Stop Trying to Talk to Isa Briones While She's On Stage

Isa Briones should be on top of the world right now. She’s doing some of the best acting on TV right now in Season Two of The Pitt and she’s made her glorious return to Broadway, taking over the role of Connie Francis in the Bobby Darin musical Just in Time. Playing Dr. Santos, a prickly and often unlikeable figure who has little time for niceties in the E.R., has put her in the spotlight in a new way. On the one hand, it’s the role of a lifetime. On the other hand, a surprisingly large contingent of The Pitt fans are, well, a bit odd. It’s not hard to find long and needlessly cruel anti-Santos screeds directed at Briones online. Why has this show earned such a bananas fandom? It feels like the result of a cursed monkey’s paw deal to take the heat away from Heated Rivalry.

Briones, who has previously appeared on stage in Hadestown and Hamilton, was forced to issue a PSA of sorts over Instagram following some disruption at a recent performance of Just in Time.

“some people need to brush up on theater etiquette. and just person in the world etiquette in general. do not talk to the performers while they’re performing on stage (unless you have been asked to). and don’t talke to me on stage and call me Dr. Santos. I’m not Dr. Santos. I’m not even Connie Francis. I am Isa Briones, one of the actors in the show you have paid to enjoy. So watch it respectfully. You are not a kid at disneyland. You are an adult man at a Broadway show. Act like it.

No, seriously, do audiences just not know how to behave anymore? Much has been written about the idea that, in a post-COVID landscape, audiences for live events have decided to abandon decorum in favour of abject lunacy. There have been so many high-profile cases wherein hecklers, drunken chanters, and full-brightness mobile phone users have been ejected from plays, concerts, and the like over the past few years. And that doesn’t even get into the pandemic of people throwing stuff at performers. What possesses someone to spend well over $200 on Broadway tickets, only to berate and demand the attention of someone trying to do their job? Did they think Briones would be like, ‘Hi there, let me stop everything to talk to you, my new BFF’? Or did they just believe that any attention was positive attention?

Briones, by the way, is a ridiculously talented musical theatre performer. If I had the chance to see her live, I’d shut my mouth up and listen eagerly!