Disaster Dress Rehearsal means Fabulous Run

I don't believe in that saying.

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During the second to last dress rehearsal for Joseph (I was Joseph), a catastrophe occurred.

During the Potiphar scene, between "Joseph was taken to Egypt in chains and sold where he was bought by a captain name Potiphar" and "Joseph was an unimportant..." I had a quick change from rags to a slave outfit. Well, when I went offstage none of my costumers or the costume pieces were there! The stage manager came running up to me and said "Rick, you're supposed to be on the other side of the stage! Get over there now!" So I run around the back to the other side of backstage and see the costumers on the other side of backstage where they were originally supposed to meet me! So I do the scene in the rags. But the worst is yet to come! After Joseph was caught by Potiphar with his wife, we added a chase sequence similar to an old Scooby Doo cartoon, where we would run off one way and come back on in another entrance with some zany antics. Well, as soon as I ran off stage for the second time in the chase scene the costumers grab me and start stripping off my clothing! Not wanting to be a diva actor or get in trouble for not listening to the costume crew head, I let them start changing me. 20 seconds pass and the others have already stalled as much as possible. From the house I hear the director yell "God Damnit! JUST COME ON, RICK!" So I ran onstage wearing nothing but boxers and short shorts to perform the rest of act one.

Originally the director had wanted me to do that final scene shirtless, but when a costume change was clearly not appropriate for out production, they decided to have me do the scene in my slave outfit. I guess the director got to see my shirtless body on the stage, after all!




When I was in Sweeney (as Sweeney), just before "Epiphany" I was supposed to collapse in the barber's chair (the first one, not the slide one). During an actual performance night when I collapsed on the chair it broke in three and I went straight to the floor. The director thought I had broken my leg, because I didn't get up immediately and delivered the "I HAD him" lines on the ground and pounding the floor. Luckily nothing was hurt and the rest of the run went by flawlessly. Well, as flawless as a high school can pull off Sweeney.

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Updated On: 6/23/05 at 12:32 AM

haha...oh that sucks (but is hilarious)

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Oh, I forgot to mention that one night during dress rehearsals for Sweeney after the "Act 2 Johanna Sequence" I had shaving cream (which was actually some whipped cream concoction) all over the front of my pants and didn't realize it until I was onstage for "By the Sea." You can imagine what a ton of white stuff on the crotch of a man's pants would look like.

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I thought of yet another one. Really, I swear my high school puts on excellent productions, but we have the worst of luck with dress rehearsals.

In our production of Wizard of Oz (for which I was the Lion), we had a large mountain like set as pictured in the following link. Don't bother criticizing it, the theatre had just opened and we had a total of 2 and a half weeks to put the tech stuff.
Anyways, the night before we opened during the death of the Wicked Warlock (one of the innumerable changes we made), which was on the top of that mountain, the staff of the Warlock, which Dorothy was supposed to bring to the Wizard, fell from the top of the set onto the main stage. The glass ball on top of the staff shattered all over the stage. We went on, despite the fact that I would have to do a fall on top of the shattered glass and that a big dance number, "Brand New Day" (another change), would follow. Needless to say some of the actors were preoccupied with not stepping on the shattered glass in their soft soles.




The Set

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Updated On: 6/23/05 at 01:10 AM

Hmmm. Well, when I was in high school my senior year shows went off without too much trouble... though my junior year shows were priceless.

The dress rehearsal for our Fall murder-mystery drama, "Done to Death" was... well... a disaster, as the title might suggest. First off: There are six main characters in the show who barely ever leave the stage with only a handful (maybe 6) ensemble members to perform in the "fantasy sequences". So once we were on for Act One, we were stuck onstage. First off, one of the guys in the show (yep. one of us lead six) decided that rehearsing during hell week wasn't important, so he shows up to dress rehearsal with barely any of his lines memorized and NO COSTUME. We were pretty much ready to give his part to the assistant stage manager-a GIRL- to perform with some dialogue adjustments... for some unknown reason, we didn't and let him go on. He threw a costume together the night of the dress rehearsal and walked out onstage with his lines all written down on cue cards in his hands. It worked with his 'announcer' character, but seriously- even for high school, that's really poor form. Well... (bet you see this coming)... he dropped the cards at one point and that was that. Must have stood there for a good 2 minutes of DEAD AIR while he went fishing for his lines.

Act Two that night was also an exercise in lines in the wrong order. I don't think I've been that creative on stage in my life- pulling lines out of the air and trying to link two lines that inexplicably wound up back to back... when they were separated by two PAGES in the actual script. "HE'S DEAD!!" "How can you be so certain?" "He's... laying... at your feet... dear."

For the record- all three performances went off FINE without one single dropped line. Miracle of miracles.

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I don't believe in this saying. I have seem some very good runs come after bad dress rehearsals but only because the dress rehearsals pointed out the flaws which were then corrected.

Funny Willy Wonka anecdote: I directed a production at my old children's theater job. The way we used to do it, we'd do a performance for the non theater oriented kids and then put on the production for the parents so two productions back to back. We were using real candy as props and the stage manager did a poor job monitoring and controlling the candy. The final scene in the show has Charlie (Charlene in my production)return the everlasting gobstopper she stole. But we had run out of candy....! So Charlie comes out and puts a half drinken bottle of orange soda on Willie's desk. guh! I almost went to black out then and there!

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A really bad dress rehearsal only means you're probably not ready to open.

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I must say, I can't agree either. The dress rehersals for the last play I did were horrid. During the first one, I fell and nearly sprained my ankle (it was a "boat" so there was a ramp that everyone walked up) which, okay not so bad, but talk about embarassing! During the final one, our mic system (borrowed from ABC networks) crapped out on us AND to top it all off, another one of our principals was was being...questioned in a drug related situation... (Ahh, high school on Long Island. Nothing like it.) Needless to say, our run wasn't too successful.. =/

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Updated On: 6/23/05 at 12:38 PM

I pretty much agree with the statement... although it certainly isn't always true.

In my HS, is was more like 2nd to final dress was horrid, then it pulled together because everyone got their jitters out.

In 10th grade, we did Anything Goes. At the dress rehearsal/preview, Reno forgot the words to "Anything Goes" and our piano player had to sing it for her. Then, they made an announcement over the intercom in the middle of our show (keep in mind, with people in the audience). But the absolute worst thing that happened? In the middle of our show, there was a fire drill. It was raining outside. It was around 6 PM, so everyone was coming home from work, and there we all are, the Angels in very-water-stainable silk and the Sailors in their sailor suits, and Hope and Reno in these very pretty/dramatic outfits. Yeah. It was fun. The actual run of Anything Goes went so well that we were actually AFRAID the next year when we did The Mystery of Edwin Drood and had a great dress rehearsal (except that someone kept taking on and off a bench, but that's not really as bad as the Anything Goes disasters) - but that show was great too.

Final dress rehearsal for "Curses, Foiled Again!" I wasn't *in* this show, but had to be at every rehearsal during the last week, and... eep.

First off, I had no idea what this show was about in the first place. I was helping a couple techies with sets onstage when I heard the Emcee talking about "And old-fashioned musical melodrama," so I assumed that was that... later that night, I'm standing backstage, talking to someone about my shoes, when I stop dead and ask, "Why in the name of Carol Channing are they singing 'Another One Bites the Dust'?"

It's hastily explained that it's set to 80's music, I say "Oh," and go out into the house to watch the entire show, and end up doubled up with laughter for the rest of the night. Not because it's a particularly wonderful show, because so much was going wrong. It's impossible to explain how much of a train wreck this show is, particularly after it's turned into a jukebox musical.

Soooo, six of us are sitting up in the balcony talking about how horrible it's going to be and taking bets that half the audience will walk out at intermission, if not sooner, when the rehearsal ends and notes begin. I love watching people get yelled at, so I listen to this. Turns out, the director is cutting half the set because the techies can't move the stuff fast enough. This is when the master carpenter and the concessions guy start talking about how one of them should jump the conceited jerk of a director onstage opening night. I only wish they weren't joking. This goes on and on, and finally cultimates in the director changing lines, cues, and dances. This is FINAL DRESS REHEARSAL, mind you.

The run was a disaster. Entrances were missed, lines were dropped, and the leading lady was flat for the entire first matinee. The best part was the concessions stand outside the theatre.

And the moral of this novel is... that saying is baloney with this company, the run's gonna suck anyway.

Don't even get me started on the production of "Sound of Music" where we didn't even have a final dress, never mind the fact that we only ran through the entire show once before opening night...