Around New York City’s Times Square on any given night, it’s not uncommon to see serpentine queues trailing out of the Broadway theatres that populate the area. They coil around city blocks, snarl pedestrian traffic, sometimes even block major intersections. And if you’re stuck in one of them, sweating nervously as your watch ticks ever closer to showtime, it can often feel like these snaking queues move more like a garden snail on a leisurely stroll.
The source of this inconvenience? Airport-style security. For hardened New York theatregoers, it’s a familiar routine. Take off your belt. Empty your pockets. Walk through the metal detector. If you have a bag, open it up and prepare for a security guard to rummage through your belongings with a long wooden stick, as they silently judge you by the contents of your bag.
In Toronto, this practice is almost foreign, only found at major sports venues and some music halls. Even at the city’s biggest theatres, it’s possible to saunter in two minutes before curtain, get your ticket scanned and walk straight to your seat — without once having to go through a security check.
But a recent series of bomb threats that forced the cancellation of several Shen Yun dance performances at the Four Seasons Centre for the Performing Arts last month has sparked discussion about the state of security at Toronto’s theatres, and whether we need airport-style security like what’s on Broadway.
It’s a tempting proposal, especially in response to last month’s incident. But it’s one that should be dismissed. Because theatre security is really just security theatre. While it may have some limited value at deterring potential threats and offering some reassurance to the wider public, this pre-show performance is more of a giant farce.
Security threats in the Canadian theatre scene are rare. The last major incident came in 2018, when another bomb threat forced the cancellation of the opening night performance of “The Tempest” at the Stratford Festival. That threat was deemed unfounded. So too were those directed at Shen Yun last month.
Still, these incidents are enough to rattle audiences. And the fact remains that if terrorists want to cause major damage, theatres are always easy targets due to the sheer number of people in a small enclosed space.
I can still remember the chill I felt when I went to the theatre for the first time after the terror attack at a concert hall outside Moscow on March 22, 2024, which claimed 149 lives. I can still remember sitting in the Princess of Wales Theatre for the opening of “Les Misérables” less than a week later, looking around before the show and wondering what would happen if — God forbid — something like that were to unfold here.
All terror attacks and even threats of terror are depraved. But those made against theatres feel especially so. Because theatres are sacred places — a forum for free expression. To attack a theatre, in my eyes, is like an attack on a school, or a place of worship or a hospital.
But while metal detectors and guards may help create the illusion of security, they’re rarely effective in reality. In the U.S., the Department of Homeland Security regularly conducts covert tests at TSA screening checkpoints. While most of the results from these tests are almost always classified, agency officials shared in 2015 that they were able to get weapons past TSA security 95 per cent of the time.
That same year, inspection officials identified nine security vulnerabilities with TSA screening processes. Three years later, none of those issues had been resolved, according to the U.S. Government Accountability Office.
It’s hard to imagine that security screening at theatres would be any more effective. Instead, we should view these bag checks and metal detectors as all part of a performance. Those security agents are the actors. So too are we, albeit unwittingly. And as we go through these checks, opening up our bags, raising our arms for those hand-held wands, we’re merely following a pre-written script — a ritual that conjures a false sense of security without actually providing any significant security benefit.
There are far more effective and less inconvenient measures to tangibly increase safety and security, like surveillance and legitimate counterterrorism initiatives. But hastily poking a wooden stick in someone’s bag, or confiscating a pack of trail mix, sure isn’t one of them.
So, to this performance of security theatre, I say: Let’s draw the curtains.
