Broadway Tomato Gun

I have a brilliant idea (well, a gimmick really) for a new Broadway show: everyone in the audience gets handed a tomato launcher and 4 tomatoes at the start of the show. Then it works sort of like the old "Gong Show": if at any point during the show you're bored or you see something you don't like or the script gets a little weak, you boo and fire a tomato at the actor.

I like this idea a lot cuz it "keeps it real"... and it's a sort of stop-loss guarantee that even if the show sucks, you'll at least get a certain amount of entertainment in letting them know. Maybe for balance you could also have some "reward ammo" that shoots rose petals in appreciation?

I had this idea while attending the 2007 Tony award winner for best musical, "Spring Awakening," which is without exaggeration the singularly worst piece of crap I ever saw (well, saw the first half of, that is). Bad writing, bad acting, bad music, bad singers, even a bad set design (well, there is no set!). I have seen high school productions that were better. In fact I have not seen a high school production that was worse.

It's kind of infuriating to plunk down a hefty chunk of change to get handed this steaming plate of crap... so I thought about how they could right their ship. The play is beyond salvaging, but launching a few tomatoes at the actors would really help! Why did we ever abandon this tradition? I thought that was the whole benefit of live entertainment versus a movie...