Hey everyone,

I've been browsing this sub in preparation of seeing a Broadway musical for the first time, and the experience was memorable for the wrong reasons unfortunately.

My girlfriend and I went to see Chicago at the Ambassador Theatre this last Friday evening. We've been wanting to seeing this live forever now and bought the tickets ~3 months in advance, basically planning the while trip to the city around it. For a little background, we love the 2002 film version and are also both massive fans of Jinkx, so it was the perfect show for us to see. The trip was also to celebrate our 4th anniversary, and the show was the main gift for each other. We are both fairly broke college students, so splurging $250 on decent orchestra seats and $175 on the bus tickets was a lot to us.

We got to the theatre 30 minutes in advance to get merch and get settled. The seats in front of us were empty until this group of an older man and two mid twenties-ish women came in about a minute before the show started. I try not to judge based on appearances, but the women did not give off a good vibe from the start. The women also got wine (which on a sidenote seems kind of dumb to offer in our opinion) which evidently was not a good idea. The entire first act went smoothly and made my girlfriend tear up from happiness which made it worth it in the end. No real complaints for the guests in front of us in the first act, maybe they talked once which was fine.

The issues began after the intermission and kind of ruined the second act entirely. I'm not really sure what happened, but when they returned to their seats, they reeked of cigarettes and were noticably drunker. As the second act carried on, the women began to talk more frequently and louder, and I mean just straight up talk, not whispering, and just say obvious things about the show while everyone around was quiet and watching. It got to a point where it was so distracting that I couldn't really hear the performers speak. During "Class" they became so distracting that we couldn't hear and my girlfriend shushed them out of frustration. Although this maybe wasn't the best option, I think it was totally valid because these grown ass women were behaving like children at this show and we paid a lot (to us) to hear the actors, not two entitled women make stupid comments.

The worst part is they definitely heard us because I saw them look at each other and back at us, and they still decided to double down with the loud talking. They also definitely did not like this and began to try to block our vision from this point out. They brought a blanket and tried to lay it so that it would block the space between their heads which thankfully didn't work and we could ignore it. They also constantly flipped and adjusted their hair in an effort to upset us or block our vision or something like that. I figured the show was almost over so we would tough it out and enjoy what we could. Also, this whole time the guy they were with was politely watching the show but also not telling what we assumed to be his daughters to shut the fuck up during the show. Whoever he was, he was not discouraging them from being obnoxious. At the closing number, the two women began to really push it and truly became insufferable. Just talking and filming for the last 15 minutes of the show. At standing ovation, we got up with the rest of the crowd to give the performers our much earned love, but the women still tried to block our vision for whatever reason. This also didn't work because my girlfriend and I were a good 6-9 inches taller than them.

Now this is where I have to acknowledge that my actions moving forward were not the best, optically at the very least. One of the women flipped her hair 3 times back to back which already pissed us both off, and then she turned to the other and did a long and obviously mocking shush to her friend. This pushed me over the edge and I ended up confronting them and got into a heated verbal argument with the both of them, calling them out for being drunk and obnoxious. I am not exactly proud of this, but I also do not regret it because of how inconsiderate they were and how rude they were to my girlfriend. I also ended up scolding the older man for not doing anything and asked him something along the lines of "are you not fucking embarrassed to be seen anywhere with them?" and to my surprise, he didn't really argue back, just kind of nodded in agreement and moved the women towards the exit. It felt like he knew they were in the wrong because he didn't even try to defend their behavior. Now again, looking back at it, a 6 ft guy getting into a verbal fight with two white women that were at least half a foot shorter is not the best look. Thankfully this happened while the rest of the audience was still applauding, but I do still feel bad for giving them my attention instead of the wonderful and talented performers. I'm also not one to go out picking fights, and I hope I didn't detract from anyone's experience like the women in front of us did.

My girlfriend eventually pulled me back from the argument and we left the theatre. I'm ranting now at 6am because it's still eating at me that I let them ruin my enjoyment of the show by giving them any attention at all. Regrettably, I don't really remember much of the show after the scene where Hunyak was hanged (which they also giggled at while everyone was silent which was CRAZY to us). It's just a bummer because we were looking forward to it so much and spent a lot of money just for us to remember the two people seated in front more than the second act.

That is all. Feel free to let me know if I was out of pocket or if talkers like this are normal. I hope my future experiences at Broadway shows do not include getting into arguments with audience members moving forward🤞

update: I reached out to the Shubert Org and unfortunately they said they cannot comp the ticket, but thanks to everyone who suggested it and the empathy for the situation!