Most Unprofessional Thing You've Done as a performer!

[Marlothom]

Posted: 6/8/05 at 12:41am

It's time to confess!!!!
Me: When I did gypsy, I was a farmboy so all of Act 2 was free, i would run accross the street in full make up and get trashed for curtain call.
Also, i once did Joseph after some serious 420.

[Aigoo]

Posted: 6/8/05 at 12:43am

I've broken character. Many, many times.

[Link Larkin Wanabe]

Posted: 6/8/05 at 12:44am

Hah,

I dont think I have done one professional production where we didn't play drinking games backstage during the show.

Akiva

[Jimmyojimmy]

Posted: 6/8/05 at 12:49am

I was in Les Miserables once and i had to pull the dead gavoroche off stage in act two and me and my friend kelsey were really hyper (ie sugar, lots and lots of sugar at intermission and still in the greenroom) and we went out to get him and
the whole barricade fell on him and we busted out laughing and then when we had to go on for "turning" after javert's suicide we were still laughing, it was terrible!

[broadway86]

Posted: 6/8/05 at 12:52am

I was Chuck in "Footloose". Right after "Holding Out for a Hero", my character storms in looking for Ariel. On the final dress rehearsal, I walk in and I say: "Ariel! Where the fu-- Oh, sh*t. I'm sorry, let me do that over." The director wasn't happy, but he knew that I'm not good at covering myself (which is something I've improved on since then).

I also got really "smashed" with some friends the night before the final performance of another show...

[JoshuaEads]

Posted: 6/8/05 at 12:58am

Hmmm ... nothing too juicy to admit here, but a few years back when I did "South Pacific" a group of us used to go get smashed before the opening dance number of Act Two. The only big problem was that the stage happened to be raked with a big revolving platform and most of us entered with cartwheels and somersaults, etc. Luckily we managed not to fall...too often...

~Joshua

[etoile]

Posted: 6/8/05 at 12:58am

Why in the name of heaven would anyone respond with an actual anecdote? I mean, unless you don't care if you're hired in the future.

Updated On: 6/8/05 at 12:58 AM

[Marlothom]

Posted: 6/8/05 at 1:00am

Oh I am a lawyer who stopped performing YEARS back..ease up man.

[Jimmyojimmy]

Posted: 6/8/05 at 1:01am

I know tons of ppl that go out and get wasted the night before too. But this tops all of yours:
I was in the annual benefit show for Hospital anyway, this is a show people like doctors and corporate people and famous people pay $5000 to go see, and my friend shows up, whos suppose to a.be mic-ed and b. play his guitar during the opening number and he shows up 5 minutes before we go on high as a kite. He then forgets to bring on his guitar, so he's just standing on the riser, playing the air guitar completely oblivious to the situation. Then we went on (mind you this is 3 hours later) for the finale and they were showing a movie about the featured patient, a 10 year old with cancer. now everyone is crying in the house and my friend gets up, right next to a mic and starts laughing. I was sooooo embarrassed (trying not to laugh) but still embarrassed.

[ally_kay_on_broadway]

Posted: 6/8/05 at 2:01am

ok this is a bad TECHIE screw up i made...

i was doing audio for my schools remembrance day ceremony- its a big deal- our school theatre fills 900 seats- holy shat eh?- ANYWAY alot of veterens were there and we had them in tears doing modern dance and depressing war monologues and stuff and THEN it came time for TAPS...

it was allys turn to simply press 'play'...

i pressed it and for SOME unkown reason- ACE-OF-FRIKN-BASE was in the player.

In front of 900 people bowing their heads in silence..

"I SAW THE SIGN! AND IT OPENED UP MY EYES I SAW THE SIGN! LIFE IS DE-

i quickly pressed pause and then crawled into the rafters and died. :P

pffft amateurs...*blush*

[Forester]

Posted: 6/8/05 at 2:08am

A piece of advice to would be performers, do not piss off the pit.

When I was in high school (when Cross Colour was still cool), we have one performer who was full of himself. Always act like the biggest diva the world have ever seen. Well, he was yelling at us for making him look bad, nevermind that he doesn't need our help to look bad. He also pissed of the student conductor by making his little sister (who was in the cast) cry one day. So, we decided to make him look bad by slowing down during his big number, then when he adjust, we speed up the number.

So, the moral of the story, be nice to the pit.

[thespian geek]

Posted: 6/8/05 at 2:17am

I can't recall ever doing anything unprofessional. I'm a good little actress.

[Pinguin]

Posted: 6/8/05 at 2:44am

When I was in The Tempest in 7th grade, they had me play Ariel and I remember out of sheer laziness only memorizing the very beginning and end of every speech for an entire scene.

BAD PINGUIN!

:0)

[IMsooHyprToday]

Posted: 6/8/05 at 4:59am

yeah... never memorizing and totally paraphrasing for Tony in YOU CANT TAKE IT WITH YOU was the really bad thing i did. i was HORRIBLE. luckily the girl i acted opposite of was a goddess and was able to recover. i barely memorized and has scripts and little cue note cards placed randomly around the set backstage.... sooo bad.

[Justice]

Posted: 6/8/05 at 7:36am

Let's see:
On stage, when I was in a show, called Runaways, I played a drug addict, and during my "Lullabye for Louis" number, (and in some parts of the second act) I was doing Poppers.

Also, when I met Mandy Patinkin, I asked "What's it like working with Bernadette Peters?"

And when I saw "Five Guys Named Moe" for the third time, the understudy was on as NoMax, and the original performer was sitting behind me. During intermission, I told him that he was so much better than the understudy, and I later came to find out, I was sitting next to the Understudy's mother who heard the whole conversation.

[OrdinaryJukebox1]

Posted: 6/8/05 at 8:09am

This past year, I had a "male diva" moment during "The Laramie Project." It was for my school, however, I was not in the class, I was devoting my time for free, no grade, no nothing. The actors were some of the worst pieces of crap, who wouldn't show up, show up late, bring their dinner up on stage, after showing up late, on book weeks after we were supposed to be off, all that kind of good stuff. Well, I let the director know that I wasn't going to be able to attend a rehearsal two weeks from them. LONG before tech week, I was off book two weeks before we were supposed to be, so several weeks before anyone else, and he said, "okay." Well, the day came, I didn't go to rehearsal, the next day, he made this big huge speech about people HAVING to come to rehearsal or they will be recast. I went up to him, asked him if he had remembered that I gave him plenty of notice, and he said, "Well, I can't remember that far back." So, I said, "That's fine," minutes later, the sign up sheet for load-in was passed around. I did not attend. I know, I was part of the production, and all day I felt bad about not helping, but like I said, it was my one diva moment.

-Vincent

[WOSQ]

Posted: 6/8/05 at 11:52am

Put ice into Nellie Forbush's rinse water bucket.

She deserved it.

[TheatreDiva90016]

Posted: 6/8/05 at 11:55am

Okay folks, I'm peeing my pants with laughter at these.

Let me share:
Years ago, one of my friends was running lights for a production of G&S's RUDDIGORE. If you don't know the plot, they have scene where life size paintings of people come to life. Basically, it consisted of a 30 second blackout, while the actors got into place and the portraits are revolved. One performance, she fades to black and begins counting out-loud, "1, 2, 3...." then she fades the lights back up on 4! The change had only just started and everyone onstage was looking up into the booth with a look of terror. She just looked at me like, "OMG, what have I done?!"

Also, I did a no-no while on tour with a show recently when I sent my actor out on stage with a remote controled fart machine in his purse. Needless to say, the scene was a scream from backstage.

[nmartin]

Posted: 6/8/05 at 11:56am

Fell down when I was in Dames in Sea. I don't think that qualifies as unpro., but it sure as hell was embarrassing.

[actress_06]

Posted: 6/8/05 at 12:09pm

The Worst I've ever done is something my dad actually taught me. He used to sing with the Des Moines Metro opera and a bunch of other groups, and one of his traditions is that during the last dress reheaersal of a performance you do everything (within reason) to get the people on stage to crack up. Sometimes it can be very entertaining, but I haven't done it for a couple of years.

[ainmama2001]

Posted: 6/8/05 at 12:19pm

I was a dancer in "Sweet Charity" and I found a big bag of polyester stuffing backstage. I put half the bag in one cup of my bra and half the bag in the other before I did the "Hey Big Spender" number.

[Rose_MacShane]

Posted: 6/8/05 at 12:25pm

I didn't actually commit this, but a fellow actor did: When I did "Charley's Aunt" my freshman year, the girl who was in charge of makeup had no concept of how to make people look good. We were supposed to be young adults and she made us look like 50-year-olds. So the girl playing Kitty taught me how to do my own before a rehearsal. While we were getting ready one day, the girl playing Ela said to me, "Wow, your makeup looks great now that 'Jane's not doing it." Of course, "Jane" was right behind her. I must have blanched or something because she said, "She's behind me, isn't she?" I just nodded. It's a lot funnier in retrospect...

[TheActr97J]

Posted: 6/8/05 at 12:30pm

Ok... here goes.

I was Sheridan Whiteside in my high school's production of "The Man Who Came to Dinner". On the final performance, the director (the world's worst director and biggest jackass) decided it would be funny to let everyone add things to their parts that he thought were funny.

So in the middle of the show, I'm doing a long scene of dialogue with the actress playing Lorraine, when all of a sudden the actress playing Harriet walks out on stage. Harriet was NOT supposed to be in the scene! Apparently the director told her that it would be funny if she walked out on stage in the middle of the scene and asked for Lorraine's autograph. This stopped the scene dead for like THREE MINUTES! All the while, I'm just sitting there going like "Now what do I do?" When Harriet finally left the stage, we picked right up where we left off, but you could tell by their reactions that the audience had absolutely no idea what we had been talking about before the interruption.

Needless to say, I was LIVID! Here is where I let my anger overtake my professionalism. For those of you who don't know the show, Whiteside gives a big Christmas Eve radio broadcast at the end of act two, delivered from Sheridan's desk. Set on my desk were prop liquor bottles filled with water and apple juice to stand in for real booze. I decided to get my revenge, when I spent the entire last half of the act, pounding down shots of liquor. By the time I was to give my radio broadcast, I had gotten myself so "wasted" that I was not even saying the lines of the broadcast (nobody else had any lines, so I wasn't screwing with people's cues). I was a happy, sloppy drunk, laughing hysterically and dribbling apple juice all down the front of my shirt. My favorite part was when I gathered a mouthful of apple juice and then burst out laughing and spit the mouthfull out! It was my most unprofessional moment on stage... but also one of the most fun.

I came off stage and the director was backstage, so I went up to him and was like, "So what did you think?" Hehe. So bad... but at least I got my revenge. Well that's my story.

[etoile]

Posted: 6/8/05 at 12:39pm

But revenge on whom, the audience?

[elphieisperky]

Posted: 6/8/05 at 1:16pm

Probably the most unprofessional thing I've ever done as a performer was just being in the Mystery of Edwin Drood. On our last night, we were out of character for like, the whole play. It was one of those plays where you can't help but laugh in the middle of it, even when you're on stage.