Mess ups!!

well..when I was in big! the musical I didn't start my opening song until the second verse BECAUSE the stupid band didn't play the measure before it right so I couldn't tell what part it was...the piano player just liked- STOPPED! so it didn't sound right so i didn't start singing!

I never see mistakes at professional shows...not that they don't happen..i'm just like "WOAH!" and i don't notice that stuff...

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I was in an African period piece called, "Anowa." During rehersals we practiced bare foot, but I wore beat up socks when I wasn't on stage to keep my feet clean. Keep in mind that our costmes were beautiful African wraps and head scarfs, and the scenery really made the audience believe that they were back in the colonial days.

During one performance I forgot to remove my beat up socks before going onto stage!!! I didn't notice I still had them on until I started dancing. I was horrified, but I tried to play it off. The socks were completely destroying the illusion of being in that time period.

This just happend to be the next that our show was being formally evaluated by some judge. At the end of the performance he gave a critique, and the whole time I was wishing he wouldn't say anything about my socks. He saved the best for last saying, "I just have to ask, was the gym socks supposed to represent something?" I just about died. All the cast tried to comfort me and say that it was alright, but I just felt so bad.

Wonderful Town seems to be the show I catch mistakes in. When I was in it in high school, I was on the phone with "Mr. Baines," the city editor. As I was talking, the cord fell out of the phone. The girl playing Eileen and I desperately made a big show of freaking out and tapping the hang-up buttons, and we miraculously got "Mr. Baines" back, thank the Lord.

The other day I was ushering there and poor Kate Baldwin tripped and almost fell down the stairs when she was coming into the apartment while Wreck was in his shorts. Ray McLeod delivered his line "Heyyy, honey bunch!" and added "You OK?"

Okay, I have the Mack Daddy of all mess-ups that happened to me.

I was in "The Miser" in High School a few years ago, and they didn't have anyone else who could play the lead character. Our teacher asked me if I'd do it, and I accepted. Unfortunately, (not to brag, this caused me a lot of grief) my boobs are too large to be taped down, so they decided to make the character a fat guy instead. So I had all this stuffing in my costume, which was EXTREMELY hot and uncomfortable. Our school's really low budget, so they told me to just rip up a sleeping bag and use that stuffing. Yeah. Very classy.

Anyway, I was doing one of the final scenes, and the girl playing my daughter was down on her knees, and grabbed my leg to beg me to let her fiance go. Sure enough, my pants came down, my shirt came untucked, and all the stuffing fell out onto the floor. Everyone was completely still for about two seconds, then the audience, went nuts. People fell out of their chairs, they laughed so hard. It was ridiculous. We couldn't start the play again for almost ten minutes.

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Were you Marian or Mrs. Paroo?

A similar thing happened in our production...he came out on time, but totally blanked on his lines. I spent the entire scene arguing with myself. Twas quite painful.

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Updated On: 1/13/05 at 04:20 PM

I saw Crista Moore really get tangled in a bunch of sillystring in BIG and have trouble finishing the scene. She kept finding more sillystring on the set her co-stars etc. and picking it off.

I was Ado Annie in Oklahoma, and during "Cain't Say No" I got two of the verses mixed up on opening night. It didn't really make a difference though. So, it wasn't that bad. I saw a production of The Music Man and during the Pick A Little, Talk a Little song, all of the girls messed up and got tongue tied and started laughing...it was pretty bad.

I was in Music Man also and right before the "Wells Fargo Wagon" scene and the Mayor's daughter (not Zaneeta the younger one.. i forgot her name..lol) is supposed to come out and say "Papa, Papa, the WELLS FARGO WAGON!" But she forgot to come out and so it was me (I played Mrs.SHinn), Mayor Shinn, and Marian and we had to improvise like a whole conversation..it was so fun though!

Also in the same show.. i know this sounds really immature and gross.. but someone tooted during "Ya Got Trouble" which means everyone is onstage and it STUNK up the whole stage. Later my friends in the audience were asking me why everyone had a weird expression on their face during that song. :)

So many good ones...

In R&J Capulet forgetting his line and yelling "Shut up!" to the Nurse.

Our Curly forgetting the words to Surrey when we did Oklahoma!

The best one I ever heard about though was a production of West Side Story where Chino forgot to bring his gun on to kill Tony so instead the actor playing him took off his shoe, threw it at him and yelled "POISONED BOOT!!!" My friend and I laughed for about five minutes.

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I saw Wicked on July 17th (Kristen Chenoweth's second to last performance). There were several mess-ups. First, in the first classroom scene, the blackboard didn't come out. Two of the students realized and brought it in manually right before Dr. Dillamond needed it.

The funniest was the Popular scene. Kristen's bed didn't come out. She was really funny and started dancing around looking for it, peering behind her wall of shoes. Both Idina and Kristen started laughing and finally Idina said something like "It's her second to last show... Give the girl a bed". When the bed finally came out, Kristen jumped on it and said something like "A 14 million dollar production and you can't get a bed around her". Then she was so out of character that she seemed to forget where they were in the scene so she actually re-said the past few lines (hers and Idina's) and then said something like "Okay, I'm ready now". It was hysterical and I think they both handled it really well. The audience was definitely amused!

A director of mine did a European Tour of West Side Story a few years ago and told me a story about the final scene when Maria has the gun. Well, in her frantic "how many bullets are left ine this gun" speech, a blank went off when the gun was facing the women playing Rosalia. There was a shocked pause follwed by the Rosalia saying "Bitch" and falling to the ground.
Also when I saw Wonderful Town a couple months ago, the bedroom set didn't come on so the Apopolous was left on stage with Brooke and Jennifer Hope Wills just talking about all of the funiture that would arrive at some point, once it did arrive he did his whole schpiel all over again.

When I was in a production of "The Hollywood Hillbilly Renuion" (don't ask, very very VERY low budget school), the opening night was a disaster in every scene a person lost a line. So when we got to the final scene and at the very CLIMATIC point of the show the girl who was supposed to say this very revealing line forgot and just stood there for TWO minutes. So after the silence, the guy that was playing her husband turns to the audience and says, "The conversation just flows doesn't it?" Of course he was being sarcastic but it sent the audience on a laughing riot. The girl who forgot her line went backstage during this laughing stock went to the stage manager, got the script, got her line, and continued to the finale. At our second and last evening performance, the show ended up being perfect. And then during our morning school performance, it got worse. I wont go into detail but the school drama program was drastically changed after. :)