Ayyyy

The weirdest part of making everyone leave the hall and turn their backs when she enters is that she doesn’t need to come in through that door. In all my years working at the theater, I’ve never seen any performer enter the building through that door. There are plenty of places she could enter where she would already be backstage and wouldn’t have to walk past any venue staff. It seems like a bit of a power move to me. I think she wants to pretend she doesn’t like the attention, but she actually really does.

There were some comps given out, but I don’t think it was that many. I think a lot of tickets just sold last minute. It’s not uncommon with long runs like this for people who have already gone to buy tickets for another show day of. We also get a lot of walk ups during ingress when there’s a big name on the marquee. We were relocating people from the rear balcony, but it did feel pretty full. I didn’t get a chance to go backstage during the show. There’s way too much going on back there. There were times that I could see someone sitting down playing a cello in the wings. I don’t know where any other musicians were located. We did catch some people filming. Note to people going to future shows: if you pull out your bright, glowing phone screen in a dark theater (as long as the staff at your venue is doing their jobs) YOU WILL BE SPOTTED! NO MATTER HOW WELL YOU HIDE IT! Once we see it, you’ll be asked to step out into the hall. Someone from Madonna’s security team will come over and make you delete whatever photos or videos you took (and they will stand there until you do it. There’s no getting out of it. One person tried to refuse and the police ended up getting involved) and then you will be escorted out of the venue. Madonna’s team already know all the tricks people try when they get caught, so don’t bother trying to hide the phone under/around your seat or hand it off to someone near you, it’ll be found. If you’re thinking about trying to sneak some videos, just do yourself, the people sitting around you, and everyone working the show a favor and don’t do it. It’s not worth it. There will be video of the show eventually, I’m sure.

It’s much worse than that actually. She wants the heat on at all times. It’s so hot in there.

The environment is way different. The first day when I arrived I looked around and immediately thought “oh my god, there are so many people here”. It’s just such a big production with so many moving parts. It is also a little more stressful because we have to coordinate with her security team the entire time. We also have to constantly be on the lookout for phones because we can’t let anything make it online if someone somehow snuck something in or broke their pouch open. There’s also just a lot of things for guests to complain about at these shows “why is she going on so late” “why can’t I use my phone” “why’s it so hot in here” etc. Fortunately though, Madonna and her people have been very happy with us and even said things ran much smoother at our theater than in Brooklyn.

My favorite starts with the dance/movement piece with the breathing sound effects that happens right before Frozen, and goes all the way through to the end. I think that entire last stretch is really great. The vocals seem to be quite good. This is the first time I’ve seen her though, so I have nothing to compare it to. She does seem to be lip syncing during some of the songs with more intense dancing though.

Oh, you wouldn’t have had to beg. This was an “all hands on deck” situation. I took today off and was practically begged to come in.

Just remember if you’re going to a show in the future to take it easy on the staff

There’s pros and cons to everything. Has this week been exhausting? Sure. But I also got to see the show multiple times while getting payed ?

“Wild” May have been a misleading term. Just really weird stuff that we weren’t used to. For example, I have it on good authority that we were required to change the toilet seat in her dressing room every few hours. That late start is definitely not the norm. In fact, almost all of our shows end before 11 because performers get fined for breaking the noise ordinance if they go past 11. It was very hard on us. Most of us got there around 5-6 everyday and didn’t get home until around 3 (and the majority of our staff either go to school or have another job). The hardest part though was that we didn’t have any days off when she wasn’t performing. We haven’t had a day off since the first show. Between shows 2 and 3 we day 5 Jim Gaffigan shows and a graduation.

She definitely wasn’t filming these shows for any kind of dvd release. There was a small crew (2, maybe 3 people) filming stuff, but it was probably just for social media or behind the scenes/ archive footage

Haha.... I don’t think so. She did her sound check very late every day (usually around 6:30-7), so late that all of our staff were already in position by the time she arrived. For some reason she always entered through the side door on Lake street. When she arrived, all of our staff- ushers, security, concessions, etc- that we’re positioned in that main hallway were required to leave their positions and gather by the main stairs with their backs turned while she entered the theater. Normally I’d say someone from the theater must have talked to her at some point. But she has so many people coordinating things for her and security is so tight that I honestly don’t know if anyone employed by the theater spoke with her directly. I did speak with one of our security guards who was working load in though. They said that she showed up on the second day of load in and she was surrounded on all sides by 4 security guards and her dancer boyfriend. Her security team communicated for her the whole time. However, this person also said that she seemed to be making a concerted effort to make at least 5-10 seconds of direct eye contact with everyone that was there. Also, between her exit at the end of the show and leaving to get in her car, she changes her clothes near the door. Some of us that were in that general area could hear her talking while she changed. I don’t think she ever said anything particularly interesting though. She mostly just complained about being cold.

Hey everyone I found this site while looking for people’s reactions to the show. I actually work for the theater (I took the night off tonight, obviously) and it was super interesting for me to read through everyone’s thoughts and speculations surrounding the show and the experience of attending. I made an account to offer any insights I can about the goings on behind the scenes. I’m not a Madonna super fan like I’m sure you all are (although I do think she’s fantastic), so I’m not sure what’s common knowledge and what would be considered “inside” info. If you have any questions though, I’d be happy to answer them to the best of my ability. To start off, I can see there was a lot of speculation about the reasons behind the shuffling of some of the dates. The reason for our first show being rescheduled was that it took her crew 2 full days to load all of her stuff into the theater and set it up, leaving little to no time for rehearsals. I guess with this being only the second stop, they underestimated how long the process of moving everything over would take. There’s a lot of wild stuff that’s happened throughout this run, I don’t even know what would be interesting at this point. Let me know if there’s anything you’d like to know!