Disaster Dress Rehearsal means Fabulous Run

[Caroline-Q-or-TBoo]

Posted: 6/22/05 at 11:06pm

so, they say: if the dress rehearsals are a disaster you're destined for a great run! share your dress rehearsal stories and how the run went! me: Charlie and the Chocolate Factory

after a horrible start of the run through we get to this tour de force preformance:
Me: You know how i love chocolate!
(its a que, no one picks it up)
Me: i just loove chocolate
Me: yum yum chocolate
Me: Bitch i love me some fine chocolate!
(gets line. the rest of the rehearsal goes horribly... the show runs great though! no flaws!)

[Marlothom]

Posted: 6/23/05 at 12:09am

I don't believe in that saying.

[Unknown User]

Posted: 6/23/05 at 12:13am

My high school rehearsals were always bad, but I can't remember one performance where things went horribly wrong.

[Necromancer07707]

Posted: 6/23/05 at 12:32am

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.

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

[i*heart*fame]

Posted: 6/23/05 at 12:35am

That isnt so bad. My favorite one was when I was in this production of How To Eat Like A Child, well for the song we refuse to fall asleep the floor was covered in blankets and pillows, except for a pathway on the front of the stage. Well one kid put their blanket in the wrong spot, and I was "George-the leader of the pack" and I had to march into the center, only I slipped on the blanket, and the whole cartoon thing where someone slides on one foot on something slippery happened. I slid across stage and then fell over, they sent me to the nurse. I had a sprained ankle but because they didnt have understudies they decided not to tell me until after the show.

[Caroline-Q-or-TBoo]

Posted: 6/23/05 at 12:35am

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

[wildcat]

Posted: 6/23/05 at 12:39am

The expression is actually bad dress rehearsal, good opening night. I'm afraid the rest of the run is in the lap of the gods...

But in this day and age when performers are often at the mercy of automated sets, lighting and click tracks, nothing is guaranteed to go smoothly EVER!!!!

[Necromancer07707]

Posted: 6/23/05 at 12:48am

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.

[timote316]

Posted: 6/23/05 at 12:59am

Our last dress rehearsal for my high school's fall play my senior year was fun. Right at the end of Act One, our lead got his lines right for the first time. Then, the fire alarm went off. As it turns out, the football team's dryer blew up.

Except, this was an exception to the "Disaster Dress Rehearsal means Fabulous Run" rule. Our show was terrible, but thats a different thread...

[Necromancer07707]

Posted: 6/23/05 at 1:10am

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

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

[Sumofallthings]

Posted: 6/23/05 at 1:43am

During our run of Damn Yankees, my friend Ty was performing in the opening number "Six Months Out Of Every Year" it was the Wedensday show for the area middle schools and all the kids were watching. During the number you were suppose to slam your beer bottle against your hand in disgust. Ty did, but a little enthusiastically. The bottle shattered, slice open his hand, barely missing his wrist veins and blood was everywhere and glass was everywhere.

He actually finished the number while in an extremely intense amount of pain. I'll never forget having to avoid the blood on the floor in the next scene because there was no blackout.

[DreamFlyer22]

Posted: 6/23/05 at 9:22am

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.

[arishmoof]

Posted: 6/23/05 at 9:38am

our dress rehearsals in HS were always bad...

For our senior play we did "the scarlett pimpernel" the play version, not the musical, and i swear the script was funny, but the language was just too far out. we opened on wednesday, and on our friday night performance the class all but did away with the script and ad libbed through half the show just for fun! we were chasing each other around the stage, adding jokes, i played marguerite, and when the french guard was supposed to grab the gun out of my hand, i started hitting him, stuff like that. it actually went over really well!
(you had to be there i know reading about it sounds like "and this one time at band camp...")

[mikewood]

Posted: 6/23/05 at 9:56am

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!

[Barihunk]

Posted: 6/23/05 at 9:59am

I once played Sweeney in a community theatre production. The cast was actually quite good no thanks to the imagination-less director who insisted on doing the show a la the Hal Prince production. At the final dress, we still had no set. Nothing. I pulled a divo fit and announced that if the producers intended on charging the audience money to see this show they could find me at home in front of my TV. After they pried me out of the dressing room, the dress rehearsal went OK. The next night (Opening Night) we had a set and the producers compromised and charged money for the tickets, but did announce that they (the audience) would be watching a dress rehearsal. Things went well until the Final Sequence. Joanna escaped down the stairs and they removed the staircase leaving me on top of "the box" as Mrs. Lovett is screaming downstairs in the bakehouse, oblivious. I had to stop the show saying to the audience "Excuse me for this, but could someone please bring back the stairs?" The audience loved it, but I couldn't help but think that it was my karmic payback for my temper tantrum the night before...

[OtherDaryl]

Posted: 6/23/05 at 10:10am

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

[jacobtsf]

Posted: 6/23/05 at 10:40am

I once directed a production of LSOH (for which I was also playing Mushnik) and the day before the show opened there was a catastrophe.
We had made a beautiful backdrop for Skid Row (well...it was Skid Row, so it wasn't beautiful) and while rehearsing we heard a rip, looked back, and saw our backdrop in three pieces. Turns out that one actor was running behind the backdrop from stage left, and another was running behind it from stage right, they crashed into each other and fell into the backdrop, pulling it down from the ceiling and ripping it. We all pulled an all-nighter fixing the backdrop, and the show ended up going off fine

[LuvBroadwayHugs]

Posted: 6/23/05 at 12:38pm

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.. =/

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

[TheatreDiva90016]

Posted: 6/23/05 at 12:51pm

I remember working on a production of G&S Gondliers years ago. The setting for the first act was in a village courtyard (or something like it) and the second act was set in the palace. The set pieces were built to rotate during intermission for an easy change.

Well, the end of the first act is a big dance number called "Dance A Cachuka Fandango Bolero" and all of the cast was very into the number. They were pounding their feet so hard the entire set just fell in on them. I was watching from the house and it just buckled in the middle and every piece fell like dominos....

[dietcherryemma]

Posted: 6/23/05 at 12:56pm

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.

[LyTeMyCanDyI]

Posted: 6/23/05 at 1:40pm

My school did Grease this year. We blew a fuse right before the dress rehearsal started, our Frenchy was on an audition for a movie (she got it) so our Asst. Director, a guy, played ehr parts til she got back. Our Danny Zuko was sick as can be with a sore throat. I played Marty and my mike broke right at Freddy My Love. I sang "Freddy my love why can I not hear my own song? Tech crew my love, something is very very wrong" Then we had people on stage sitting on tables, and they collapsed.
Our shows were both fantastic, excaept a (different) table collapse. no1 was on it.

[littleredridinghood]

Posted: 6/23/05 at 1:43pm

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.

[broadwaybelter]

Posted: 6/23/05 at 7:39pm

its usually the opposite for me, we have really good dress rehearsals and the shows turn out crappy.

Wizard of OZ-huge tree falls over (stupid child knocked it down)
audience gasps!

doctor dolittle-power outage at 3 of the 10 performances, audience leaves...

little women-lines forgotten, props forgotten, although the props slide in from random places which is only way too obvious

[VonTussleGirl]

Posted: 6/23/05 at 10:15pm

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...

[My Fair Lady]

Posted: 6/23/05 at 11:18pm

In my Fair Lady, we al lforgot the words to the last part of "Get Me to the Church on Time", so we sang the middle and we did it really well and we were all so proud of ourselves, and our director got so mad at us for messing up the whole end part. We had to do the whole song over again. The actual show was almost flawless.