Best "Make It Work" instance from you theatre past..- Page 2

[Marianne2]

Posted: 8/15/08 at 2:35pm

When we were doing a scene recital show in college, one of the directors had one of her actors quit on her, so she ended up going on in that role. Luckly for her it was a female role, but it was the main character.

[walkedthroughmany]

Posted: 8/15/08 at 3:01pm

Back in high school, we did "The Wiz" (in a 98.6% white area), and at one of the performances, a Munchkin girl accidentally cartwheeled into the orchestra pit (twelve feet down, I'd guess). She stayed down there motionless (and presumed dead) for about twenty minutes until the EMTs came and took her away (alive).

It's so awkward re-starting shows after things like that happen.

[myshikobit]

Posted: 8/15/08 at 4:47pm

I was just playing Arvide in Guys and Dolls about a month ago, and on opening night I made a HUGEEEE mistake in the "I'll Know" scene. So Sky comes in, and (i know, really bad mistake) I accidentally introduced myself as Sky. So he's like, "You must be mistaken, Sir... that's my name", and I'm like "Oh dear, I'm so embarrassed.", and then to make it make sense that I somehow knew his name already, I stage whispered to Sarah "I know this guy!!!". It was an awful mistake, but we covered so well that no one even noticed. And on the first dress rehearsal we were working on my drum strap, but it broke so I missed that same scene, but the girl who was playing Agatha did all of my lines until I came in. If it isn't obvious enough already, I was a total mess that week.

[PinkPanther]

Posted: 10/16/08 at 10:15pm

Halfway through a tavern scene in Fiddler, an ensemble member slid on his knees toward the edge of the stage... and kept sliding, right into the orchestra pit.

During Beauty and the Beast, our Belle lost her voice on opening night. She managed to do all of the songs but Home, so our director sang it from the back and Belle lip-synched.

[CATSNYrevival]

Posted: 10/16/08 at 10:21pm

She couldn't do "Home" but she managed "A Change in Me"?

[PinkPanther]

Posted: 10/16/08 at 10:47pm

Our director probably did that one, too- Home was just the most famous among the cast because she messed up the lyrics. Our Belle was brilliant, though; she didn't miss a beat.

[love you forever]

Posted: 10/16/08 at 11:17pm

In my opinion make it work moments are incomplete without a sandy story. When I was Annie my sandy fell off the stage in the orchestra pit right into the flute players lap in the middle of tomorrow. The flute player pushed him up while I was pulling him up & we had to stop tomorrow. Luckily it was only a dress rehearsal & not a performance, but I'll never forget the helpless look on that dogs face.

Also in the same production on opening night, when we were doing the "here sandy" part of tomorrow, the dog kept following me when I walked away & I was like "sandy, bad boy!" then when I was calling him he wouldn't come because he was scratching his butt! About a minute later of calling him to come, he finally came.

When I was in 42nd street last winter for our 1st performance our abner Dillon thought the performance started @ 8 when it really started @ 7. So he didn't come to the theater & our director had to improvise this really long before the curtain rises speech. The show was double casted & luckily the abner Dillon from the week before was working on stage crew. We were putting him into costume & make up when all of the sudden our abner Dillon finally arrived!

[blondebaby589]

Posted: 10/17/08 at 10:28am

Well this didn't happen to me, it happened to a friend of mine. So he was in West Side Story at a regional theater, and the director had decided from the very beginning that they were going to do the "movie version" of the show. Therefore, who sang certain songs was different and the order of the songs was different. So they got halfway through the run of the show (about a month of performances) when someone reported them to MTI. They had to change the show immediately. And to add a little icing on the cake, their Anita quit that same week.

[Paul W. Thompson]

Posted: 10/17/08 at 12:48pm

I once did an entire professional performance of "South Pacific" with a broken finger, which I broke in the dressing room during "Some Enchanted Evening." It was the Saturday matinee. I was passing out from the pain and kept avoiding touching anyone with my right hand. At intermission I begged the stage manager to let me go to the emergency room, but she wouldn't let me.

I came back for the 8:00 show with a full cast on my hand and halfway to my elbow. She looked shocked, like she hadn't believed me. Anyway, I performed the rest of the run as if I was the accident-prone SeaBee (Richard West, I believe).

While I was an Assistan Musical Director at another professional theater, the Musical Director made me drive him to pick up his girlfriend during intermission of "Camelot," and we were late getting back to the theater. The stage manager had started Act II without checking to see if we were there, and when we arrived the drummer was sitting at the piano, trying to play "If Ever I Would Leave You." Boy, was Lancelot pissed....

After that Musical Director was fired, I took over as Musical Director. (He didn't get fired over the "Camelot" incident, it was because he got drunk and threw up on the high end of the piano keyboard during the end of "Far From the Home I Love" in "Fiddler.") Anyway, when we were doing "Mame," the leading lady got sick. During intermission, she insisted that she could not sing "If He Walked Into My Life," so we cut the number! She finished the dialogue cue for the number, and then the lights faded and the scene change happened. I saw only ONE man in the audience squint at this program, looking confused.........