Snacking a Broadway showstopper

From: Snacking a Broadway showstopper

NEW YORK (AP) -- Patti LuPone could not believe her ears.

"There was this woman in the first row, eating out of a paper bag, so loudly that even people around her were trying to get her to stop," an appalled LuPone said of the incident during her Broadway run in the musical "Sweeney Todd."

Another actor on stage used her prop -- a flute -- to nudge the woman to stop eating, reaching into the audience with the instrument and pushing down on the woman's bag of snacks, LuPone said.

"But the woman kept eating whatever it was -- things that came out in little balls."

Such encounters have become increasingly common in theaters up and down Broadway, where the sound of music is sometimes mixed with a symphony of snacking. More Broadway theaters are allowing people to bring drinks, candy, chips and even popcorn to their seats as they try to boost their bottom lines.

And the bottom line is -- the bottom line. Concession sales at the Hilton Theatre have more than doubled since refreshments were allowed into the shows about three years ago.

To eat or not to eat is an issue that has divided Broadway.

The Schubert Organization, which operates 17 theaters, does not permit food or drinks into performances. The Nederlander Organization allows snacks into most of its shows, especially venues that are staging family fare such as "The Lion King" and "Beauty and the Beast." Nederlander also allows people to bring in wine poured into spill-proof cups.

Nederlander Vice President Jim Boese defended the organization's selling of snacks.

"This is not an orgy of gorging -- it's just a recognition of reality," he said.

"We're trying to be responsive to consumers, and we've found that more and more parents and others are asking for certain kinds of snacks," Boese said. "We've served Twizzlers forever. This is about creating a broader array of things that people can eat."

Last year, the Nederlander added popcorn to its snack menu at the Neil Simon Theatre for the musical "Hairspray."

"Producers felt this show was fun," said Susan Lee, Nederlander's head of marketing. "Popcorn in the theater sets an environment, and the concession became a part of the entertainment."

She said Nederlander considers the nature of the show when deciding where snacks should be enjoyed.

For Eugene O'Neill's quiet, brooding "A Moon for the Misbegotten" -- opening in March at the Brooks Atkinson Theater -- "snacks inside are not appropriate," Lee said.

The ushers will ask theatergoers to refrain from taking them in, and signs will be posted to that effect.

Nederlander lobby signs also urge patrons to remove their noisy candy wrappers ahead of time.

But a theater cannot police what Lee called "the changing etiquette."

The spectacle of theatergoers loudly gobbling snacks, said playwright Paul Rudnick, does not reflect well on American audiences.

"It feeds into the caricature of Americans stuffing themselves at every opportunity," he said, deadpanning, "I feel you should be allowed to bring in a flat-screen TV and a Scrabble game -- if you're in such desperate need of distraction."

He said no actor he knows likes to perform in front of munching people.

"The actors are giving their all for your entertainment. Control those cravings," he said, adding that in Shakespeare's time, "you had the rabble tossing chicken legs at the stage. But those were cheaper seats."

When it comes to chomping in a Broadway theater, with tickets topping $100, even the cheap eats have a decibel hierarchy.

Fresh popcorn may be the worst offender -- between the rumpling of the bag and the chewing sounds -- and potato chips right behind. Twizzlers licorice are a quiet treat -- as long as you open the wrapper first. And gummy bears take the prize for silence.

But there is just no shushing popcorn -- or LuPone's outrage.

"People are slobs. Everybody leaves their junk for somebody else to pick up," she said.

LuPone said that if she returns to Broadway, "I'll sit down with the producers and ask them to ask people to please stop eating. If you're hungry, don't come to the theater."

Maine rejects Real ID Act

From: Maine rejects Real ID Act

update Maine overwhelmingly rejected federal requirements for national identification cards on Thursday, marking the first formal state opposition to controversial legislation scheduled to go in effect for Americans next year.

Both chambers of the Maine legislature approved a resolution saying the state flatly "refuses" to force its citizens to use driver's licenses that comply with digital ID standards, which were established under the 2005 Real ID Act. It asks the U.S. Congress to repeal the law.

The vote represents a political setback for the U.S. Department of Homeland Security and Republicans in Washington, D.C., which have argued that nationalized ID cards for all Americans would help in the fight against terrorists.

"I have faith that the Democrats in Congress will hear this from many states and will find a way to repeal or amend this in the coming months," House Majority Leader Hannah Pingree, a Democrat, said in a telephone interview after the vote. "It's not only a huge federal mandate, but it's a huge mandate from the federal government asking us to do something we don't have any interest in doing."

The Real ID Act says that, starting around May 2008, Americans will need a federally approved ID card--a U.S. passport will also qualify--to travel on an airplane, open a bank account, collect Social Security payments or take advantage of nearly any government service. States will have to conduct checks of their citizens' identification papers, and driver's licenses likely will be reissued to comply with Homeland Security requirements.

In addition, the national ID cards must be "machine-readable," with details left up to Homeland Security, which hasn't yet released final regulations. That could end up being a magnetic strip, an enhanced bar code or radio frequency identification (RFID) chips.

The votes in Maine on the resolution were nonpartisan. It was approved by a 34-to-0 vote in the state Senate and by a 137-to-4 vote in the House of Representatives.

Other states are debating similar measures. Bills pending in Georgia, Massachusetts, Montana and Washington state express varying degrees of opposition to the Real ID Act.

Montana's is one of the strongest. The legislature held a hearing on Wednesday on a bill that says "The state of Montana will not participate in the implementation of the Real ID Act of 2005" and directs the state motor vehicle department "not to implement the provisions."

Barry Steinhardt, director of the ACLU's Technology and Liberty Project, said he thinks Maine's vote will "break the logjam, and other states are going to follow." (The American Civil Liberties Union has set up an anti-Real ID Web site called Real Nightmare).

Pingree, Maine's House majority leader, said the Real ID Act would have cost the state $185 million over five years and required every state resident to visit the motor vehicle agency so that several forms of identification--including an original copy of the birth certificate and a Social Security card--would be uploaded into a federal database.

Growing opposition to the law in the states could create a political pickle for the Bush administration. The White House has enthusiastically embraced the Real ID Act, saying it (click for PDF) "facilitates the strengthening by the states of the standards for the security and integrity of drivers' licenses."

But if a sufficient number of states follow Maine's lead, pressure would increase on a Democratic Congress to relax the Real ID rules--or even rescind them entirely.

A key Republican supporter of the Real ID Act said Thursday that the law was just as necessary now as when it was enacted as part of an $82 billion military spending and tsunami relief bill. (Its backers say it follows the recommendations that the 9/11 Commission made in 2004.)

"Real ID is needed to protect the American people from terrorists who use drivers licenses to board planes, get jobs and move around the country as the 9/11 terrorists did," Texas Rep. Lamar Smith, the top Republican on the House Judiciary Committee, said in an e-mailed statement. "It makes sense to have drivers licenses that ensure a person is who they say they are. It makes the country safer and protects the American people from terrorists who would use the most common form of ID as cover."