It’s Time to Retire Playbill’s “Welcome Back” Letter

Whenever I sit down in a Broadway theater and crack open the Playbill, it immediately brings a frown to my face. That has nothing to do with the cast or creative team — or even the runtime. My grief springs entirely from the “Welcome Back to the theatre” letter printed on the page opposite the primary cast headshots.

Welcome back from what?, I briefly wonder before remembering, Oh yes, the pandemic that led to an unprecedented 17-month shutdown of New York’s theaters. But it’s been well over three years since audiences began returning to Broadway and the letter is still there, a gloomy reminder of the worst year and a full-page advertisement of the fact that the theater still isn’t quite over it. You can read the whole thing here:

The word “sanctity” in the final sentence of the intro smacks me like a sadistic nun wielding a ruler. It suggests that the building we’ve entered isn’t so much a place of entertainment, but a church, a vibe underscored by the ten commandments that follow. Welcome to the theater, heathen, is the subtext, we have lots of rules here that you’re likely too benighted to intuit.

The condescension continues in the bullet points, where we are instructed to turn our cell phones off, “All the way off…” (that ellipsis is the print equivalent of a middle school vice-principal impatiently tapping his foot, waiting for a mandatory assembly to settle down). Consume processed sugar if you must, the third bullet point tells us, but don’t be so loud and disgusting about it. We are further informed in the sixth that singing along with the actors is “not thoughtful” (I’m so disappointed by your thoughtlessness, Wicked fans). Are we having fun yet?

The ninth point assures us that everyone will get their turn in the bathroom during intermission, which must feel like a false promise to spectators packed into the lounge of the Golden Theatre, waiting desperately to pee after 90 minutes of Stereophonic, only to see the lights flicker, beckoning them back to their seats. And finally, having internalized all these rules for which we have paid top dollar to be subjected to, we are commanded to “relax.” This must be some elaborate form of BDSM.

Good, I can hear readers tutting, I also spent my hard-earned money to attend the theater, and I don’t want my experience ruined by some ill-mannered jerk, so I’m glad these rules are in place to restrain them. I would ask those readers to ponder whether a program note, however prominently placed, is really doing that.

It certainly didn’t prevent the woman behind me (who was old enough to know better and then some) from answering her phone and having a full conversation during a recent matinee of The Blood Quilt. If you go to the theater enough, you’re likely to encounter a disruptive drunk or two, and I agree that theaters should do a better job of screening them out before they enter the house, as a nightclub would. But I find it exceedingly unlikely that one would open his Playbill, read goggle-eyed all the way down to commandment eight, and think, I better drink some water. If your wife cannot convince you to stop, Philip S. Birsh surely won’t.

I’ve previously written about the evolution of theater etiquette and how any public gathering will necessarily be governed by a set of rules and expectations. But shrill over-policing is a surefire way to convince casual theatergoers that their leisure time and expendable income is better spent elsewhere (for the price of one ringside seat to Romeo + Juliet, you can fly two people roundtrip to Miami — in premium economy). I fear that this open letter, initially intended to reacquaint rusty audiences with live performance, has three years later become a big flashing billboard telling irregular theatergoers: Beware, you’re in a foreign land and the natives are easily offended.

Worse, it conveys an entirely different message to a certain kind of incumbent theatergoer: Welcome to back to the theater, your safe space to scold a stranger. It’s the theatrical equivalent of one of those “In this house we believe…” yard signs, a badge of virtue in a rigid ideological monoculture where appearing to hold the correct opinions means everything. But it’s unlikely to change anyone’s thoughts or actions, and has the potential to alienate as many people as it comforts. It sets a terrible tone at a time when not-for-profits are struggling and industry leaders are desperate to attract new audiences. It’s also cringe as hell.

For all those reasons, I believe it is time to retire the “Welcome back to the theatre” letter, which has occupied prime Playbill real estate for at least two years longer than it needed to. The rest of the world has moved on from the dour post-pandemic era, and it’s time the theater finally do the same.