Most awkward moment you ever had in a theater?- Page 2

[winston89]

Posted: 2/9/13 at 3:19am

I was at the last performance of Phantom prior to the 25th anniversary. It was a a sold out house and I was in standing room. There was a young couple in front of me that looked to be around my age (early to mid twenties.) Not only were they making out for a majority of the time (which was distracting and annoying.) But, at one point the girl put a jacket over the guys lap and not so subtly starting pumping away. I didn't know that Phantom was a show with a happy ending.

[estupido24]

Posted: 2/9/13 at 4:27am

when I saw wicked, in the scene where Glinda and Elphaba meeet the wizard. The zipper in teal wicks dress was open, she found out pretty fast and had to do the entire scene having one hand holding the back of her dress together.

[Jon]

Posted: 2/9/13 at 7:45am

I can't believe there are poeple who don't know about the nude scene in Hair. It's pretty much the most well-known thing about the show - like the helicopter in Miss Saigon and the chandelier in POTO.

[yankeefan7]

Posted: 2/9/13 at 8:41am

Seeing the understudy for Nathan Lane (he was doing promotion for Lion King I believe)in "Laughter on The 23rd Floor" forget his lines three times in one performance.

Updated On: 2/9/13 at 08:41 AM

[NJBway]

Posted: 2/9/13 at 8:58am

would have to be spring awakening and when I saw rent, both of which I saw with my parents at a VERY young age, when stage dooring spring awakening my mom asked Jonathon Groff if he ever considered having the mole he had on his butt crack removed.

[newintown]

Posted: 2/9/13 at 10:08am

Burning.

I loved watching those poor actors strip naked and pretend to screw each other, but was simultaneously embarrassed for them doing such bad pretend porn. Hunter Foster, in particular, seemed incredibly unhappy to expose his sphincter to us all for what must have been about $500 a week.

[Kbradstein]

Posted: 2/9/13 at 10:23am

for mr it would have to be Cyrano back in October. i was in row F, and there was an older gentlemen with a much younger, scantily dressed woman. (presumably a prostitute). they fell asleep almost instantly, snoring and everything. And when Doug Hodge jumped out into the audience to do his whole" are you looking at my nose!?" thing he saw hem right there and just rolled his eyes. in the second act once they had gotten some booze in them, they proceed to fondle each other, and act lets say "inappropriately." after that they had the balls to get up in a very emotional scene, being very easily seen by everyone on stage and run to the bathroom! They both came back at the same time looking very "messy" and tucking in shirts and zipping zippers. i mean c'mon! there i am 14 and i was trying to enjoy a how with my dad while these low-life's are trying to get in a quickie. why pay to sleep in a theater, and then run off for the majority of the second act? disgusting.

[Dollypop]

Posted: 2/9/13 at 10:38am

Possibly the time I fell into the orchestra pit while dancing in the chorus of a summer stock performance of HIGH BUTTON SHOES.

[theaterfan862]

Posted: 2/9/13 at 10:43am

Gothampc was the show Porgy and Bess? If it is then I believe I was there that night. For me it was when I went to see Gypsy with Patti Lupone and she stopped the show and went off on the guy in the audience taking pictures. To be honest I was slightly terrified and in very shocked. It was one of my first shows and it left a bit of a sour taste in my mouth. Now I look back and laugh but it was scary at the time.

[AMWB]

Posted: 2/9/13 at 4:27pm

Well... I have two... one was awkward, and one was awkward/awesome...

1) my fiance and I took my future mother-in-law to see Edward Albee's THE GOAT. : o When the curtain came down, we all sat there quietly for a moment, and then I said, "shall we get drinks!??"

2) I was on the aisle to see Patti LuPone in SWEENEY TODD, and as the lights were going down, Johnny Depp and a friend came to sit in my aisle. He had to climb all over me to to get to his seat -- and I didn't make it easy for him...
; ) Later, I met him backstage and we nodded to each other like we were old friends... LOL

[mc1227]

Posted: 2/9/13 at 9:44pm

Gotham, by chance was that Joan Rivers? I was at the play, The Receptionist, a few years ago and she sat directly across the aisle from me with both of us in aisle seats. She fell asleep for most of the play. She didn't wake up until curtain call. Very awkward..

[SweetLips]

Posted: 2/9/13 at 11:41pm

I think it wonderful how reading someones' message [estupido24] it prompts a long forgotten memory.All I remember of the concert of Pat Boon and Diana Trask way way back in Brisbane-Miss Trasks dress literally fell apart in front of us--poor Pat.

[disneybroadwayfan22]

Posted: 2/10/13 at 9:36am

I know that this isn't a Broadway show experience, but:

1) In my freshman year of HS, we did Little Shop of Horrors. During Ya Never Know on opening night, the guy who was Mushnik lost the camera, so that was a huge awkward moment which the guy who was Seymour broke: "So, how are you doing?" to the Urchins. Also, the dentist seat fell during "It's the Gas" :P
2) In my audition for a summer stock production of Footloose, I almost fell of the stage o.o

[kadu335]

Posted: 2/10/13 at 10:00am

I guess my most awkward moment in a theater was when I went to see Next Fall and a couple sitting by my side kept "interrogating" me before the show and during intermission... it started off like normal conversation about theater and then they moved to some more personal stuff. When the show ended, they invited me to have dinner with them, in their apartment...
The whole situation was so odd. It looked like they were under the influence of something (probably some light drug or too much alcohol), I don't know, they looked a little creepy... LOL
I refused the invitation and left the theater as fast as I could!

[Orangesaretuesdays]

Posted: 2/10/13 at 11:28am

For me, one of my most awkward moments was when I was Albert in Bye Bye Birdie at my high school. I was waiting backstage during "One Boy" as I was to make an entrance at the end of the song. I look around and I see this random kid I don't know, in my mind I was like "wait is he a techie, but he's not wearing black, then who is he?" but by the time I realized he wasn't part of the show in any way he had already made his way onto the stage. So while people were singing "One Boy" this random guy in street clothes was onstage just looking around at the audience. I enter in character and try to usher him off, he put up a struggle as I had to pull him off stage. I finally get him into the wings and give him a "what are you doing?!?!?" look and with red eyes he answered slowly "Wheres the bathroom?"


Updated On: 2/10/13 at 11:28 AM

[yankeefan7]

Posted: 2/10/13 at 11:35am

Got to admit it amazes me how many people have seen people fall asleep during most of a show and have some form of sex in audience.

Updated On: 2/10/13 at 11:35 AM

[Playbilly]

Posted: 2/10/13 at 3:00pm

During a performance of "Bent" an elderly man continually told Gere and Dukes to "stop that" and "stop" during the scene where they talk about the sex acts they'd perform. The actors kept going, never missing a beat until the man was finally ushered out.

[jetts7]

Posted: 2/10/13 at 3:02pm

This isn't a good story but when I went to go see Chaplin with my friend, the usher gave my friend 2 playbills and I didn't notice. I kept on asking the usher for a playbill and then afterwards realized my friend had my playbill.

[NJBway]

Posted: 2/10/13 at 3:48pm

my awkward moment performing had to be when i did "curtains", I played Carmen and my husband was black and since Carmen hangs her husband in the show it was awkward when most of our audience one night was black, they got upset.

[eatlasagna]

Posted: 2/10/13 at 3:59pm

in college many many years ago I did a production of The Me Nobody Knows... well after one of the songs the cast had to give the middle finger to the entire audience... and mind you this is a small intimate black box theater so the audience was literally right in our faces... well that night we had a group of girl scouts in our audience... we think they didn't know what the show was about... they left at intermission!

[BeadleDeedle]

Posted: 2/10/13 at 4:17pm

Awkward/depressing then very funny. I was at the revival of Night Music and the 2nd act had just got going. Alexander Hanson was starting "It Would Have Been Wonderful" when there was a gasping and a shrieking from the middle of the orchestra. A very large man was having some kind of terrible attack. The show was stopped for about 30 minutes as paramedics were summoned. The man was eventually wheeled out on a stretcher and wasn't moving. It was pretty frightening and the mood of the theater was quite grim.

When the show started up again, Alexander Hanson came out to restart the song. Of course, the first line was, "I should never have gone to the theater..." It pretty much stopped the show as the audience laughed and clapped for a good minute. The sense of relief was palpable.

Ah the power of live theater.

[FireFingers]

Posted: 2/10/13 at 4:30pm

For me, it was when when I was doing Crazy For You, which uses the whole "show within a show" thing. Anyway, our female lead became ill, and it being a sold out fringe production we had no understudy, so one of the chorus girls was hurriedly run through the songs, and she went on with a script, with lots of cuts to choreography. And towards the end one character had to utter the immortal line "But we have full house, and no leading lady!" Cue much laughter from everyone, both audience and cast.

When I was younger, the Royal Opera House's arbitrary nudity in ever show thing was quit awkward. Seriously, go to the ROH in London, and I think only about 5% of productions don't have bare breasts, with about 20% having full frontal, and all for no good reason.

[LuminousBeing]

Posted: 2/10/13 at 9:25pm

When I saw "American Idiot," the lady sitting next to me (a woman of large stature who appeared to be in her mid-forties) interrogated me about the show, and told me how excited she was to see it. She had never heard of Green Day.

Soon after the opening number, she fell asleep, leaned toward my seat, and her leg and shoulder pressed against mine. Thankfully, no drool.

At the start of "Do You Know the Enemy" she woke with a comical "aaah-ah!" and flailed her arms, nearly hitting me in the face. After that point, she clapped VERY enthusiastically after every single song, until she fell asleep again during "Wake me Up When September Ends."

When the show ended and the cast came out for the encore of "Time of Your Life," she gave a HUGE standing ovation, springing out of her seat before the cast even began singing. She kept applauding and screaming throughout the song. She exclaimed when the show finally ended that she'd never had a better time at the theater and what a show it was.

She must have had one heck of a dream!

[IronMan]

Posted: 2/10/13 at 10:40pm

Before a matinee of "Fiddler On The Roof" in the 80s, there was a commotion in the audience- a woman with a tour group had a heart attack and died. She was taken out by paramedics, but their group was not told she had died until intermission, though the cast knew. Do you realize just how many references/jokes there are about death in Fiddler? ("Like a bandage can help a corpse", the entire dream sequence, etc...) Made for a rather awkward show.

PS: The deceased's sister with the group stayed for the 2nd act because she wanted to find out what happens.

[RENT's_Awakening]

Posted: 2/11/13 at 12:43am

I was doing a production of Willy Wonka, Jr. as Wonka. Before the factory scenes, in this script Wonka serves as narrator. At one point, I had the line "And every year, Charlie got a very special treat," and handed the Wonka bar to his parents. One performance, I completely forgot to make sure I had the bar onstage. Seeing as it's a rather crucial plot point, I wildly improvised. "...got a very special treat. Which I'm going to get for you right now."

I promptly ran offstage, leaving the Bucket family to remain frozen in a spotlight.