Biggest mistake you've witnessed on stage.

Brooklyn

Norbert and Sherie started cracking up during DRS when they first meet each other.

One of the times I saw RENT right at the end, Mark dropped the projector and it completely broke, and they had to do the whole, "fade in on Mark, who's still in the dark" dialogue, with no projection on the wall.

This past year I did Into the Woods, and our second night, our Mysterious Man was NOT THERE for the "When is a white cow not a white cow?" bit when he gives the gold back to the Baker. Our Baker had to run on stage with the gold and gleefully say, "Look what I found!" and run back off. That was a rough night.

When I saw Tommy in Pittsburgh with Alice Ripley and Manley Pope, the scene where Tommy's parents first take 4 year old Tommy to the hospital and he's going through all these doors, two people wheel on this table of beakers and flasks and whatnot...well the swung it around too hard and a beaker fell off and broke. They covered it really well. The two actors with the table immediately bent down and picked up the big pieces and a second later you see a guy with a broom and dustpan walk on, and start sweeping it up. A moment later when all the doors are sliding off stage, one crosses his path, he ends up behind it and just walks offstage behind the door, you never see him again..

You really wouldn't have caught it if you weren't really paying attention. Plus it was opening night, something was bound to happen. I'm sure other things went wrong, but that's all I noticed.

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during Jekyll and Hyde Robert cuccioli fell over a chair...he tried to make it a character choice (him being both jekyll and hyde) but it was my second time seeing the show so I knew! It was funny! My two personal bloopers were I was in The music man (I hate the show) but I was late getting on the stage during a dress rehearsal, all the lights were off so I couldn't see where I was and I ran into a bench and when the lights came up I acted like nothing had happened...but my director knew and pointed me out...and asked if I was okay...it was pretty embarrassing...second one...my husband was dickon in The Secret Garden and they were singing "come spirit come charm" and they rolled colin into the scrim by accident (because they were so into the song and chanting) it was so funny...

When I saw The Producers, Franz's motorcycle-thing wasn't working when Gunther is supposed to drive it offstage. They kept going with the show, never breaking character, Gunther got out of the thing, and walked offstage as a couple of techies wheeled the thing offstage. Sounds like a big deal, but my mom never noticed that it happened- go figure.


EDIT: I guess that's not a "mistake" so much as "technical difficulties..."

Updated On: 8/4/05 at 11:34 PM

I heard this from the guy who played 'chuck' (Billy Hartung) in the OBC of Footloose. He had to drive his motorcycle out and turn it just so, but when he turned it, the engine poped out of it and kept going across the stage and into the backstage. And when he had to exit with his bike, the sound crew played the sound of an engine roaring, which he thought was silly since everyone saw the engine disappear.

btw, he's good friends with my old theatre teacher.

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I've never witnessed a B-way mistake (with the exception of Eponine's books dropping into the front row when I saw Les Mis) so I'll have to contribute personal stories. Two of my stories involve children's theater, but they were funny, so I thought I'd include them anyway...
When I was in 6th grade, I was in a production of Rumpelstiltskin (yeah, no idea how to spell it) as Rumpelstiltskin and they completely skipped the "guessing the name" scene, and I had no idea what to do (I was backstage) so they just ended the show and I led the little kids on-stage and the audience was very, very confused. The worst part was that both adults in the show were on-stage at the time, and neither thought to fix it.

I'm now employed with the same company, and we recently did a production which was similar to the Wizard of Oz (but Western style, it's an odd show.) Anyway, the Wiz was played by an 8 year-old, and she played another part as well. No one told her that she didn't have enough time to go change in the bathroom and instead had to keep her costume backstage. I usually stood with her during this part (she spoke from backstage before being revealed), and the adult who was on-stage came to talk to her through the curtain, but she wasn't there, so I whispered through the curtain that she wasn't there and the adult needed to ad-lib, so she had a good minute on-stage with nothing to do, and the kids on-stage had no idea what was going on.

I was doing lights for a production in my high school, and two characters were supposed to begin kissing but be interrupted. Well, of course, no one interrupted them, so they just had to continue kissing for the next minute (quite literally) until someone finally just yelled the other girl's line from the other side of the stage to get her attention.

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I remember a minor incident in the final show of the revival of How to Succeed in Business. Matthew Broderick was rolling a hula hoop around on stage and when Sarah Jessica Parker came into the scene, he rolled it off stage. In the middle of their dialogue, the hoop suddenly comes rolling back and both of them just stare at it for a moment. Then Matthew threw it back off stage. The audience was giggling the whole time.

i was a principal in "dearly departed," which is a funeral farce, this past fall. it revolves around a very stereotypically southern family, and the four leading ladies have a scene where they hawk the various dishes being served prior to the funeral. each of us had wooden spoons that we would slap against the table in unison. my best friend happened to be playing an eccentric old woman, and earlier in the show, she would beat the receiver of a phone-- very fast and very hard-- with her spoon. on our closing night, she and i were finishing the food scene. the other two girls had gone off stage, and i was supposed to be following them. to get my attention, she slapped her spoon so hard on the table that a chunk of it flew off and into the audience. this happened in spite of the rather unattractive amount of duct tape she'd attacked it with. we both stared at each other for five or six minutes, and she just looked at me, and in character said to me, "i'm. takin'. your. spoon." neither of us broke, and i have to say that that was a major accomplishment. the audience got a huge laugh out of that.

when i saw the producers in LA, the jail set came in TOO fast and smacked against something while Jason Alexander was on it. it was funny. An improv joke was made about it later during the court scene. it was great.

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