Quote Originally Posted by JerseyLawyer View Post

I suppose I'm old-fashioned in that I always feel the need to dress up if I'm going out to the theater. I'm continually amazed by what people wear - up to (or down to) and including jeans and a tee-shirt. I might skip the tie and wear a turtleneck and sport coat to a matinee, but not to an evening performance. I mean, why bother going if you aren't going to dress up and make a night of it?
It is interesting how times have changed. I, like you, like to 'make a night of it' and get dressed up, but times were when people ate, drank, and talked through whole performances. They would cheer parts they liked and jeer the parts they didn't. The boxes were reserved for the rich and the floor for everybody else.

I am glad that the elitism and snobbery of classical music and live performance in concert halls is disappearing though. The fact that many people today don't own a jacket and tie shouldn't prevent them from enjoying live performances of symphonies, operas and other cultural events.

I'll continue to 'dress up' because I like to, not because I have to.