In a dark movie theater, the audience sits engrossed in "Up." An elderly man and a child are sailing miles above the ground in a house carried by a grand bouquet of balloons -- which is wonderful until a glance out the window reveals ominously dark clouds crackling with lightning.

Far below, a light flashes. Eyes move away from the screen to the light emanating from a moviegoer's cell phone, which reads, "1 New Text Message."

From movie theaters to Broadway shows to jazz concerts, audiences are growing annoyed with a new distraction to add to the coughing, talking and crinkling candy wrappers -- texting.

"To me, it's a violation of theater manners," said Tracy Taylor Perles, 48, of Upper St. Clair. "It's rude. And let's face it, the tickets are not cheap anymore."

Movie theater officials across the state report an increase in complaints about movie texters -- so much so that leaders of the National Association of Theater Owners have made the phenomenon a permanent subject in their biannual meeting notes regarding patron behavior.

"It's a nationwide problem. A bright light in a theater is very distracting," said Gina Troutman-DiSanto, co-executive director of the National Association of Theater Owners of Pennsylvania. "We find in some of our auditoriums that there are kids sitting in row five texting someone in row eight."

Mrs. Perles echoed that notion, pointing out that much of the texting appears to be trivial.

"The worst part is, I don't think they are important messages," she said. "Nobody's jumping up or running out for a medical emergency, you know?"

Although teenagers, who have been surrounded by technology from birth, are widely viewed as more avid texters than adults, the problem encompasses both demographics.

"But I think adults sometimes respond better to the trailers that tell them to stop," said Mrs. Troutman-DiSanto. The theater owners association plans to include warnings against texting in the trailers that ask patrons to turn off phones, she added.

Some believe teens and young adults are less distracted by the texting compared with adults because they use the form of communication more often.

"I think it's new in our generation. Young people grew up with it," said Nancy Gaormina, 20, of Pine. "Our parents never had texting growing up, so they get more annoyed by it."

But not all young people approve.

Jackie Dineen, 22, of Richland, normally uses text messages to communicate, but she stops when she gets to the theater.

"I just find it kind of rude as far as the other moviegoers go because they've spent money on tickets, but clearly if you're texting you have other things you want to be doing since you're not paying attention," she said. "When people get a text message, they're just too curious to see who's messaging them to ignore it."

Jim Fedorka, a 21-year-old Irwin resident who admits to texting during movies occasionally, said it only annoys him if the texter is nearby.

The same problem occurs during stage productions, something Abby Morrison, 44, of Shadyside, recently experienced at the play "Burn This" at the New Hazlett Theater.

"There was somebody next to me typing on his phone," she said. "We were in the second or third row, so I think it was really rude to the actors, and it's distracting to the audience members."

But even the largest dissenters of theater texting have found it to be useful at other venues.

At concerts, people have begun sending live playlists to fellow fans to compare shows in different cities. And cell phones have become the cigarette lighters of the 21st century; there are few shows where lit screens cannot be seen swaying above heads in a concert crowd.

It is not always a bad thing in the theater, either.

Mrs. Perles recently went to see "Legally Blonde the Musical" at the Benedum Center, which inconveniently coincided with Game 7 of the Stanley Cup final. At intermission, the theater was alive with text updates, and a group cheered during the break when the Penguins scored.

That night, Mrs. Perles said, texting added to her enjoyment because it united the theater patrons.

"At the end of the show, a whole crowd -- I mean hundreds of people outside the theater -- started cheering when the Pens won," she said. "It all had to be through texting and phone updates."