Most Awkward Moment You've Ever Witnessed Onstage? — Page 3

We performed Into The Woods at my High School about 6 years back - my good friend Chris was cast as the Baker's Wife. Yes, the Baker's Wife. It started as a joke when he ended up reading her part at callbacks because the director had already sent the girls home, but he is hilarious and pulled it off so well the the director did an unconventional casting. So, CHris is a tall, big sort of guy - wearing a dress stuffed with soccer balls and a bonnet. Needless to say, everytime he came on stage, there were giggles. But he played it well and managed to add a bit more humor to the show. One performance though, when he was supposed to go get Rupunzel's hair, he tugged on the braid and the ENTIRE braid came out of the tower and landed at his feet. He tried to pick it up, but it unravelled pretty badly - so instead of taking a piece of hair and leaving, he looked around, shrugged, and stuffed the whole braid into his soccer ball bosom. Yarn was sticking out everywhere - ans he wouldn't take it out until they had to feed it to the cow, so he walked around for awhile with what looked like a blonde animal living on his "chest." I don't think I've laughed that much ever.

I was also in a production of Crazy For You - the scene where Everett is fighting with the vacuum, and Tess and Patsy (me) come running on to tell him to get to the town meeting had an interesting run one closing night. Usually, JD, the kid who played Everett, and who has an excellent sense of comedy, would fight with the vacuum and throw a little fit to get the audience giggling. Well, on closing night, he dropped the vacuum while attempting to carry it to the plug to plug it in. And, the bag fell off. He looked at it, and kicked it. The bottom of the vacuum fell off. He was having a really hard time staying in character at this point, because the audience was laughing and he was trying to figure out how he wwas going to plug it in and actually VACUUM with it. So he picked it up, and the last remaning part of it broke into 2 pieces. We were on the side of the stage, wondering how we were going to improv it because there was no way in hell that the stupid thing was going to turn on, right? Wrong. He plugged it in, and the 4 pieces of vacuum TURNED ON. The audience died, and he just looked at it helplessly, trying not to laugh. It was awkward, but hysterical.

A production of FANTASTICKS which began with a bare stage. As the overture started, Luisa and one of the fathers each drove an all-terrain vehicle onto the stage, made a wide circle, then drove offstage. A moment later, they drove back onstage side by side, with the set platforms chained to the backs of the ATVs. They pulled them into place, stopped, left the ATVs at one side of the stage, and started putting up the poles, curtains, etc. on the set.

On the second night, Luisa drove her ATV into the audience.

No one was seriously injured, but how many people expect a TRAFFIC ACCIDENT in a theatre? Well, I guess these days it's not so uncommon; there must have been ample mishaps with the PHANTOM chandelier, the SUNSET BOULEVARD set and the CHITTY CHITTY BANG BANG car.

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I know what you mean about Lorna.

I kinda feel it was as if she owned this great car (aka, her voice), but couldn't find the owner's manual.

She eventually got there, but it took her a while to figure out how to "drive that thing."

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greenifyed already posted about mine, but Jennifer Laura Thompson standing in front of the scrim after Idina fell as "Call 911!" is being called out from behind the curtain. It was over a minute before she finally walked backstage and they closed the curtain. Same with Shoshana just standing there, then melting into the background. I felt so bad for her, why'd they even make her come out?


And I was at Chitty the second time it broke down. They were up in the air during the part when they were being chased by the boat and then the car got stuck. They just killed the lights onstage and there was a definite delay before they moved the sets in for the next scene, so we were just kind of sat there staring at the car in the dark.


I have such a bad track record with things going horribly wrong at shows I'm in the audience of.

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Updated On: 11/12/05 at 04:56 PM

Naked Boys Singing! .......use your imagination.

There is no better recipe for disaster than a high school production of Fiddler on the Roof and a choreographer who insists on real glass bottles at the end of Act I. One night, someone stumbled a little bit as she (yes, all our Bottle Dancers were female) kneeled for the final section and shattered the bottle everywhere. A technie found a huge broom, passed it to Tevye, and he swept up. But it was bad.

Actually, our Birdie where Conrad has to belch on cue didn't always work out perfectly either. Once or twice he would open his mouth and no sound would come out.

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Updated On: 11/12/05 at 08:32 PM

Way back in middle school, we did a production of The King And I (if that doesn't just scream disaster, I'm not sure what does)and the whole set for the uncle tom's cabin scene fell down, nearly knocking the king off the stage. I was standing off stage left, waiting for my entrance and it was like watching a slow motion train wreck. It was horrible... but broadway wise, I saw someone mentioned contact from Rent before. One of the last times I went, Cary got tangled in the sheet at the end of the number and tripped. Everyone on stage just kind of watched him fall and roll about a foot into another table. It was kind of comical, I must say.

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At Lennon during previews - the projections failed for most of Act 2 and during some very heart felt moments the Windows logo flashed and the general start up screens for a computer kept appearing and disappearing.

DEFINITELY Prymate when Heather Tom, er, manually satisfies Andre DeShields who plays a monkey. Yikes.

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Once at a college production of West Dide Story, Tony missed his last entrance where he is shot by Chino. After a few minutes Maria walked out, Chino shot *her* and the curtain closed. Gave the show a different meaning thats for sure.

best12bars, Absolutely!! Lorna learned to use her voice, But the early days were frightening! It was a "Judy's Other Daughter" for a LONG time on that one. A lot of people try to dog Lucie Arnaz on the same thing, But Lucie was NEVER in the Lorna category, although Lucie's range & voice have also grown well with age, She stopped the show in "Witches of Eastwick" with her second act song & dance "Another night at Daryl's". I wish they would bring it here already!

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I was in Alice in Wonderland this summer.

I was backstage helping to put Tweedle Dum's costume on real fast. ***In the very beginning, this girl was pissed that she only got 2 parts. The teacher gave her a lecture but gave in and sorta let her pick her other part she wanted.**- She had other issues too that I won't even get into.*** Anyway- she picked to be a flower since the guy didn't exactly want that part. Of couse, this led to chaos in which we all got screamed at by her. Tweedle Dee was helping her to get dressed since she was already dressed. Anyway- she had everything on and the white pawn went to zipper her dress and....the zipper wouldn't go up. There was no time left so we pushed her onstage hoping it would stay up for that scene. Thankfully it did but, it did not end there. She had to do another quick change. I was on stage at that point and I heard people arguing backstage. Then 4 people came out to do our dance and the one who played Tweedle Dum never came out. It was very difficult to do what we had to in the dance with her missing. When we were finished sort of improving the dance, we went backstage and the zipper was stuck and couldn't be pulled up or down. We got a knife and literally cut the dress as she was flipping out.
Thankfully she didn't need that one anymore except for the fianle which wasn't a big deal.

Uhh- some people!! Needless to say, she has tried out for 2 other plays and hasn't gotten a part. It seems to me that the teachers have been talking about her.

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