for texting and then said patrons outright LIE to front of house staff when caught in the act. Really? Really. Like we couldn't see the light from across the room. It's a tiny black box theater. We really did see what you did there.

I'm not immune to cell phone culture. But really? It makes me sad that people can't understand basic social norms, even when explicit instructions are provided for them.

While not an example in traditional theater, in the film Aqua Teen Hunger Force, they recorded the metal band Mastadon performing a message as animated food which covered every theater annoyance from talking, to children, to copyright infringement. In many ways, it was one of the most entertaining moments in the entire film.

PRE-CURTAIN CALL

"In the matter of your cellphones
Here's some advice to all:
Any obtrusive ringing
Will prompt our lawyers to call.

"They'll seize you by your thumbs
And sue you for a bundle
And as our play goes on,
You'll be off to a cell in a trundle."

At a recent matinee performance of "Time Stands Still" as Laura Linney's character was confronting the mounting conflict and sadness in her relationship with Brian d'Arcy James' character (a pivotal moment in the play), a cellphone went off. It took forever for the owner to find it and to shut it off, all the while Laura Linney worked hard to hold the moment while the audience held its collective breath afraid that the moment would be lost. Laura Linney did succeed in keeping the mood but that cellphone owner's lack of etiquette and sense of place was still everyone's loss that day.

Michael - we should set your guy up with the woman in my yoga class who took three calls in the middle of class. One of them was during the final meditation at the end.

A few years ago my wife and I went to see the Caberat revival at studio 54, during the show a cell phone rang and the guy took the call and had a conversation. Later it happened again, again he took the call and had another conversation. When the show was over I went to him and apoligized if I might be mistaken in identifing him, but if he was the one that took those two calls: Why did he think his calls were more important than the $100 that each of the rest of us had spent to see this show. The result? He threatened to take me out side and kick the s--t out of me.

The best announcement about cellphones is something I saw on YouTube by a Gilbert and Sullivan group. The announcement before each show is a rewrite of one of the songs from the show. For instance, before a production of Ruddigore, they sang this parody of "My eyes are fully open to my awful situation:"

When you see and operetta, you expect it to be charming
But there's one thing that can happen that we all would find alarming
We require your attention when we're acting and we're singing
And that simply cannot happen when the telephone is ringing
If you're carrying a cellphone please just set it to be silent
For if we hear it ringing we just might become quite violent
[And if that should happen] we would have call the show off
[And that will not have to happen] if you turn your telephone off
So just turn your telephone off ...

let's face it everyone knows to turn their phones off
the people who don't are the same jerks who do what ever they want in other aspects of life. all the announcements in the world won't change their inconsiderate behavior.

Just as annoying (to audience members, if not to the performers) are those who MUST check their devices several times during a show. I sometimes am sorry I don't have a flashlight that I can flash back in the face of the offender! hmmm....note to self...carry flashlight when headed to the theater.

People think that just looking at their light- up phone devices isn't annoying too. But the light is very distracting. They have to be turned off PERIOD!

The best announcement to silence cell phones I have heard was at the New Globe THeatre in London. One of the characters from the play made the announcement in iambic pentameter in such perfect Shakespearian style that for a moment, I thought it was part of the performance.

Béla Fleck and Edgar Meyer perform a piece called "Wrong Number" which incorporates what initially appears to be an audience member's ringing cell phone, with a lot of frowning and glaring. Since it usually comes early in the program, it serves a double function: entertainment and reminder to turn 'em off.

My story is not about a cell phone, but a flash photo. Years ago I saw Jessica Lange and Alec Baldwin on Broadway in Cat On A Hot Tin Roof. In the middle of one of her major speeches, a teenage girl in the front row stood up and took a flash photo. After the intermission Alec Baldwin walked to the edge of the stage with a beer in his hand and said "There are a lot of fireflies out tonight, I keep seeing flashes." Then he dumped the entire full beer into the girl's lap.

Its' always corny when someone starts a curtain speech and then someone offstage calls his or her cellphone and they pull it out of their poscket act all surprised and it 'reminds' him or her to tell the audience to shut theirs off. Seen this one many times.

Ringing, chiming, and vibrating buzz are problems, but what about (mobile device) screen lights in a dark theatre? Do announcements mostly ask people to silence their phones or cut them off completely?

The need to ask people to turn of the devices is perfectly warranted however, moms may worry that they might miss an emergency call from the sitter. I guess we just have to set it on vibrate and hold it in our hand. seems reasonable.

They have always pleaded with patrons to pick up their trash when they leave the movies. They show little clips about it just before the movie starts.

Not gonna happen.

I covered a major DC trial for 9 months, and EVERY major reporter's cell phone went off, to the anger of the judge.

AP, Reuters, BLoomberg, all the pros had, at some point, this problem. (Mine went off too, but the phone I had allowed the alarm to start softly, and I caught it in time.)

I laughed at the pre-show announcement when I went to see Spamalot. They asked the audience to turn up their cell phone volume, so that it could ring as loudly as possible.