Camera ban brings on shudder

ONE Los Angeles theater lover managed to take in more than a dozen plays on a recent visit to New York. But this visitor, who would prefer to remain anonymous, got more drama than he bargained for at one performance.

At the Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre to catch a preview of Richard Greenberg’s “Three Days of Rain,” starring Julia Roberts and opening officially Wednesday, he and other patrons were ordered -- rather rudely, he says -- to surrender their cameras before going in or to give up their tickets. Despite years of theatergoing, he says, he’s rarely experienced treatment so brusque.

“Although announcers often state prior to show time that it is against New York law to record or photograph a performance,” the visitor wrote in an angry e-mail, “none of the other current stars on Broadway -- Jonathan Pryce, Patti LuPone, Nathan Lane, et al. -- require patrons to surrender their belongings. Shouldn’t theatergoers be warned of this when they are buying their tickets,” since tourists spending a few days in the city are likely to have cameras with them? “My choice was either give up the camera or not see the show.”

To make matters worse, he says, “there was a little cardboard box where they were throwing the cameras. I’d just paid $500 for this camera -- it seemed very haphazard and last-minute.”

The show’s spokesman, Bob Fennell, says checking all kinds of cameras has become standard at such events as film screenings and operas, thanks to bootlegged performances and complaints from artists. “And we’re a little more watchful at this performance because there were pictures taken at earlier previews,” some of which ended up in publications.

“Quite frankly,” Fennell says, camera checking “needs to be done more often.”

The final disappointment of our Angeleno -- who’s unconvinced by that explanation -- came on his way out of New York as he headed to Newark International Airport and saw police and Homeland Security officers waving through trucks instead of checking them for bombs.

“Yes, New York, we’re back to a pre-9/11 mentality,” he wrote. “But at least the world is safe for Julia Roberts from seeing an unflattering photo in Us Weekly.”

Scott Timberg