Talkbacks, for Real

Forget tweeting in the theater; that's positively genteel next to the stories I got in response to this morning's question on American Theatre's Facebook page. I asked, "Have you ever talked back to the actors onstage during a performance?" My favorite response so far, from Florence Brammer, re: a production of Measure for Measure by Minneapolis' Ten Thousand Things:

As the chaste Isabella departed following her first scene with the lecherous Angelo, actor Steve Hendrickson turned toward a nearby woman in the audience to begin his soliloquy: "What's this, what's this? Is this her fault or mine? The tempter or the tempted, who sins most?"

Without missing a beat, the woman replied loudly, "I think it's you, shithead."

A quick Google search reveals that Brammer is actually quoting a story from a 2007 issue of American Theatre, which I hadn't read before—a great introduction, by the way, to the company that once employed the talented Brian Baumgartner, pictured above in a production of The Three Lives of Lucy Cabrol.