Last-Performance Improv

[timote316]

Posted: 11/10/04 at 10:54am

In local productions I'm involved with, the big thing is last-performance improvs/alterations, such as changing a few lines for bigger laughs, or adding different inside jokes, or stuff like that. What does everyone think of these?

[pab]

Posted: 11/10/04 at 11:08am

As someone who, years ago, was involved in local productions where people have done this, I thought that it really sucked. The last night should not be any different from any other night. People pay to see these local performances and actors getting off on personal gags often will cause the show not to go the way it was intended and sometimes it can be harmful to the actors.

Two cases:

1. Some actors thought that it would be funny to substitute shaved soap for the cheese that was supposed to be used in a scene. Needless to say, this caused the scene not to work and the audience was not pleased and neither was the actor that ate it and could not finish the scene.

2. Another actor, in a different play, decided to replace the Iced Tea used to simulate hard liquor with actual hard liquor. Again, a bad scene transpired.

It's totally childish and not at all professional. I know that it might be an amateur production but if anyone is expected to ever take the company seriously they should approach everything in a professional manor.

That's my two cents.

[timote316]

Posted: 11/10/04 at 11:17am

Well, yeah, if something like that is done, that actually ruins a scene or show, then its bad. But what about like subtle line changes? For example:

(from Copacabana)
SAM: right, right. Do ya sing?
LOLA: Yes, sir. [shows leg]
SAM: ...and I suppose with those gams ya dance, too

In that scene, Lola was going to sing her line (in a very exaggerated manner), and then do a little dance after my (Sam's) second line. Is there really a problem with things like that?

[nycdncr]

Posted: 11/10/04 at 12:40pm

it's unprofessional.....don't do it!

[AbsolutKnight]

Posted: 11/10/04 at 12:48pm

I was in a short one act play called "The Real Inspector Hound" a few years ago and on the final night when one of the leads got shot he had a blood bag with him and it like exploded when he got shot. I looked like something out of a movie with blood flying in the air. Although VERY unprofessional, it was probably one of the funniest things I have EVER seen.

[Barnaby12345]

Posted: 11/10/04 at 1:04pm

We usually used to put porn and funny pictures of the cast in the director's score, menu's, etc.

[Fair 2 Middlin]

Posted: 11/10/04 at 1:21pm

I think it's great. NYC ballet has been doing stuff like that for years in the New Years Eve performance of Nutcracker. All sorts of things happen: Chairs break, mice appear in windows of the house in the 1st act, blocking gets changed, I remember one year there were 3 princes dancing with the Sugar Plum Fairy at the same time: Peter Martins, Sean Lavery & Baryshnikov. The audience went wild! It used to drive Balanchine nuts though.

[AbsolutKnight]

Posted: 11/10/04 at 1:34pm

I think as long as it is fun and doesnt ruin the storyline or make people break character I think it is fun!

[Joshua488]

Posted: 11/10/04 at 3:59pm

I see nothing wrong with it, as long it doesn't mess up the flow of the show.

For those who say it's "unprofessional", big deal. "Professional" actors do it all the time. Take Kristin Chenoweth's final performance in WICKED, for example. Plus, I think being able to do the little fun things and KEEP THE SHOW GOING shows your professionalism as an actor, more than being able to just recite the lines off the script perfectly. This is coming from an actor, mind you.

[munkustrap178]

Posted: 11/10/04 at 4:21pm

I don't think there's anything wrong with it. The last two weeks of TABOO Boy George, Jeffrey Carlson, RAul Esparza, and Euan Morton improved a hell of a lot and added things - and it was funnier and enjoyable than the real script anyway. A personal favorite of mine:

Boy George: "I find if fascinating that the country that brought us Michael Jackson think's I'M strange!"

[jacobtsf]

Posted: 11/10/04 at 4:22pm

This summer during The Wizard of Oz I (the wizard) had to run off the stage to grab the Lion's medal. The medal had been moved by one of the Munchkins and after me motioning to the Lion to stall he said (in the best Lion voice) "Oh... I hope it's a new President" it got the adults laughing and screaming.

[Yankeefan007]

Posted: 11/10/04 at 4:35pm

when i did max in sound of music, i rewrote everyone of his lines and made the show, which droned on and on, a laugh riot

[CJR]

Posted: 11/10/04 at 5:59pm

nycdncr, I've seen some of Broadway's best hamm it up and adlib at their final performances......

[jezzebelle]

Posted: 11/10/04 at 7:42pm

It's OK when done in small ways that do not ruin the intent of the show, harm other actors or alienate the auidence. For example, when it is someone's last show in Hairspray (or when Kathy Brier was Tracy and had just gotten nominated for a daytime emmy for One Life to Live), Chester Gregory (Seaweed) will throw in an ad-lib pertaining to what their future plans are, etc. It's something that serves as a little inside joke and is harmless.

On the other hand, I've been in shows, where people have adlibbed/changed things from what they're supposed to be, and it's been entirely unprofessional. In the last show I was in, someone subsituted the liquid used in a flask for real liquor and the person who drank it onstage was 100% completely against drinking. Needless to say, he was extremely upset.

In the case what you do is going to upset/harm someone else or destroy focus, don't do it.