On July 2 he entered Broadway legend by doing something nearly all of us do every day: he plugged in his cell phone charger. Now we know, sort of, thanks to a publicity-stunt press conference during which one cell phone offender — the guy who tried to charge his phone by plugging it in to an onstage outlet at play “Hand to God” — spoke out. The issue has reached something of a tipping point recently, with Patti LuPone making headlines earlier this week for snatching away the phone of a texting audience member at the Off Broadway show in which she stars, “Shows for Days” — and doing it without ever breaking character. “I saw Patti LuPone deliver her scene exit line tonight at Lincoln Center & SNATCH A CELL PHONE OUT OF AN AUDIENCE MEMBER'S HAND,” another audience member wrote on Twitter. What made Silvestri different is that he plugged it into a prop outlet on the stage set of the Broadway comedy Hand to God. Nick Silvestri, 19, read a statement before a group of reporters admitting, "I don’t go to plays very much, and I didn’t realize that the stage is considered off limits. “We work hard on stage to create a world that is being totally destroyed by a few, rude, self-absorbed and inconsiderate audience members who are controlled by their phones,” LuPone said after the July 8 incident at “Shows for Days.” “I am so defeated by this issue that I seriously question whether I want to work on stage anymore.
– Cell phones in theaters: After two high-profile incidents on Broadway, things seem to have reached a "tipping point," observes Variety. The first occurred when 19-year-old Nick Silvestri hopped up on the stage just before the start of Hand to God and plugged his phone into an outlet, not realizing it was a prop. He tells Playbill that it wasn't a joke and that he wasn't acting on a dare. He just needed to charge his iPhone. "I saw the outlet and ran for it," he recalls. "That was the only outlet I saw, so I thought, 'Why not?' I was thinking that they were probably going to plug something in there on the set, and I figured it wouldn't be a big deal if my phone was up there too." Security guards quickly moved in. After talking to Playbill, Silvestri even participated in a press conference and read a statement in which he apologized. "I don't go to plays very much, and I didn't realize that the stage is considered off limits," he said, per Gothamist. (Variety notes that Hand to God, which has been struggling to sell tickets, was happy to capitalize by organizing that press conference.) The second incident occurred when Patti LuPone took the phone from an audience member who was texting during Show for Days. Given that she remained in character the whole time, the New York Post grants her a "standing ovation." Vanity Fair rounds up previous incidents, saying they "offer proof that, even if our movie theaters are slowly succumbing to the inevitability of omnipresent cell phones, the theater community may well choose to die on this hill." Plus, Broadway actors have a big advantage over movie actors: "the ability to fight back."