Your small talk on stage and backstage
Your small talk on stage and backstage
SweetQintheLights
Broadway Legend Joined: 6/12/05
#0Your small talk on stage and backstage
Posted: 12/28/05 at 12:16am
As many of you know, I am on a cruise. I just got out of watching the show and I've been thinking...
You know when you are on stage and you have to 'talk' to other people on stage quietly (small-talk)
When you are on stage, what do you talk about? Also, if you have some time backstage during the show, what do you talk about? Usually, when I am backstage, we talk about mistakes. Onstage, we try to talk about things 'our character' would talk about, however, it usually goes off that topic.
Share your conversation experiences!
Mythus
Broadway Legend Joined: 8/16/04
#1re: Your small talk on stage and backstage
Posted: 12/28/05 at 1:03am
I comment on set pieces or other people...it depends. During Oliver, one night, there was a puddle of water on the stage (the roof leaked) so I small-talked with someone about who had pissed their pants. We would gossip and make up the most random stuff about other characters. And one night, we had nothing to talk about, so we started saying "You know, I feel like singing." "Me too! Isn't that strange." "I think we should sing now." "Should we?" And then we'd go into "Consider Yourself".
So, yeah. Random stuff.
Ebonic_Singer
Broadway Legend Joined: 8/18/04
#2re: Your small talk on stage and backstage
Posted: 12/28/05 at 1:05amYou'd be surprised what dirty things I have heard during "small talk" onstage.
Link Larkin Wanabe
Broadway Legend Joined: 7/1/04
#3re: Your small talk on stage and backstage
Posted: 12/28/05 at 1:19am
Hah,
I am notorious for making people crack up and break character in those situations. I make REALLY dirty comments about audience members and pray that my mic isn't turned on by accident. When I was in Fiddler, the way the sewing machine scene was blocked I was sitting at the sewing machine with Tzietel and an obviously fake baby bundled up, with a whole crowd of people with their backs to the audience, blocking the audience from seeing us. The ensemble had to freeze but since the audience couldn't see me, I would always make them laugh by squishing th plastic baby's head or pretending it was giving me head. They got in trouble from the director a lot in rehearsals. I did not. Good times.
Akiva
#4re: Your small talk on stage and backstage
Posted: 12/28/05 at 1:24am
when i was in DROOD we would make up rumors about other cast members, but in character (our MRH characters)...like who was in jail, who tried to seduce who, who was pregnant...good clean fun stuff like that. 
Link Larkin Wanabe
Broadway Legend Joined: 7/1/04
#5re: Your small talk on stage and backstage
Posted: 12/28/05 at 1:25am
"clean" and "fun" in the same sentence....Pshawww. Pshawww, I say, Pshawww.
Akiva
YankeesFan175
Broadway Legend Joined: 7/8/05
#6re: Your small talk on stage and backstage
Posted: 12/28/05 at 1:25am
akiva, ive had that happen to me. not so fun, lol. one guy kept saying "penis" over and over again and i, not wanting to break character, smiled like the character would and just kpet muttering "im gonna kill you, im gonna kill you."
yes, good times indeed.
#7
Posted: 12/28/05 at 1:26am
Link Larkin Wanabe
Broadway Legend Joined: 7/1/04
#8re: Your small talk on stage and backstage
Posted: 12/28/05 at 1:29am
Hah,
Ironically enough I was nominated for a "Best Actor" award that year in my city for that role. AAANNNDDD I got hired the next summer by the same company. Hah. Gotta love this business.
Akiva
YankeesFan175
Broadway Legend Joined: 7/8/05
#9re: Your small talk on stage and backstage
Posted: 12/28/05 at 1:37am
haha akiva. you were prolly so good you could even mutter obscinities in character.
Link Larkin Wanabe
Broadway Legend Joined: 7/1/04
#10re: Your small talk on stage and backstage
Posted: 12/28/05 at 1:43am
Hah...Oh I do that on a regular basis. In rehearsals I used to swear in my VERY distinct whiny characer voice in the middle of a scene and make the director crack up.
Akiva
YankeesFan175
Broadway Legend Joined: 7/8/05
#11re: Your small talk on stage and backstage
Posted: 12/28/05 at 1:45am
haha, awesome. i can usually entertain people without the obscinities. but hey, if the theater career doesnt work out, you could always consider stand-up! 
Link Larkin Wanabe
Broadway Legend Joined: 7/1/04
#12re: Your small talk on stage and backstage
Posted: 12/28/05 at 1:48am
It's funny because I always thought I SUCKED at improv and comedy but I kept getting pegholed into the comic relief roles, and made a bit of a career out of it. Now I am a lot more comfortable with comedy than dramatic acting. Which worries me. I wish they would cast me in serious roles now.
Akiva
YankeesFan175
Broadway Legend Joined: 7/8/05
#13re: Your small talk on stage and backstage
Posted: 12/28/05 at 1:50am
aw. the comic relief is fun though! im in an improv group, and one day we played newscasters (like on whose line) and i was the co-anchor and i was the ancors whiney little daughter. the weatherman was donald trump and i just said, in a very whiney voice, "daddy, i dont like his hair!!"
just a random story i felt like sharing. good times there, as well.
roquat
Broadway Legend Joined: 5/25/05
#14re: Your small talk on stage and backstage
Posted: 12/28/05 at 11:31am
Akiva--
Another "Fiddler" story--I was in an awful production where the Tevye was, I think, the inspiration for Forbidden Broadway's "If I Sing It Slower." Every...line...."Sigh"...lasted.....twenty....(look around)...(grumble)...years. In the crowd scenes, we would stand around counting the beats in all his pauses, and some nights we got up to 20, especially during the sad part at the end. Well, the "To Life" inn scene took forever as well, of course, so us chorus boys sitting at the tables in the back would try to outdo each other in dirtiness, talking about the sheep we were taking out on dates later, the sex toy factories we were thinking of opening in the village, etc. It was the only way to keep ourselves sane!
DramaDork925
Broadway Legend Joined: 9/4/05
#15re: Your small talk on stage and backstage
Posted: 12/28/05 at 12:47pmOne show I was in the girl who played my mother was awesome at talking about the most random things and staying in character. I'd try to hold back laughter but when she's whispering about how another person on stage looks like they're having an orgasm it's hard.
#16re: Your small talk on stage and backstage
Posted: 12/28/05 at 12:49pm
In our production of CABARET we were out onstage before the show started and during intermission. We would speak to each other with German accents even though the audience couldn't hear us, just because it was fun.
Mostly one of the chorus boys tried to pimp me out to the other chorus members, telling them I was cheaper than Fraulein Kost.
Link Larkin Wanabe
Broadway Legend Joined: 7/1/04
#17re: Your small talk on stage and backstage
Posted: 12/28/05 at 3:48pm
Well Rath to be fair, it IS true...
Akiva
#18re: Your small talk on stage and backstage
Posted: 12/28/05 at 3:49pmWhen I was in Jekyll and Hyde, there was a moment in the Red Rat, where Spider is supposed to whisper in my ear, and every night, he would whisper the dirtiest things...It was so hard not to break character.
#19re: Your small talk on stage and backstage
Posted: 12/28/05 at 3:49pmI know.
#20re: Your small talk on stage and backstage
Posted: 12/28/05 at 4:03pm
In a high school production of Oklahoma I was Ado Annie. The guy that played her dad was supposed to have the first line after intermission. He forgot when to come in and the music just kept going and going. We were all dancing basically behind him. He kept missing his cue and no one was doing anything about it. I danced up to him and motioned for him to dance with me. I got close enough to call him every name in the book. I wish I could remember exactly what I said to him but the last part, as the cue approached AGAIN was, "Stupid motherf**ker, sing...NOW!" I would have been nicer if he hadn't been such an extreme ass.
Normally during that whole dance I would just go around saying horribly innappropriate things to all the other dancers. I especially enjoyed propositioning Aunt Eller. The girl in that part was beautiful. She thought I was kidding.
#21re: Your small talk on stage and backstage
Posted: 12/28/05 at 4:08pmI was Ado Annie too!!! I know which part you are talking about!
#22re: Your small talk on stage and backstage
Posted: 12/28/05 at 4:09pmHas anyone seen WAITING FOR GUFFMAN? Hysterical! Anyway, in one scene, the cast is supposed to do some small talk on stage and Catherine O'Hara's character can be heard (too loudly, of course), saying "Amanamanamanama". Cracks me up each time!
#24re: Your small talk on stage and backstage
Posted: 12/28/05 at 4:25pmUpdated On: 3/9/17 at 04:25 PM
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