Stage Legend Patti LuPone Confiscates Audience Member's Cell Phone During Her Broadway Play

Broadway legend Patti LuPone has had enough with Broadway audiences using phones during performances – so much so that she confiscated an audience member’s phone during the Wednesday (July 8) performance of her play Shows for Days when she noticed them texting.

The 66-year-old American Horror Story actress issued a statement about her confiscating a cell phone in the middle of the play.

“We work hard on stage to create a world that is being totally destroyed by a few, rude, self-absorbed and inconsiderate audience members who are controlled by their phones. They cannot put them down. When a phone goes off or when a LED screen can be seen in the dark it ruins the experience for everyone else – the majority of the audience at that performance and the actors on stage. I am so defeated by this issue that I seriously question whether I want to work on stage anymore. Now I’m putting battle gear on over my costume to marshall the audience as well as perform,” Patti said in a statement to Playbill.

This is not the first time Patti has gone off about cell phones. In a 2009 performance of her Tony winning musical Gypsy, Patti stopped the show to scream at an audience member. See below…