The Theater—A Moveable Feast?

There are a few places left where manners haven’t completely caved to the level of the unwashed masses with their cell phones, gigantic baby carriages, and look-at-me tabloid dispositions. Places where you can’t act however you’d like—places such as church or the tennis court, for instance.

Alas, no longer the theater. A recent New York Times story pointed out that Broadway is going the way of the jumboplex: food and drink happily allowed, sold at the concession stand as if they were screening a double feature at the drive-in. Sometimes, grown adults going to see Wicked are even allowed to purchase and then bring in commemorative sippy cups, for themselves.

Turns out, here in the Twin Cities, home to a progressive theater scene, we’re way ahead of the hungry, thirsty hordes of the Big Apple. Most major stages—The Jungle, Jeune Leune, State, Pantages, and Orpheum—made the switch a couple of years ago, serving alcohol in those little plastic cups in order to avoid the show-stopping crescendo of broken glass. The Southern Theater started offering beverages six months ago—it just couldn’t hold out any longer, according to a box office staffer.

One surprising turnabout was the decision to stop offering drinks made by the Guthrie, she of the eleven shiny new wet bars, shortly after moving into its new riverside digs. The theater started giving patrons the option of bringing in drinks during the closing run of Hamlet at Vineland Place. (The carpet was headed to the dumpster, so what the heck?) But once at the big blue spaceship, when the hoi polloi jingled its ice—somebody even dropped a glass in the middle of The Great Gatsby—the theater decided to reverse course.

“It was disturbing both to the audience and actors,” says spokesperson Melodie Bahan. “It just didn’t work, and we’re not revisiting it—sippy cups or no.”