The thing about the Internet is that it can blow up with the latest scandal in a matter of hours. Earlier this week, I was teaching a number of classes back to back, and reluctantly needed to disconnect from social media for a spell. When I finally got a chance to check my feeds, the biggest brouhaha in months had set the theatrical Interwebs aflutter. Apparently, someone in the marketing department at AT&T had decided it would be a good idea to suggest that football fans could watch the big game from the comfort of their seat at a Broadway show.


(See photo above.) 

Needless to say, theater folk didn't take too kindly to the suggestion. Twitter and Facebook virtually erupted with vociferous condemnation. Had anyone at AT&T bothered to do a little Googling, they would easily have discovered that we in the theater community are rather touchy about cell phones of late. They need only have witnessed the major furor over the teenage boy who climbed on stage at Hand to God to try to charge is cell phone (in a non-working outlet that is part of the set). Or the attendant press that arose from Patti LuPone's recent confiscation of a cell phone from a woman who was texting all through the first act of Shows for Days. 

Among the prominent members of the theater community who voiced their umbrage on Twitter about the AT&T ad were Marc Kudisch, Kate Shindle, Anne Harada, Max von Essen, Ruthie Ann Miles, Patti Murin, Andy Mientus, and Julia Murney. Other tweets denouncing AT&T fell under the trending hashtag #NotMyService. As of this writing, the hashtag had a reach of 446,808 (the number of users who included the tag, plus their followers), and 603,506 impressions (the number of accounts who received that info).

In response to the backlash, AT&T issued a series of non-apology apologies: "We love and listen to the thespian community. The ad wasn’t to be taken literally and we meant no disrespect." Way to make it our fault for misunderstanding your bad ad. News flash: If a significant number of people misinterpret your ad, then you wrote a bad ad. Another AT&T response: "Certainly it's evident that our ads take place in an alternate reality and are not to be taken literally." So, we're the problem AT&T? It's our fault that we aren't familiar enough with your entire ad campaign that we knew you were joking? The arrogance. The sheer arrogance. 

I believe Patti LuPone said it best in her public statement about the kerfuffle: "To the AT&T spokesperson: What altered reality do you live in? And why do you assume I live there, too?" La LuPone goes on to say that she dropped AT&T as a carrier years ago, not because of a clueless spokesperson, but because "the service stunk." I get the feeling that a lot of theater fans will very soon be following suit.