TT: With humble apologies to Cole Porter...

...I offer this new lyric to an old song in the hope of making certain careless theatergoers think twice:

Turn off your cellphone,

Start powering it down.

Turn off your cellphone

Or your fellow men will frown.

If it rings at the end of The Crucible,

All the ushers will treat you as gooseable.

If you chat when you ought to be si-o-lent,

Then assume that your date will get violent.

We're all sick of the buzzing and ringing

That detracts from the acting and singing.

Turn off your cellphone

Or get out of town.

* * *

Cole Porter's "Brush Up Your Shakespeare," sung by Lee Wilkof and Michael Mulheren in the 1999 Broadway revival of Kiss Me, Kate: