Funny/Horrible Mistakes on Live Performances!- Page 3

[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."

[ACTlete676]

Posted: 1/31/05 at 11:02am

wow, La Vie I saw the same thing happen!

[Sant]

Posted: 1/31/05 at 11:12am

In CHICAGO in London in the courtroom scene where this one enseble man is playing the whole jury by himself, this actor/dancer guy was doing the part of the drunk jury member. He took a sip from the flask and was supposed to pass out. Instead just before he passed out he let out this loud belch and then passed out. The cast behind him (standing in a row) cracked up. So did the audience.

In London's CHICAGO during Billy Flynn's big courtroom speech someone in the audience sneezed loudly and it made Clark Peters to lose it. He tried not to laugh, and managed to look at the sneezer (sitting in one of the boxes) and he just said "Bless YOU darling!"

[Sant]

Posted: 1/31/05 at 11:18am

And in London's WHISTLE DOWN THE WIND in the final scene when the family's barn has been burned down, they go in what is left of the barn and this burned wall set piece was supposed to come down from the stage ceiling but it didn't - all the way. Instead it got stuck and was hanging in 'mid-air' throughout the scene.

I saw THE PHANTOM OF THE OPERA on Broadway last Aug and in the ACT2 the boat broke down. So when the Phantom leads Christine down to his lair after The Point Of No Return in Down Once More -scene, they had to WALK across the lake! In the final scene the boat was working fine!

[DottieD'Luscia]

Posted: 1/31/05 at 11:53am

Les Miserable, Broadway: Javert not coming out for "One Day More" because he was locked in the bathroom. I used to work there, that's how I know.

Forum: One of the doors falling off its hinges during the chase sequence.

Jerry Zaks making a surprise visit as a Eunich (sp?) on stage during Whoopi's last performance of Forum

[lalia_jitterbug]

Posted: 1/31/05 at 2:54pm

I saw Hairspray about a month ago. I think it's right before "Run and Tell That", when they are changing their clothes after gym class. Richard H. Blake was putting his pants on, and his zipper wouldn't come up. Carly and Tracy were having a really hard time not to laugh. He struggled for a while but then gave up, so he just pulled out his shirt and covered himself. He was trying so hard not to laugh he was shaking. Chester Gregory had no idea what was going on when he finished talking and turned to look at the rest of them.

Every time he had a chance, he would hide behind someone or something and tried to make the zipper move. Some time during the song, Richard ran off stage and tried one last time to pull the zipper up... It worked, the bad things was that almost all the left side of the audience saw him. It was quite distracting.

[keggss23]

Posted: 1/31/05 at 6:42pm

I read this one in a book:

In Les Miz, Colm Wilkenson (Valjean) missed his entrance for the hospital scene. I guess the orchestra and Patti LuPone (Fantine) had to vamp for 10 minutes until they decided to go ahead with the rest of the scene - without Valjean! She ended up singing "Come to Me" alone!

[Jamie Hat]

Posted: 2/2/05 at 9:35am

One of the HAIRSPRAY chorus boys threw his hairspray can across the stage while he was dancing, but smirked and didn't miss a step. And somehow managed to pick it up during the number with out f-ing up the choreography. Good work!

[dotmarie]

Posted: 2/2/05 at 10:18am

"In Les Miz, Colm Wilkenson (Valjean) missed his entrance for the hospital scene. I guess the orchestra and Patti LuPone (Fantine) had to vamp for 10 minutes until they decided to go ahead with the rest of the scene - without Valjean! She ended up singing "Come to Me" alone!"

This one cracked me up, although I believe it was Randy Graff playing Fantine, not Patti. Colm Wilkinson missed his cue because he, Terrence Mann, and Leo Burmester were too busy talking about Irish whiskey!

[DancerGirl16]

Posted: 2/2/05 at 1:58pm

I got 2

1) When Glinda throws the broom to elphaba at one point in the show (I don't remember what point), Idina dropped it and Kristen just goes "Hey! That didn't work! ONE MORE TIME" and throws it again

2) the 3rd time I saw les miserables when Valjean said "Must be javert" his voice goes about a full octave high and crackd really bad. It was not horrible just hysterical lol

[DancerGirl16]

Posted: 2/2/05 at 2:00pm

Oh heres a horrible one though (I forgot)

During a production of sweeney I was in the knife (first performance) was not Dulled enough and he cut 3 kids (not VERY deeply) but they were bleeding but since sweeney like never gets off stage no one could tell him....ouch!

[InfiniteTheaterFrenzy]

Posted: 2/2/05 at 2:15pm

When I was in a high school production of The Miracle Worker, "Helen Keller" slapped "Annie Sullivan" so hard that she popped her jaw out of place. And the scene went on. It wasn't pretty.

[keggss23]

Posted: 2/2/05 at 3:39pm

Dotmarie-

I stand corrected! I loved that book. Is that a Llama in your signature? Are you a Josh Groban fan?

[LindsayAnne]

Posted: 2/2/05 at 4:14pm

MikeOnBroadway, I was just about to post that same story! I had won lotto seats for that show & the camera almost fell on top of my sister. The guy next to her ended up handing it back to Matt, because my sister was a little bit in shock & I was laughing too hard to move.

Okay, I have a quick story, too. The first time I saw RENT, Colin Hanlon was playing Mark, & when he was singing about April killing herself, instead of saying, "...before slitting her wrists," he said, "...before slitting HIS wrists in the bathroom." My friend & I turned to each other like, wait...what?

[EponineThenardier]

Posted: 2/2/05 at 5:12pm

" 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..."


lol.

[Parks]

Posted: 2/2/05 at 7:09pm

Don't know if this was posted or not, but when Kristy Cates went on as Elphaba on 10/19 or 29, in the "Yellow Brick Road" scene, when Glinda threw her the hat, she dropped it..and there was an uncomfortable pause for a few seconds..

[BlueWizard]

Posted: 2/2/05 at 7:15pm

This one cracked me up, although I believe it was Randy Graff playing Fantine, not Patti. Colm Wilkinson missed his cue because he, Terrence Mann, and Leo Burmester were too busy talking about Irish whiskey!

Don't forget the fact that Colm Wilkinson then realized he was supposed to be onstage, and his mic was on. As he was struggling to get his costume pants on, he kept yelling "f*ck, oh F*CK!" and the audience could hear it.

[What Happened To Straight Thea]

Posted: 2/2/05 at 9:31pm

I was doing a production of Three Sisters a few months ago, and playing Andrei I had this long serious monologue about my life, and the situation I was in. And I did it while not looking at the (300 pound) man (with a spirit-gumed mustache). Well, half way through my monologue one night the audience starts laughing. So, I turned around to see his mustache was half of his face. I barely made it through the rest. And when I finally finished, he ripped the mustache off his face and said "to hell with it!" Chekhov is rolling in his grave!

[Tirso de Molina]

Posted: 2/2/05 at 9:56pm

On opening night of the Kennedy Center Sweeney Todd with Brian Stokes Mitchell, the understudy Mrs. Lovett forgot a line during "A Little Priest" -- after Sweeney says "I prefer general", she completely forgot "With or without his privates?", and of course 90% of the audience knew the show by heart and knew she'd dropped the line. She ad-libbed something, though, the conductor kept the orchestra vamping, and she and Stokes went through to the next chorus -- but THEN they went back to the earlier point, ran the lines again only marginally in character, and this time Mrs. Lovett nailed the "With or without his privates?", at which point the audience exploded into applause and Stokes started laughing so hard that he fell off the stool he was sitting on. One of the funniest moments I've ever seen in performance.

Posted: 2/2/05 at 10:00pm

im sure ive told this story before. one of the many times that i saw rocky horror, two women had front row seats and they came in late during the science fiction double feature bit where a bunch of the cast is seated on the stage at whats supposed to look like a movie theater. well, lets just say they had fun finding their seats :) Sebastian Bach and Daphne Rubin Vega tried to direct them off the stage and an usher had to run down there and grab em.

[Barnaby12345]

Posted: 2/2/05 at 10:17pm

I saw the Les Mis tour last year in Detroit and it was the Winter and almost everyone in the theater had colds. During Fantine's death, it was silent in the theater, and all of the sudden, the entire audience started sneezing and coughing at once. This was SOO loud that Fantine (Tonya Dixon) started cracking up while she was dying/dead. It was hilarious.

[Candleshoe2]

Posted: 2/2/05 at 10:18pm

When I saw "The Lion Kin", during the scene in the end where Simba kills Scar, the cliff wouldn't come out and there was a long blackout. You could hear the actors talking backstage since their microphones were still on and the nwhen they finally came on, they had to do the scene on the floor. It looked kind of strange.

[Katecab99]

Posted: 2/2/05 at 11:59pm

definitley on idina's "last day" when JLT couldn't get the flower in shosh's hair. she literally had to straddle her and finally ended up pinning it to her shirt! JLT was HYSTERICAL!! in the next seen, shosh had tried to fix the flower and it fell out - she actually had to turn around away from the audience because she started laughing!

[Judge Turpin]

Posted: 2/3/05 at 11:58am

In some bizarre way, I saw Gypsy with Bernadette Peters two nights in a row and thus I know this was not a planned mistake:

So on the second night I saw it, during the song "Small World" Bernadette sang the lyrics: "Funny, you're a stranger who's come here, come from another town. Funny, I'm a stranger myself here.
Small world, isn't it?" And then she sat down on a trunk and when she did her hat fell off but the orchestra kept playing and she was able to work the moment in to the show by pointing to the hat and singing the next verse "Funny," and the audience applauded and burst into laughter and Bernadette just gave a small smile and continued with the song.

And if anybody wants to know, she was great both nights, she sang great, and was deserving of more praise than she got, even if Michael Reidel would have you believe otherwise.

[freelancer]

Posted: 2/3/05 at 1:33pm

When I saw The Boy From Oz, Hugh Jackman's pants zipper completely broke. It was during one of his (many) ad-libbing scenes when he interacted with the crowd. There was this hysterical middle-aged woman in one of the boxes who kept cat-calling him. He unzipped his pants and pretended to pull them down, but when he tried to zip them back up, the zipper broke in half. He had to bring the costumer out on stage to safety-pin them together. The costumer was a guy, so, in character, Hugh had an ad-libbing field day!