Funny/Horrible Mistakes on Live Performances!- Page 2

[EponineThenardier]

Posted: 1/30/05 at 8:42pm

Oh man I can't believe I forgot this one! I've seen Les Miz twice, on seperate sides of the world really. Both performances had trouble with the chair that Valjean beats Javert to a pulp with.

First time: US tour. The chair (which is meant to fall apart on cue, when Valjean slams it against the ground) broke without anyone touching it in the middle of "Come to Me" and it was really loud when it broke, Valjean started cracking up, Fantine was about to die and he was laughing.

2nd time: London. After Confrontation when Valjean grabs the chair and slams it against the ground the chair wouldn't break. He tried it about 4 times and the damn thing wouldn't seperate. Javert was kinda left stannding there foolishly. Finally Valjean grabbed the entire chair and smacks Javert is the back with it, instead of the head. Updated On: 1/30/05 at 08:42 PM

[thespian geek]

Posted: 1/30/05 at 8:43pm

A friend of mine went and saw Rent this weekend and said during the title song, Drew went to jump over the folding chair and his foot snagged the back.. he slid down the front of it and then flipped over and landed on the stage on his back.

[CatieElphie1]

Posted: 1/30/05 at 8:48pm

***wince*** ow!
another one I just remembered was a prodution of peter pan...the flying mechanism broke three minutes into the show, so every time any flying was involved, the performers had to hop around like idiots

[Johnnytoc]

Posted: 1/30/05 at 8:51pm

Catie: Wow.

When we did it, during a dress rehersal, a piece of the fly system fell and almost hit our Wendy....Our director wasnt too pleased.

[LightMyCandle125]

Posted: 1/30/05 at 8:53pm

cturtle--i know they're supposed to crack up (i've seen the show w/ a couple different casts) but the one i saw at roundabout, they were all hysterical and they started adlibbing and it was really cute. even owen was tearing up.

infinite--are you talking about "making it on broadway" by jodie langel??? she's my friend's voice teacher and she's awesome!!! i've met her a couple of times and worked with her...just thought i'd share.

[playbill_signer_05]

Posted: 1/30/05 at 9:01pm

The only one I have noticed in a Broadway show was in Spamalot: Hank Azaria as Tim the Sorcerer came in on his broom and when he lifted it up the rag robe thing he was wearing got stuck to it... he covered it easily though by simply saying "Damn rag!"

[Jwei123]

Posted: 1/30/05 at 9:02pm

well this isnt broadway, but this afternoon at my matinee of "oklahoma!" my friend's chaps fell to the floor, and while he still had jeans on underneath, the audience still got a kick out of them falling LOL

[BJC899]

Posted: 1/30/05 at 9:07pm

"In Rent, the orchestra forgot to play in Over the Moon. Maureen kept snapping, but the orchestra wouldn't play"

that's supposed to happen

[cur10call]

Posted: 1/30/05 at 9:09pm

One of the funniest mistakes I have seen was during Kathy Lee Giford's last night in Puttin It Together. During "Not Getting Married" she completely forgot the words and said. Figures, Donald Trump is in the audience and I forgot the words. The cast and the audience just howled.

[LightMyCandle125]

Posted: 1/30/05 at 9:14pm

AMAZING story. not a bway performance. my music teacher was the music director carousel at this catholic high school, and this nun was the director. she wanted doves to fly out for the finale "you'll never walk..." and there was this guy who was supposed to put them in cages at a certain point of the show and let them out. well, he wanted to be super on top of it so he put the birds up at the beginning of the show. little did he know that the lights would fry them up during the show. so at the finale when he openned the cages, 2 dozen fried birds plopped onto the stage. true story.

[StickToPriest]

Posted: 1/30/05 at 9:16pm

LightMyCandle: Everyone has heard that story by now in some form or another and I'm pretty sure it is a theatre myth.

[Sumofallthings]

Posted: 1/30/05 at 9:18pm

I heard the same thing only the it was at the end of The Sound Of Music.

[ashbash6819]

Posted: 1/30/05 at 9:27pm

i saw the touring cast of Phantom last year and in the final scene where the phantom lets raoul go by taking a candle and burining it to let him go free, brad little(the phantom at the time)accidently let the candle fling over to the other side of the stage and he had to go get it. rebbeca pitcher(the christine) was trying so hard not to laugh!

[LightMyCandle125]

Posted: 1/30/05 at 9:55pm

well i don't know...it didn't sound like myth to me. now i'm curious to know. whatever.

[La Vie Boheme]

Posted: 1/30/05 at 10:40pm

True or not thats pretty darn funny

[ghostlight2]

Posted: 1/30/05 at 10:46pm

mythus, the producers choreographer having the bulge in his pants isn't exactly a mistake, but wasn't an original bit - what was funny was the night the choreographer(Jim Borstalman) came out, and when he dropped to the ground, the papers in the folder he held shot straight across the stage & off SR. You couldn't have rigged the papers to do that...

[Dreamcatcher]

Posted: 1/30/05 at 10:48pm

In a scene I was doing one of the characters is supposed to throw an orange onto the floor and ask one of the other characters what he would do if that were a bomb. So the character is supposed to react by grabbing a pillow and diving on top of the orange with it but when he did for the show, the orange exploded and went everywhere. It didnt hit the audience but the kid was covered in pulp and my friend and I (the other 2 people in the scene) were trying so hard to not crack up.

[maybethistime]

Posted: 1/30/05 at 10:56pm

In ACT 2 of BLOOD BROTHERS in LONDON, Mrs. Johnstone is singing about how Mickey only thinks about girls. So Mickey walks out and opens a porn magazine (the audience sees one side, with little black dots on the naughty parts) all of a sudden he cracks up and shows her, and she starts laughing but keeps singing, and then the whole show stops becuase they're laughing so hard and Mickey turns it around and shows the audience and taped to the inside is a bunch of picture of granny porn and the entire audience cracks up until finaly they just skip the rest of the song and complete the scene gigling and in tears. It was a great night.

[Musetta1957]

Posted: 1/30/05 at 11:28pm

Actually, that "broken turntable" thing happened in Las Vegas, Nevada, not California.

I don't know if this actually happened, but it was one of the first Les Miz bloopers I ever read online (so it must've been around 1996/97). Apparently the chair that Valjean is supposed to break in "Confrontation" somehow ended up in the ABC Cafe, so all the students had to run in and giiiiinnnnngerly sit down on their chairs. AFAIK no one had to find out the hard way if the breaking chair was theirs.

[Popular]

Posted: 1/31/05 at 1:52am

In Ragtime - Tateh trying his darndest to hold it together during "Our Children" ... his mustouche had become unglued with more than half of it off and it was literally fluttering very noticably with every breathe that hit it. SOOOO funny, I swear I don't know how that thing stayed on!

[dancingthrulife04]

Posted: 1/31/05 at 2:27am

In Rent, the orchestra forgot to play in Over the Moon. Maureen kept snapping, but the orchestra wouldn't play

They're not supposed to play during that song...

[apdarcey]

Posted: 1/31/05 at 4:18am

so i never saw this, but read it... apparently when shosh was singing defying gravity on her last verse the flying mechanism wasn't adjusted to her weight (seeing as she's bigger than idina) and that as she was singing 'never gonna bring me down' she was slowly descending to the ground... she ended the scene on the floor... apparently it was very funny

[mint0621]

Posted: 1/31/05 at 6:45am

In Rent, during "Happy New Year", Jeremy and Krystal were on stage, looking at each other. Jeremy took a gulp of "wine" from the bottle, and Krystal moved away from Jeremy, to notice that Jeremy's wallet chain had snagged on her fishnet tights. Jeremy tried to get himself free, but he was laughing and water spurted out of his mouth. Poor Krystal, I think she got wet. Jeremy was able to get free after a few seconds.

It was hilarious. This happened sorta in the background, so if I wasn't as enamored with Jeremy as I was, I probably would have missed it...

[cturtle]

Posted: 1/31/05 at 8:35am

lightmycandle, thanks for clearing up that bit about THE FOREIGNER. that show is SO funny, and SO wide open for adlibbing, i don't see how they keep a straight face ANY nite! but the roundabout gang managed to do so the nite we saw it

[mikeonbroadway]

Posted: 1/31/05 at 10:52am

I didn't see this mistake posted so I thought I'd tell:

2004 Rent on Broadway, Matt (Caplan) was coming out with the camera on the stand for Finale A...singing his song...and the camera fell off the stand and into the rush seats (if you've not rushed on broadway...it didn't hit anyone there's like a mile between the stage and the first row.) And matt just started cracking up and whoever it fell closest too wasn't moving to give it to him, so Matt just leaned over and said something to the tune of "You can just give that here."