TNT: The ballet wants you to take your phone out. No, really.

Among the pantheon of social faux-paus in our society, having a cell phone make even a peep during a live theater performance is high on the list. However, for one show next week, the Philadelphia Cultural Alliance is encouraging patrons to bring their cell phones.
“And that’s the irony of the whole thing,” says Philadelphia Cultural Alliance spokesman John McInerney.
Thanks to a $50,000 grant from PNC Bank, the Greater Philadelphia Cultural Alliance, an independent non-profit organization funded through grants and member dues, is launching its “Turn Your Cell Phone On!” campaign, a new effort to increase the interactivity of Philadelphia cultural events using mobile technology. The latest implementation of it is due this week with the Pennsylvania Ballet’s performance of George Balanchine’s The Nutcracker. Audience members will be able to vote on their favorite characters and scenes using their cell phone.
“A lot of the times you go to a performance and right afterward you leave … but this is actually encouraging people to talk amongst themselves,” McInerney says. Though patrons will still be asked to keep their phone off during the performance, at intermission there will be flat screen TVs and staffers available to display the results and answer any questions, respectively.
The Alliance hopes that the slow implementation of more technology attracts a younger crowd to shows.
“We saw some great interaction where a grandchild was showing her grandmother how to text,” says McInerney.

The group is not looking to collect any cell phone numbers. Instead, the Cultural Alliance is more concerned with driving awareness of its Web site, PhillyFunGuide.com where the results will be posted live. The last time the Alliance implemented mobile polling, during the Fringe Festival, it increased online show reviews from roughly 15 per week to 75.
“Everyone tends to go to the Fun Guide to see the results of the poll, and then they can also post more detailed reviews,” he says.
To conduct the poll the group is using Poll Everywhere, a freemium service that allows up to 20,000 users to participate in a text messaging poll.
The genesis for the effort was a research report compiled by the Alliance that showed people were looking to interact more with their performances. The text poll is a small beginning step for the Cultural Alliance, which plans on increasing audience participation using technology and hasn’t ruled out performances where the audience could affect what is happening in the show by voting.
“It would require a more nimble group, we just haven’t found that right example,” he says.
The group is also developing technology on its Web site that would allow users to log in and create a custom itinerary based on the site’s robust events calendar, in addition to its plans to create widgets for other sites to display feeds from the Alliance.

Times:

Below are all the scheduled performances of “The Nutcracker” that will include the “Turn Your Phone On!” polls.
Sat, December 26th, 2:00 p.m.
Sat., December 26th, 7:00 p.m.
Sun., December 27th, 12:00 p.m.
Sun., December 27th, 4:00 p.m.
Mon., December 28th , 2:00 p.m.
Mon., December 28th , 7:00 p.m.
Tue., December 29th , 12:00 p.m.
Tue., December 29th , 4:00 p.m.
Wed., December 30th ,12:00 p.m.
Wed., December 30th , 4:00 p.m.
Thu., December 31th , 12:00 p.m.