Stage Mothers!

[nobizlikeshobiz]

Posted: 5/16/05 at 7:31pm

Aren't they so annoying? Ahhhhh!! I have like eight stories about stage moms but first you go.

[Unknown User]

Posted: 5/16/05 at 7:34pm

After Ethel Gumm and Rose, what's left to say?

[nobizlikeshobiz]

Posted: 5/16/05 at 7:35pm

lol. I just found out about how this girl I know(she's twelve) her mom got her into equity

[IMsooHyprToday]

Posted: 5/16/05 at 7:39pm

in the town where i grew up there was a stage mom who was a DJ of a radio morning show. Needless to say he got TONS of publicity.....

(he was a really cool guy tho, and his mom was easy enough to handle... in small doses.)

[KelRel]

Posted: 5/16/05 at 7:54pm

I went to high school with this girl who was a diva in her own mind. She couldn't sing and couldn't act, but her mom thought that she was a gift to the theater! During shows her mom would sit in the front row (we had a very intimate small theater) and she would sigh very loudly and make little bored noises while other people were on stage and as soon as her daugther came out she would be on her feet cheering. She started coming to rehersals but our drama teacher kicked her out after about 30 minutes. It was horrible.
Is it wrong that I laughed really hard when I heard that she didn't get her theater scholarship..in fact she got completely rejected?

[Liam]

Posted: 5/16/05 at 7:56pm

i love the show-show biz moms and dads

[My Fair Lady]

Posted: 5/16/05 at 8:06pm

I'm writing a novel about a stage mom. And yeah, Showbiz Moms and Dads is a good show.

[Jwei123]

Posted: 5/16/05 at 8:08pm

I've been auditioning for as long as I can remember (MY choice- thank god) and some of the things those mothers say in the waiting room are just replusive. But funny at the same time...

Updated On: 5/16/05 at 08:08 PM

[stylinbohemian]

Posted: 5/16/05 at 8:14pm

Had one hated it! I left the theater for years cause of it and regret every minute

[Glebb]

Posted: 5/16/05 at 9:29pm

I love this story about Violette (Great French Ballerina and star of New York City Ballet) Verdy's mother from:
HENNING KRONSTAM: PORTRAIT OF A DANISH DANCER by Alexandra Tomalonis

"The two rehearsed in Toulon and Verdy remembered Kronstam as very disciplined and very obedient, very much "a product of a great academy." Kronstam remembered there had been a ruckus over the costumes. In Orpheus, he wore the cotume of an eighteenth-century danseur noble, with garters, plumed helmet, and tonnelet (a skirt modeled on the ancient Roman toga). Verdy was in twentieth-century ballerina garb, slightly adapted to the time period of the opera, but her tutu was stiff and belled out when she turned. "My skirt had pleats," Kronstam said, "and fell beautifully when I danced. Mama Verdy was furious and wanted Violette's costume changed, but they wouldn't do it, so the afternoon of the premiere she got out the scissors and cut pleats into Violette's skirt." Mme. Verdy was the prototypical ballet mother and famous for doing anything that would help her gifted daughter. Verdy's skirt now moved beautifully."

Updated On: 5/16/05 at 09:29 PM

[BwayLeadman]

Posted: 5/16/05 at 9:49pm

Not all stage mothers are annoying.
I know one and she is GREAT!

[VonTussleGirl]

Posted: 5/17/05 at 11:08pm

Mmm. How about stage moms and dads who actually DIRECT the plays and thus give their untalented skag of a daughter any role she asks for?

[TheBoyfromChi]

Posted: 5/17/05 at 11:52pm

I direct a group of kids every summer using the Broadway Jr musicals, and every year I have more problems with the moms than I do the kids. We had auditions three weeks ago and I have one particular mom arguing that her daughter has solos in church every week and does well in her school choir and should have had a lead role. It's obnoxious.
However, on the flip side I also have a lot of wonderful moms who help at the drop of a hat.
Also, my high school theatre director's daughter had huge roles in every musical...it was ridiculous. And any time she needed a younger actor, she got her other daughter to do it.

[Phantom2]

Posted: 5/17/05 at 11:53pm

It's one thing to have a supportive parent. It's another thing to make your kid into something they're not. Sad.

[CurtainUp]

Posted: 5/19/05 at 9:13pm

Yuck! Thank god my parents are supportive but not pushy. It IS refreshing to see a director's son in a production - yet, in a role he absolutely excelled in. It waslike "oh. he DID deserve taht!'

[The Grovers Corners Yenta]

Posted: 5/19/05 at 10:26pm

I have a funny stage mother story. I was in a play my senior year of high and I did not want to eat dinner before the performance. Being a Jewish mother she decided I should st least have homemade chicken soup. All day long the pot simmered away and the aroma filled our house. It finished cooking and decided to strain it in a colander in the sink. She strained it alright! She poured the hot soup right down the drain because she forgot to put another pot under the colander. I had noodles for dinner.

[Over_the_Moon]

Posted: 5/19/05 at 10:39pm

During a production of the hobbit I was in this summer, our Bilbo was a 10 year old girl who broke her ankle at one of our first shows. After that, she had a cast and her mother said that she would be okay to finish the show, but we could all tell the poor girl was in pain after the first few scenes every night.

[CostumeMistress]

Posted: 5/20/05 at 12:51am

Stage mother story -

First show I ever directed was the Wizard of Oz. We decided to cast a real dog in the part of Toto. After auditioning dogs (the first one bit me and drew blood, the second one managed to, in ten minutes, sh!t in 3 different places on the stage), we found a cute Toto who was easy to work with and had a pretty good temper. HOWEVER, the dog's owner/"mommy" was at EVERY rehearsal, giving critiques of my directing, and when we cut the dog from one scene (choosing instead to use a stuffed dog for ease of transition), she threatened to pull the dog from the show. During rehearsals, about every 15 minutes, she would have to "take the dog out for a piddle" - funny thing, though, the dog came back reeking of cigarette smoke every time. The most obnoxious stage mother I ever worked with, and it was all over a DOG! She even pulled an ad in the program to say: [Dogname HerLastName] Mommy's so proud of you!

GAG!

[popcultureboy]

Posted: 5/20/05 at 6:55am

Wow. And we have a winner!

[ashley0139]

Posted: 5/20/05 at 7:05am

For real, Costume. That's just scary!

[lesserworm]

Posted: 5/20/05 at 11:30am

I have only dealt with one stage mom in my life. Years ago, in 7th grade, I was in a play at Stone Soup Theater (A very small Wallingford theater that's gone down in qualinty since the good directors left, leaving only the disorganized pothead bitch who owns the place. Sorry, I digress.) Anyway, I was in a production of Fractured Fairy Tales, and there was this little girl in it. She was not bad for a seven year old, and had a fairly small part. Her mother came to every rehearsal, and constantly tried to "help" with the directing. By the end of the show, she was clearly wearing on the actual directors' last nerves. One day during a break, being the 13 year olds that we were, we started telling jokes. As you can imagine they got pretty dirty, and the mother yelled at us for corrupting her kid. Advise to the mother, Don't put your kid in a show where everyone else is twice her age.

[pndmnd]

Posted: 5/20/05 at 11:44am

My mom was definitely NOT a stage mom. The only activity that I absolutely had to do when I was young was piano lessons (which I am soo grateful for). Everything else, she would ask if I wanted to. I was really shy, and before my first audition I can remember sitting in the car with her outside while she asked me if I was SURE that I wanted to do this, and telling me that if I got in and changed my mind, it was OK. One of my college roomates, however, had (and still has) the opposite. Her mom is such a stage mom that her daughter majored in theatre, even though she never really enjoyed it. She just never seemed to have fun with a show--on stage or off. And so now she is a drug addict, out there trying to make it in a field she hates.

[TheatreDiva90016]

Posted: 5/20/05 at 3:07pm

Years ago, I was helping to run some auditions for the children in Sound Of Music. The only problem I had was with a mother who decided that her child MUST have a part in the show. It was very odd explaining toher that making one of the kids African-American just wsn't possible.

She couldn't see what the problem was.

[renthead2005z]

Posted: 5/20/05 at 5:58pm

i don't have any stories, but my mom is a stage mom..haha