Biggest mistake you've witnessed on stage. — Page 5

Last fall, my school did 1776(Many girls played guys). We forgot to vote on unanimity one night.




Later in the show, someone kind of slipped in something like "Since we decided that the vote to declare independence must be unanimous..." The slip up did make the scene, which was always the one that dragged in rehearsals, go quicker though/

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at a performance of West Side Story at a nearby community theatre (i had only gone because friends of mine were playing maria and a shark girl):
-Tony forgot his lyrics in "something's coming" and decided to sing "down the beach, on a block... in a beach. in a block."
-Doc seemed to have some problems. For no apparent reason, during the scene when he talks to Tony after Tony has killed Bernardo, Doc got so angry he picked up a chair and slammed it on the ground, trying to break it, and then shouted "what the fffffff****?!" at Tony.

At a rehearsal for my production of Once Upon a Mattress, Fred's flew off during a polka in the middle of the Spanish Panic. after the dance, Dauntless and Fred had delivered our lines that should lead into A Song of Love... but the orchestra was busy making notes and cuts and didn't hear any of the lines. Dauntless and Fred cued them again, but they were in the middle of a discussion about the length of another piece and the relevance of Very Soft Shoes, so Fred started going "have you seen my crown? i could've sworn i had it when i got here." and then a stage hand picked it up and handed it to her, but she gave it right back and said "no, that's just a cheap knock-off," turned to the orchestra director, and said "how about now? you ready? he's ready to fall in love with me, let's go."
at another rehearsal: Fred was supposed to sit on a table in her chamber before Happily Ever After, and she hadn't realized that her usual prop table was not onstage, but rather a much smaller antique table. she hopped on as she spoke her line to Larken, and the table collapsed beneath her, splitting into about four pieces. she continued her dialogue over the rest of the casts' hysterical laughter while the crew cleaned up the mess, Sir Harry came onstage and helped her up, and a new table was brought out.

just a minor flub, but at Lennon one night a line came out "people worship the message and forget the message" but was then corrected to "people worship the MESSENGER but forget the message."

and then there was the casting of Sebastian Bach in Rocky Horror, possibly the biggest mistake in theatrical history.

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Neither of these are 'the biggest', but I HAVE seen a couple Broadway screw-ups.

First, when I saw the revival of 'Kiss Me, Kate' in August of 2001... (and the story Mamie told reminded me of this) It was Carolee and the tankard again, I fear. Anyway, so she was REALLY in to "I Hate Men" and doing an absolutely fabulous job... came to the part where she throws the tankard at the door. It failed go through, I fear, and instead bounced off the door frame and sailed off the stage. There was a HUGE pause while she tried to pull herself together to keep going- and the audience was absolutely roaring.

Second was just this past June when I saw Spamalot. As Robin and his minstrels re-enter during Act II, (the bit where the minstrel is singing the reprise of "Brave Sir Robin") Patsy is supposed to come on with King Arthur and announce the King.... except, for some unknown reason, Tim Curry was nowhere to be found. Michael McGrath and David Hyde Pierce kinda stood there trying to figure out how the hell they were going to ad-lib THIS since Arthur is needed to carry the scene forward... "I... wasn't running away. I promise." Michael McGrath did a complete turn, stared in to the wings, then turned to the audience and said, "He'll be right out."

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I saw the touring company of Camelot in Philly with Robert Goulet as Arthur. He completely skipped How to Handle a Woman and could not keep a straight face in any of his scenes with Pellinore (who was very funny). Goulet was awful.

Wow, krissy, talk about an off night!

I also saw the tour of Aida in Los Angeles and the spotlights didn't go on during "A Step to Far" there too. Obviously a mistake, but I kind of liked the effect - the characters dimly illuminated by the green of the lasers.

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I saw Nathan Lane in "A Funny Thing...Forum" in 1996. There was a scene where a couple of ensemble performers were having a sword fight and Lane was on stage but "frozen in the background."

During the fight, one of the actor's swords broke and the both stopped sort of stunned.

After a second of uncomforable silence, Lane walked forward into the light and said, "You are actors on Broadway. COVER IT." The crowd went crazy and the two swordsman finished their fight as Lane stepped back out of the light into his frozen pose. :)


Also, I saw Titanic in previews and it was one of the performances where the boat didn't sink. Sort of takes something away from it.

Updated On: 8/7/05 at 12:38 PM

Soo I'm new and not really sure what I'm doing so bare with me?

I'd have to say the biggest mistake on stage that I've witnessed was a while back when I was Dorothy in Wizard of Oz. At the end when the Wizard is giving everyone a heart, a brain, blah blah blah, he's supposed to magically pull out something from behind the scarecrow's ear. In our show we used a large bright red plastic easter egg. The wizard drops the egg out of his sleeve about 5 lines before he's supposed to pull it out of no where, so obviously the 5 of us couldn't contain ourselves and we had to work soo hard to get through the scene without cracking up. Once he pulled out the egg from the scarecrow's ear the audience realized what we were laughing at.

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well, a couple years ago i was in a production of "you have the right to remain dead" (which i think is a really weird play) that my friend directed... we had one performance and i don't think anyone said a correct line in the correct place. gah. that's a night i like to forget.

as for witnessing something... well, i saw rent a couple of weeks ago and during LVB:B, justin (angel) kicked his leg up and merle was standing right behind him, her face right over his shoulder. justin is quite a flexible dude, so he kicks really high and it looked like he kicked merle in the face! after, she kind of held her nose for a second and justin turns and puts his hands to his mouth in horror. merle starts laughing at him, then they both start laughing... then i started laughing.

and i didn't see this, but reading about it makes me laugh everytime: one night, jeremy kushnier as roger and karmine alers as mimi: during LMC where roger blows out mimi's candle, jeremy takes it, breaks it in half and throws it over his shoulder. instead of saying, "oh, what'd you do with my candle?" karmine says, laughing, "what the HELL did you do with my candle?"

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I saw Is Head Dead? last week and during the 2nd act Norbert has this big blue dress on and all the sudden he turned around and the skirt was opened down the back revealing the white petticoat underneath. During a talk-back our theatre department had after with Michael McGrath and David Pittu, Michael explained that he had heard Norbert's dress was falling off and when he went on during a "pause moment" (if you've seen it, you know what I mean) when he was hugging Norbert, he whispered, "do you want me to fix your dress?" and Norbert said not to. then later Norbert passed him on stage and whispered "fix my dress!" lol. so without missing a beat Michael went behind Norbert and started ad-libing while fixing the dress, like, "WHOOPS! seems we came undone back here dearest! Damn how the hell did they get you into this thing?!" The audience was on the floor laughing. it was so hilarious. They continued on with the scene while Michael struggled to get him all in the dress and they kept making stuff up like Norbert saying, "Oh honey, you can work on my back-door any day!" Then when Michael finally finished, he slapped Norbert on the butt and Norbert started shaking his behind at the audience while we all cheered.

It was one of the funniest bits of the show, and wasn't even supposed to happen haha!

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I haven't seen many so I guess this is the worst because it's basically the only big mistake I've seen:

During the fight scene in THE PIRATE QUEEN between Tiernan and Donal, Tiernan is supposed to stab Donal and kill him but the sword broke during the fight so...Donal just sank through the trap door as usual but just appeared defeated in general, not killed.

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About 5 years ago at Phantom of the Opera at the Majestic Theater, Carlotta was singing "Think of Me" she was the second refrain of the song, and she hadn't moved into place upstage yet for the backdrop fall, but it fell on that 2nd refrain instead of the 3rd one. So the other actors were still standing there and it hit them all on the head, and Carlotta when on with the song. The actors just ignored the mistake.

The stagehands quickly pulled the backdrop back up, and Carlotta moved into place upstage, and this time, the backdrop fell at the right time, and the music was cued, the lights were cued, and everybody on stage freaked out like normal.

So if there were any new people in the audience last night, I'm sure they were like "Why did they just ignore it when the backdrop fell 10 seconds ago, and now its a big deal that it fell?"

ALSO,
Last year at Spring Awakening, when John Gallagher started stomping his feet during Bitch of Living, his socks fell down. I couldn't believe that the wardrobe people couldn't get a Tony Award winner's costume right. But then after I saw the show a few more times, I realized his socks fall down every time.

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'Dance Of The Vampires'
BIG mistake!

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Updated On: 2/12/08 at 07:31 PM

OK the biggest mistake ive seen on stage was .....
when the curtain went up for Dance of the Vampires and all that followed for 2h 45m!

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