If you’re looking to see Bruce Willis and Laurie Metcalf in Stephen King’s Misery on Broadway this season, try thinking cold thoughts. That’s the only way your beverages are going to get cooled down since the theater won’t serve ice in its drinks because it makes too much noise during the play.
[According to Page Six] (http://pagesix.com/2015/10/31/misery-patrons-settle-for-warm-drinks-because-ice-makes-too-much-noise/), loose ice cubes and plastic cups are adding up to a cacophony that distracts the audience from the tension onstage, so bartenders at the Broadhurst theater are telling patrons that drinks cannot be served with ice.
This is the latest tactic in Broadway’s continuing push back against noise inside theaters. As modern audiences become less and less inclined towards silence — and less inclined to turn off cell phones for two consecutive hours — theaters have taken to pleading ever more loudly for respect for the performers onstage. As anyone who’s been to a Broadway show recently can attest, inserts in playbills practically weep for audience consideration. Back in July, Patti LuPone [snatched a cell phone] (http://www.vanityfair.com/hollywood/2015/07/patti-lupone-broadway-cell-phone-snatch-statement) from an audience member after seeing them text with it during the show.
As for Misery in particular, “It’s 90 minutes with no intermission,” a representative for the show told Page Six. “It’s all about building suspense. The last thing you want in an intense moment is someone unwrapping candy and jiggling ice cubes.”
One would assume that if there was any play on Broadway where you wouldn’t want to risk the ire of the performers on stage, it would be the play where Laurie Metcalf is breaking ankles with a sledgehammer.