Snackdown!

Rustling wrappers and dribbling drinks are an ever more common part of going out to see a show

The house lights dim and late arrivals crab-walk across rows of seats, juggling candy, sandwiches and cups sloshing with ice. They're not here for a blockbuster movie but for live theater, an event that used to be a world apart from the local multiplex with its incessant snacking and jabbering.

But not any more.

"During 'Lion King,' there was a woman who must have brought a convenience store in her bag," said Russ Campbell, who saw last fall's show in Memorial Auditorium at Raleigh's Progress Energy Center. "Every five minutes she was opening a candy bar for her kid. Then she kept checking her cell phone. What do you do? If you complain you become as much of a distraction."

As recently as a decade ago, taking anything more than a breath mint beyond the lobby of a performing arts hall was unthinkable -- and it still is in some places. But more and more, patrons who prefer the arts without a la carte treats have to share space with the people who like to nibble while they watch.

The extremes are framed perfectly at the Progress Energy Center, where fans of opera, ballet, classical music, theater, comedy and rock can cross paths on a given night. No walls divide the lobbies of the venue's three biggest auditoriums -- Memorial, Meymandi Concert Hall and Fletcher Opera Theater -- and what's allowed inside each one will vary according to who is on stage.

Take the weekend Joan Collins and Linda Evans were in town. Inside Memorial Auditorium, the women were starring in the touring comedy "Legends!" Theater-goers stocked up at the concession counter before the performance and replenished during intermission.

Down the hall at Meymandi, meanwhile, ushers stood guard against snack smugglers attending the N.C. Symphony's performance of Gustav Mahler's Symphony No. 5.

"Sometimes it's a rude shock to someone who has just bought a glass of wine," said symphony spokeswoman Jeannie Mellinger. But allowing snacks and drinks would be hard on the lush hall, she said, and distracting for the musicians as well as patrons.

The city of Raleigh, which owns the Progress Energy Center, makes money off the concessions, which can include freshly prepared pasta, sandwich wraps, water, beer, wine and cocktails. Jim Lavery, the center's general manager, said he hears few complaints about letting people carry the items inside. Most visitors seem to like the convenience, he said.

Among other venues and performing arts groups in the Triangle, practices cover the full range. Most venues sell snacks and beverages. A couple permit only drinks in the audience. At the Carolina Theatre in Durham, food and drink are always allowed in the upstairs cinema, but on the stage downstairs it depends on the show.

Burning Coal Theater Company, which has performed wherever it could find the space, plans to have a coffee shop in its first home venue at the old Murphey School in Raleigh. It will sell cookies, brownies, coffee and tea.

Common Ground Theatre, which operates a performance space in Durham, has no problem with audiences eating and drinking, either. People can even bring their own beer and wine if they want, manager Rachel Klem said. Someone once brought a whole dinner, she said, but ate it in the lobby.

The lobby's one thing, but Campbell, a frequent theater-goer, wishes everyone would just sit still and be quiet inside the theater. He likes intimate, edgy plays that give him something to think about. His wife prefers musicals, which brings the couple to about half of each season's Broadway Series South productions.