Worst show YOU HAVE BEEN IN?- Page 5

[Broadwaygirl22]

Posted: 6/14/05 at 4:46pm

The worst show I was ever in was Fame. We didn't have a very good director and things were just screwed up.

[Mister Matt]

Posted: 6/14/05 at 4:50pm

I was in a bad production of Big River. We had an amazing chorus, but the production was not good. I did however, have a WONDERFUL time performing it and made many lifelong friends. It's one of my fondest memories.

[BwayBaby18]

Posted: 6/14/05 at 4:51pm

Victor/Victoria... we had a stationary set, we just pushed curtains infront of the furniture to hide it when we were in other places..... opening night we had 3 set peices fall out of the flies.... the leading lady sang like a goat... our King was gayier then springtime..... the "drag" costumes look like we went to a thrift shop...IT WAS TERRIBLE

[MagicToDo82]

Posted: 6/14/05 at 5:22pm

A HORRIBLE production of A Midsummer Nights Dream where the alcoholic director also cast himself as Oberon AND Theseus, and never showed up for his entrances. I played Hermia. He hated me. A lot. No real or apparent reason. It sucked. Thank god the kid playing Demetrius was REALLY cute.

[hyperchet]

Posted: 6/14/05 at 5:23pm

Um, all of the synchronized swimming shows...lol

Well I'M always great in the show, it's just the people around me that make the show bad!

Oh i'm so bad. Just kidding. The tours and stuff I have done have been great. A few comunity theatre shows have been good, the rest were like crap. lol

[Tenorific2]

Posted: 6/14/05 at 5:34pm

Picture it.

1997, a small town in Minnesota's beautiful lake country. I was in college then, and had just returned from singing Mozart's "Requiem" at Carnegie Hall with my conservatory.

I couldn't get a summer job, so my Mom said, "They're doing Crazy For You-- audition". Now, CFY is a fun show, when it's done professionally. (My family had seen it both in London and Broadway, and I saw the Nat'l Tour with Kirby Ward).

I laughed hysterically at my mother for suggesting such a thing. I'm like, "You know, this show is all about tap dancing. Look where we live, none of us can tap. I got the pipes and that's it."

Well, I auditioned anyway, got cast as one of the cowboy trio (don't ask), and we all tried learning basic tap. Out of the entire cast of 10 women and 7 men (I kid you not)-- only three people could literally tap dance.

I was so embarrassed. Vocally, I loved singing Gershwin, but dancewise, it was like, "Why are we doing this". Our local director yelled at us for not being like Broadway. That made me bust out laughing.

Modified choreography helped, and the show did well for a small town audience, but still.... community theatre is not a place for an ultra dance show with people you KNOW can't dance. Yourself included.

[CurtainUp]

Posted: 6/14/05 at 9:21pm

Not to eb a theatre snob, but playing Oberon and Theseus makes perfect and actually very cool literary sense. Samr with Titania/Hippolyta. Oberon is accused of being in love with Hippolyta and vice versa. Plus, the characters are similar I think.

that SUCKS that he was a jerk though.

[OtherDaryl]

Posted: 6/15/05 at 8:49am

There was this stock production of My Fair Lady, where the director decided to revert to the ending from Pygmalian and not have Eliza return to Higgins.

Then, because it was a serious ending, he decided there would be no curtain call or bows.

The audience just sat there in their seats with the house lights up, waiting for Eliza to return, not realizing the show was over. The stage manager had to go out on the stage and tell them to go home.

And that was before the night the set began to topple over during the Ascot Gavotte.

[nmartin]

Posted: 6/15/05 at 9:38am

Otherdaryl, that story is priceless. I think I'm going to steal the best of these stories and publish a book.

[Broadwaygirl22]

Posted: 8/9/05 at 2:07pm

I've been in two horrible shows. "Barnum" and "Fame". The worst part about the shows was that we didn't even sing the songs in either show or really dance. The program was cut due to budget problems. Some kids from my school used to do it and they were talking about how the director might have gotten the scripts without permission. Now I do a different summer theatre program at a local theatre and it's so much better. We're doing
"Footloose" right now and it's so much fun!

[roquat]

Posted: 8/9/05 at 2:17pm

An original musical called "The Castle of Otranto". It was set in medieval Europe and opened with a gigantic helmet falling from heaven and crushing someone to death (offstage). Get the idea? My only line was "See how the gigantic plumes wave in the wind!" There were several swordfights, and almost every major character had a long, excruciating death scene (and song). It was a wonderful experience, though, because in rehearsal everyone realized what a joke the show was and tried to have fun with it. My favorite line:

"Look, the Knight of the Gigantic Saber approaches!"

[Michael Bennett]

Posted: 8/9/05 at 2:21pm

When I was in the 8th grade I was cast in the chorus of a community theatre production of FOLLIES. Even in rehearsals, it was the worst thing I had ever seen in my young life. And why was a 14 year old boy cast in FOLLIES to begin with?

So I bailed. I went back to see the show, and to this day, it may be the worst show I've ever seen. The Sally played the entire thing like she was doing a MARY MARTIN impersonation. Phylis's wig fell off during LUCY AND JESSE (No she didn't remember the lyrics) and the LOVE LAND costumes were made out of dust ruffles from the 99 cent store. I was so embarressed for the cast. And so thankful I bowed out.

[Calvin]

Posted: 8/9/05 at 2:46pm

Alice in Wonderland, and I was playing the King of Hearts. Really, the production wasn't bad overall. But small children were playing the cards, and some of them were the most ill-behaved, beastly brats I've ever been with on stage. Once, during a performance, one of the cards came and yanked my flamingo out of my hand. I snatched it back from him with enough force to knock him over and ad-libbed something to the Queen about cutting his head off. He behaved for the rest of the run.

[TabooPhan1]

Posted: 8/9/05 at 3:06pm

Cinderella. It speaks for itself...

[Calvin]

Posted: 8/9/05 at 3:15pm

MB -- why am I suddenly picturing the scenes from the movie "Camp," when the kids are all singing "Losing My Mind" on the bus, and then later when the tarted up girl sings "I'm Still Here"?

[LuvBroadwayHugs]

Posted: 8/9/05 at 3:48pm

The King And I in 8th grade was just awful. I can't listen to the music from it anymore because it was just so horrid. Our "director" expected way too much from us. The fact that none of us could play a believeable Siamese person didn't help either. I was one of The King's wives and the King looked about 10 years old. It was bad. REALLY bad.

[Michael Bennett]

Posted: 8/9/05 at 3:55pm

Well the funny thing is Calvin, they brought me in initially to play Young Vincent, because I guess they couldn't find anyone who could dance it. But when I was 14, I looked about 12. They were like, "well, we can draw wrinkles on him." I was more like "I don't think so." And there was no way I could have lifted that 35 year old cow they had playing Young Vanessa. Just unfortunate.
Updated On: 8/9/05 at 03:55 PM

[Beergoggles]

Posted: 8/9/05 at 4:22pm

A musical version of Treasure Island... just awful. Bad songs, terrible book and a lot of the principles couldn't act. The director would kick people out one day and then re-hire them the next day... opening night we were miserable because we all knew how bad this production was!

[Garland Grrrl]

Posted: 8/9/05 at 4:27pm

where would i begin? i guess it was the dinner theater show in a pergatorial town in the midwest starring miss dawn wells (yes, that's right--mary ann of Gilligan's Island) it was some kind of murder mystery. i don't remember the exact title -- i think it was -- Heaven Only Knows or some such--but the tag line in the ad was "An unstoppable farce!" we said that meant that no matter how bad it was, we were going to do it anyway.

[HotelActorBrooklyn]

Posted: 8/9/05 at 4:42pm

A communit college production of Cabaret that hurt me so much because it was that bad. Our Emcee was so terrible, he did the standard mime make-up which looked horrible and then he did a flying dutchman cheerleading move in the middle of an introduction for Sally Bowles. Oh and one of the performances all the light went out on stage and just randomly our Light Board Op hit the board with a fist and they all went back on... BAD!!

[rlbgbc]

Posted: 8/9/05 at 5:05pm

This thread is hysterical. Let's see..the worst I was involved with?

Has to be MY FAIR LADY -- I was involved, peripherally, on the fringes. Higgins was horrible -- couldn't remember sh*t. In that first act patter song "I Shall Never Let A Woman In My Life" or whatever it's called, he continually went up on the lyrics. One performance he sat and stood there while the orchestra cranked it out. The only thing he uttered was "I'm a pensive man....".

What an understatement.

[roquat]

Posted: 8/10/05 at 9:32am

I changed my mind. How could I have forgotten the ATROCIOUS production of "The Sound of Music" I did in the late 1990s?

The chorus PLAYED THE MOUNTAINS. That's right. They were all dressed in green/brown leotards, red capes, and white fencing masks. The set was a large set of steps that stretched across the stage (it looked like football stadium bleachers) and when the lights came up, the chorus was lying face down on the steps. No music. Then they began making strange noises, moaning and buzzing, etc., as they rose and Maria entered singing "The Sound of Music". As she sang, the chorus distorted themselves into Twyla Tharp-ish positions, trying to act out the bubbling brook, the lark learning to pray, God only knows what. In every outdoor scene, they were standing in the background waving their arms and scaring the poor von Trapp kids.

The director also added little "inspiring" (embarrassing) scenes to the text--when the Nazis invade the abbey at the end he had them shouting at the nuns, calling them "dogs" and slapping and shoving them around. Then three of the nuns began singing "Ave Maria" a capella, which apparently frightened the Nazis off. Ugh. Most of the cast did surprisingly well, with the exception of Captain von Trapp, who was about fifty-five to Maria's twenty-six--their love scenes were supremely creepy.

I really hope this is my worst show ever. I wouldn't want to go lower than this.

[Cheno'sBiggestfan]

Posted: 8/10/05 at 9:37am

youre a good man charlie brown our costumes were horrible the set was horrible the songs were horrible (cause they cut out my new philosophy in my opion the only good song)the cast was horrible every thing was absoulutly dreadful my friends and i deny we were in the show at all

[Emcee4ever]

Posted: 8/10/05 at 1:41pm

LOL! Funniest...thread...EVER!!!!

[PiraguaGuy2]

Posted: 5/12/09 at 3:51pm

From the Page 1 West Side Story anecdote:
First of all, the music was taken out. ALL OF IT.

Sounds like Arthur Laurents' dream.