Funniest Ad-lib in a show

Mine is still Cheno doing the book she wrote on "How to be Popular" and her top 10 list for Elphie!! One laughed and cried, It was "La Divine' " !!!! (Cheno did it the night she left, July 18th, it was my birthday!!)

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I saw A FUNNY THING... with Nathan Lane. There is a critical moment in the plot that involves a chalace. At this point in the story all the characters are on stage and Lane's charcater ( I won't try to spell it) is holding the chalace. Somehow it slipped out of his hand, slowly rolled down the raked stage and fell into the orchestra pit.

The cast FROOZE.

Lane took a beat and then:

"Great! Now the orchestra will get drunk!"

The audience exploded with laughter.

From what I've heard Cheno did quite a bit of ad-libbing. She is actually a very talented comedy actress and was totally believeable in the role of Glinda.

My favorite bit of ad libbing in a broadway show came when Hunter Foster accidentally broke the window on set during The Producers.

However, I think the funniest thing I've ever seen on stage was Saturday during our final performance of Sweet Charity. The girl playing charity was in the middle of If My Friends Could See Me Now, jumping up and down on Vitorio's bed, when both straps of her dress broke. Fortunately, she was wearing a slip since she had been changing on stage, but the ensuing chaos of trying to first fix the dress (Including Vitorio trying to tie the straps to those of her slip), then trying to see if there was one off stage (Vitorio: "Let me see if, among my many props from my many movies I can find a dress") to finally giving Charity a bathrobe, about two feet of which were on the ground proved to be hysterical.

ive never seen an actual ad-lib really, but i just remember at wicked in october it was the little "glinda vs. elphaba" thing, and shoshana said "hold on just a clock tick!" and then the audience was laughing, and megan and her gave each a look, and they started laughing, and then the audience was laughing more, and it went on for like 2 or 3 minutes!
and then megan burped when she was talking to madame morrible, and was like "oh, exuse me!"

:)

What a fun thread!
When The Producers premiered in Chicago, Nathan had a funny little line. After the Little Old Ladies do their walker tapdance, Max runs along side them and grabs their cash as they fall. As he rounded the end of them, he lost his footing and slipped and fell. He got up rather quickly and met Matthew downstage center. "Leo, guess what?" "What?" "I fell!" "I saw!" "AND I got the money!" They shot that back and forth to eachother like old pros.

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The funniest ad lib I ever saw was in Into the Woods. The narrator character said that Rapunzel, who (I think) was supposed to be exiled in the desert, was sent to "an island....in the middle of the desert."

After a beat (and lots of giggles from people who caught it right away), he realized his mistake, and said, "Oh, just go with me, people. This is a fairy tale! It could happen!"

I fell out.

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My favorite was the second time i saw Wicked and Idina was with Dr. Dilomand and about to share her lunch with him and reached into her bag and kept on feeling around, and she covered up with "if i can find it"(refering to her lunch and Dr. Dilomand just said "you must have left it in your locker", finally, Idina turned to look bacstage and yelled "LUNCH!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!" it was awesome!

I don't remember exactly how this one went, but I'll do my best..

It was another Cheno moment. It was right after Dancing Through Life, when Glinda's and Elphaba's beds come out, but Glinda's didn't. So Cheno ad-libbed something, which got a lot of laughs from the audience, but I think I missed it, because I was talking to my friend. Anyway, when her bed did come out, she got all excited, did the Cheno thing, and went "Oh! My bed!" It was very cute.

Definitely made me realize why people love her so much.

I saw Hairspray the second week Marissa was coming back to the show a few months ago, and an understudy was playing Wilbur. This was right after Russel Crow had the incident with the phone, so during their "Timeless to Me" thing, he said "If Russel Crow calls, tell him to hold the phone!" and the understudy started cracking up, so Bruce had him rest his head on his shoulder and said "Newly wed." The audience (and understudy) were laughing for 5 min. and Bruce kept making up new stuff, like "The best part of this, is that in 6 months, Brittany Spears will look just like me!"

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What was the Russell Crowe phone incident? I didn't hear about that, but it sounds funny.

My wife and I talked about this thread last night. She said that covering up a mistake with an ad-lib is perfectly acceptable, but doing some things on purpose - like the earlier Nathan Lane story about him telling Matthew Broderick that "the Tonys are over" - is completely out of line.

I'm torn. I can understand her point, but damned if some of those moments aren't funny as hell. And if the rest of the cast is in on the joke, why not??

Thoughts?

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Updated On: 11/22/05 at 12:00 PM