Jason LaVeris/FilmMagicNot that we didn't already know that Patti LuPone was the boss of everything when it comes to the stage.
But she took it to a whole new level last night.
Having already heard cell phones go off four times during Wednesday's performance of her latest play, Shows for Days, the six-time Tony winner couldn't bear to see one particularly woman texting in the audience for a second longer!
So LuPone took matters into her own hands. Literally.
"We could see her text," LuPone recalled the incident to The New York Times today.
"She was so uninterested," the star continued. "She showed her husband what she was texting. We talked about it at intermission. When we went out for the second act I was very close to her, and she was still texting. I watched her and thought, 'What am I going to do?' At the very end of that scene, we all exit. What I normally do is shake the hand of the people in the front row. I just walked over to her, shook her hand and took her phone. I walked offstage and handed it to the stage manager, who gave it to the house manager."
Noting that all of the actors onstage were "freaked out" by what transpired and some other audience members applauded, LuPone indicated that this whole cell phone thing has spiraled out of control.
"I don't know why they buy the ticket or come to the theater if they can't let go of the phone. It's controlling them," she said. "They can't turn it off and can't stop looking at it. They are truly inconsiderate, self-absorbed people who have no public manners whatsoever. I don't know what to do anymore. I was hired as an actor, not a policeman of the audience."
LuPone may, however, now be even more of a hero along the Great White Way. And we like to think there may be a few less beams of screen light popping up in darkened theaters around the world from now on.