Should venues allow text messaging during live performances?

Great issue.

Well, there was that anecdotal evidence from the Playbill, wherein:

Last spring, at a Sunday matinee of Tracy Letts' critically acclaimed Broadway play August: Osage County, film stars Jake Gyllenhaal and Reese Witherspoon were in attendance. Reportedly, they didn't see much of the show. According to an account in the New York Post's Page Six, during the single act they remained in the theatre, they had their heads bent down over their Blackberrys, feverishly sending text-messages.

I imagine some people don't see the harm in it, even though it is so very, very annoying, just as it is in a movie theater or any other relatively space where the public convenes for the ostensible purpose of being entertained. 

Should venues allow text messaging during live performances?

'Live performances' definitely makes sense here since we already have an issue regarding movie theaters and cell phones...

My only concern is whether people will take stands on both sides of the debate... but if everyone thinks they will, then I'm fine with this issue...

I take your point.  It is an issue of manners at this juncture, though who knows?  At some point someone may propose some sort of legislation.  Still.  I'd go with the wording you used -- "be allowed -- that seems right.

I think "live performances" would work well here. Maybe "banned" is a bit much,  though; it sort of implies passage of a law, which isn't (yet) the case. As it is now, audiences are reminded to silence their cell phones before performances...

Maybe, "Should text messaging be allowed during live performances?"

Good point.  Broaden to include plays, the opera, ballet.  So maybe "Shoud text messaging be banned during live performances?" 

Excellent issue, MikeD! I have often been distracted/annoyed by a brightly-lit screen at the theater (movies too, actually).

Should we keep it to Broadway shows (better for PF evidence) or broaden it to plays in general?

From Playbill:

It's the theatre's latest techno-menace: the text-message. If it hasn't quite overtaken the ringing cell phone as the leading audience disturbance, it is fast gaining ground. The house lights go down, and the small, glowing blue screens go on. Some (older) texters are taking care of business matters. Some (younger) texters are sending private missives to a friend across the auditorium, or even to the person who's sitting right next to them. Mim Pollack, the chief usher at the Vivian Beaumont Theatre, experiences such offenders every day. Recently, at a performance of South Pacific, "everyone was being reminded to turn off their personal communication devices and a kid, a teenager, was sitting there texting. I had to put a flashlight on him to get him to turn it off.

[...]

John Loiacono, who is the house manager at Disney's New Amsterdam Theatre — and who has seen text-messaging increase over the last year — has had plenty of success with that simple approach. He explained, "Ushers ask them to stop. Often they start again. Then, the ushers ask them to stop again. After a couple times, the usher will ask them to continue outside. Usually they do."

Loiacono said the New Amsterdam's pre-show announcement to the audience, alerting them to switch off all electronic devices, does not currently include any specific message of text-messaging. But that is something that may be considered in the future, he said. Jersey Boys is also considering that option. The Winter Garden, which housed Mamma Mia!, the Roundabout Theatre Company, which maintains the American Airlines Theatre and Studio 54, Lincoln Center Theater, and the Biltmore Theatre, run by Manhattan Theatre Club, currently do not make announcements admonishing texting.