Welcome to tonight’s performance. Our show, including intermission, lasts two hours and fifteen minutes and will begin after these important announcements and the followup Q&A.
Please take a moment to turn off electronic devices that might interfere with our sound system or the enjoyment of other audience members—including cell phones, personal locator beacons, Neuralink implants, and LifeAlert alarms. If you’ve fallen and can’t get up, just raise your hand.
This is also a good time to unwrap any candies or cough drops for which you anticipate a need and to pre-chew noisy crackers. Personal Narcan kits should be unzipped and ready for use; we strongly recommend the nasal spray in preference to a needle and syringe.
EMTs are on call for opioid emergencies in the orchestra seats and the first three rows of the mezzanine.
Photography, video recording, and audio recording are strictly forbidden. So are lip-syncing, karaoke, and air guitar. Anyone shouting “Hubba hubba!” or “Let’s go, Brandon!” will be asked to leave and will be ineligible for a refund. Be aware that inappropriate laughter can disorient the actors and may offend patrons even more neurotic than yourself. Laughter will be appropriate whenever the traditional Mask of Comedy located above the stage is illuminated.
The performance contains adult language, simulated sexual content, and scenes with strobe lights, explosions, gunfire, fog and haze effects, smoking, trans fats, and two intense games of Twister. If traumatized by Act One, patrons who’ve been comped with house seats will be entitled to five minutes of Lacanian psychoanalysis during the intermission.
In the unlikely event of an emergency please proceed calmly to one of the lighted exits, keeping in mind that the nearest one may be located behind you, where you will find yourself in line behind patrons who paid substantially less for their seats—a small gesture of reparation and solidarity that we hope will advance the cause of equity in our polarized time. A life jacket can be found in the pouch beneath each seat. Please do not inflate yours before reaching the sidewalk on 45th Street, at which point personal locator beacons may be safely activated. Any of our theatre arts interns can be used as a flotation device.
This theatre is located on a former Superfund site, on land whose previous occupants cannot be scientifically determined because archaeological excavation has been too dangerous and will remain so for at least 10,000 years. We wish to acknowledge their presence—or, more precisely, their absence. We acknowledge their stewardship of what was to them the future, and is to us the former, sludge farm that has become our artistic home. We trust that any who remain, whoever they may be, will acknowledge that our acknowledgment is all they’re ever going to get.
Questions?
A valid concern. A copy of our current elevator certificate can be found on page 18 of your program. The weigh-ins performed when tickets were scanned establish that any six of you can ride it safely—unless one of you is the patron with seat C17 of the upper balcony. We don’t fat shame, but facts are facts.
One more?
Excellent question. Those afraid the answer might be a spoiler please cover your ears until I signal two thumbs up. Per our agreement with Actors Equity, live ammunition is no longer considered a best practice, and our supply has been transferred to a responsible, licensed firearms dealer. Junkies for entertainment news and members of the tort bar will be aware of the back story.
Thumbs are up!
And the mask of comedy is alight. Sit back and enjoy the show.