Character breakers

Anyone been on stage and had something from the audience stretch you to your limits of composure?

I had an ensemble role one time in a production of Camelot, and during the joust scene, right after Sir Lionel gets skewered by Lancelot, we all finished the song by speaking, aghast, "The spear has run him through!" A heavy moment, after which there is a pregnant silence on stage and in the audience. But one night, as if on cue, someone in the first couple of rows sneezed reallly loud in rhythm and rhyme, like "...run him through! (beat) ah-choo!"
I tried to keep in the moment, biting my cheeks. Hearing tiny squeaks and snorts of suppressed laughter from the lords and ladies of Camelot was not helpful. Our guy had just gotten killed, and virtually everyone was holding back the dam. Luckily there was an exit shortly, and we all exploded in the wings.

Suppressed laughter is one of the best things in life.

Updated On: 9/26/04 at 02:22 AM

I was playing Jud in Oklahoma...yeah...picture it...in a regional theatre in MA. After the dream ballet, I had to walk across the stage to get Laurie, who was asleep on a tree stump, to go to the pahty. She stumbled just a little as she got up and a blue hair in the front row exclaimed "Don't worry honey, I have trouble gettin up too!" We went back across the stage, clutching each other, looking dead upstage so the audience wouldn't see the enormous grins on our faces.

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Broadway...Sweet Smell of Success...the biggest dramatic pause of the show...John Lithgow on stage alone...audience totally quiet...not even a cough.

And...cell phone goes off. Not just any ring. the charge music they play at baseball games. and, it rang and rang and rang.

John cracked a smile.

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Many years ago I was at a performance of LaTraviatta the San Fransisco Opera.

Two bars into the overature, a small child in the very highest balcony started to cry. and cry. and cry.

Finally, about half way through the overature, the conductor, I wish to God I could remember his name, stopped the orchestra, turned to the house, looked up the balcony and yelled "TAKE... THE... CHILD... OUT!"

Thunderous appaluse.

The child as taken out (or more hopefully suffocated)

He restarted the overature and the show went on.

A couple years ago I was playing Ali Hakim in Oklahoma.

During "it's a scandal, it's an outrage" one of the guys' guns fell out of it's holster. I, being the fantastic improv guy that I am, picked it up on my next cross-over and held it in my hand for the rest of the number.

Problem is that on the last beat I pointed the gun in the air and accidentally pulled the trigger. I didn't realize it was one of the ones that would actually fire (thought only Jud had one) so when it went off I yelled "ah!" thankfully, the audience bought it as part of the numebr and laughed.

This isn't actually something the audience did that made the actors lose character, it is actually something an actor did that forced both the audience and the rest of the cast to lose it. I was in a production of the King and I, and halfway through the run, the woman playing Anna broke her leg. We restaged quite a few of the numbers enabling her to do it on crutches, and some of the actors also altered a few of their lines so that it would make more sense (ex: Mrs. Anna could obviously not "run down the hall" when the guards were going to beat Tuptim, etc.)
However, by far the funniest of the changes came in the final scene of the first act where the king is praying to Buddha and everyone else is repeating what he says. In the script, the king ends the chant by promising to give Mrs. Anna a house of her own, a brick residence adjoining the royal palace. Someone came up with the idea to add a bot to this line, and so the king chanted "And Buddha I promise you I shall give this unworthy woman a house, a house of her own, a brick residence adjoining the royal palace (pause)...with handicap access." The king's children, as well as the audience were completely unprepared for this and completely lost it. After a few moments, the laughter had dies down enough for us to continue, and the cast finished off their section of the chant by repeating word for word what the King had said, which 'caused the audience to lose it again. Every night we used that line, it was always quite fun to see the audience's reaction to it.

I was in a production of "Joseph..." once, and there was this kid in the front row belting along to every number. LOUDLY, and not in tune. So towards the end of the show when I'm onstage right in front of her, I give her a death stare and she shuts up. I know, I'm bad.

Can't take that mother of yours anywhere, huh???

In 'Anything Goes' one of the leading men fell into the orchestra pit in the middle of the song

in 'Oklahoma' someone was supposed to shoot a gun and the sound effects would come from backstage, well the crew members completely forgot about the sound and so the poor guy just sort of froze for a moment and said 'ummm...bang?' The audience and cast totaly lost it

I was Mimi in a summer camp performance of RENT once and durring one show 'Roger' was having some serious trouble getting the candle to light in 'Light My Candle' in rehersals so whenever we were actually performing I would think about the hundred of times we tried to light it and have to work really hard at not smiling. Our 'Roger' also had some serious trouble keeping a straght face on 'They say I have the best ass below 14th street.. is it true?'


These moments are what makes theatre so great sometimes...

I was in a production of "Sound of Music," playing Uncle Max. we changed it around (so much that the R&H organization wouldnt be happy) so Max has a bigger part so I can use my great comedy skills. the director let me adlib the whole scene at the concert. we had the Singing Nuns (doing edelweiss) and the von Trapps (doing Lonely Goatherd). there were big spaces in between (the actors had to change costumes), so i got to improvise during it. when i was announcing the winners of the contest, one of the nuns didnt stop bowing, just stayed there on the stage bowing to the audience. i picked her up (like i was supposed to) and carried her off. the audience went nuts! oh, yeah. we also added an 8th von trapp kid: Heidi...and they were all girls

Opening night of The Sound Of Music. At the beginning of Act 1 Scene 1, it is very solemn, the nuns are singing. Backstage someone's mike was on, you could hear them talking, and then going into the bathroom! Tinkling and then of course the FLUSH!!!! The nuns onstage could barely control themselves. It has come to be know as the infamous "Flush Night"!

During a performance of Copacabana, my mother came in at intermission, and I didnt know it. During my song, I said "IT takes me hours just to pee", and my mother, who has a very distinctive laugh, laughed. Hearing this, I almost lost it. It was only my second ever solo, so I was nervous as it was, she didn't help matters lol

I never had an "audience" problem, but last semester when my college did TAMING OF THE SHREW, I was Gremio and the last scene was at a table with the whole cast as Kate proves that she is tamed.............anyway, I was the only character who actually ate because I thought it would be funny if I was chowing down on food as everyone else talked about their own stuff and my director agreed.

Anyway, I was tearing this chicken, fruit, and bread up (I mean, I was STUFFING my face) and all of a sudden Baptista says, "What does Gremio think of this?" I didn't realize that the time came to say my last line of the show and I had all this food in my mouth. Like they say, THE SHOW MUST GO ON, so I said my line and food in my mouth flew everywhere.......on the actors, on the table, etc. The actors and the audience was roaring with laughter. I mean, it took us forever to get back into the scene because no one could stop laughing. The funny thing is, everyone in the audience thought it was intentional so I did that for the next two days of the show.

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