Nothing dims the magic of theatre faster than someone blinding everyone with their camera flash.
What started as a high school performer’s small critique of her grandma’s theatre etiquette quickly turned into an all-out insult to her theatre, her friends, and everything she held dear.
She stood up for her friends, but she’s still feeling badly about the whole thing.
You’ll want to read on for this one.
I (f 15) am a theatre kid at my high school.
My grandma (f 66) is the one who picks me up from rehearsals.
Recently, we performed A Christmas Carol for our town.
It was really fun, and I enjoyed it thoroughly.
But off stage, trouble was brewing.
However, my grandma made the situation have issues.
She decided to record videos of me and other actors.
It would’ve been decent if she didn’t have the camera flash on.
Camera flash bothers actors because of the stage lights; it’s more of a distraction than anything.
This caused some drama with the other performers.
In our theatre group, we have a person who has sensitivities to sudden lights.
I heard them discussing my grandma and how it wasn’t cool.
So the young performer tries to intervene, but her grandma didn’t take it well.
As it was intermission, I decided to call her and tell her to stop.
This stopped her for the time being, but once the show was over, I got a stern talking to in the car.
She told me that she didn’t care, she paid for the tickets to see the show, and she could use her flash if she wanted to.
Then grandma took her annoyance a step further.
I, of course, was heavily annoyed with this, and another thing too.
She trashed on almost every actor, saying that they all were TRASH.
They worked just as hard as me, and I felt empathetic for them in that moment.
She also informed me that they were all “freaks” and I needed to “stay away from them,” which is overall a very rude thing to say in my opinion.
This has left the performer with a bitter taste in her mouth.
Only a few of them were a little awkward, but I wouldn’t call them freaks.
Everyone is unique in their own way, whether they wish to express it or not.
Theatre is now a hard discussion in my home, but I would like to know, AITA?
Clearly the real drama in this scenario was off the stage.
What did Reddit have to say?
The “no flash photography” rule seems like it should be common sense.
Her grandma may have been embarrassed, but she didn’t have to drag others down with her.
Maybe this whole situation had less to do with the performers and more to do with the grandma’s embarrassment.
Maybe grandma needs to put herself in someone else’s shoes.
What started as a plea for respect turned into an uncomfortable truth about her grandma’s opinions.
It’s hard to move forward when your passion is ridiculed.
If you liked that story, read this one about grandparents who set up a college fund for their grandkid because his parents won’t, but then his parents want to use the money to cover sibling’s medical expenses.
