Most Emotionally Hard Show You've Had To Do...

[LouieLovesTheater]

Posted: 3/18/05 at 12:41am

Sometimes shows can be really tough on your not only physically and emotionally. Yeah, doing Crazy For You isn't going to send you to a therapist but there are some shows out there with such strong subjects that it can be hard to separate yourself from them.

For me, it would have to be A Man of No Importance. Such a strong show to be a part of but emotionally it took such a lot out of me and the rest of the cast. Totally rewarding, though.

[HeyMrMusic]

Posted: 3/18/05 at 12:44am

I haven't done many wrenching shows, but I'd say my toughest show emotionally was Our Town. I played Mr. Webb, Emily's father, and it was very very tough. It's one of my proudest roles that I've done.

~Steven

[FOAnatic]

Posted: 3/18/05 at 1:47am

It would definitely have to be "The Little Foxes." I was cast as Horace Giddens and it was my first dramatic lead. If you haven't seen it, it's some very heavy drama. I had to perfect the Southern accent and be extremely ill. I had to learn to walk with a limp and be helped to walk by other cast members. Then I had to learn how to use that old wheelchair and make my way around the stage with it. And, of course, the death scene. One thing that was of major importance to me was that it not be cheesy. I have to collapse while climbing up stairs because I'm having an attack. I did not want it to be a stupid cheesy immature death scene. It was gutwrenching and I wanted to portray it as so. I practiced it so many times and in so many ways...but I got it. Not to mention there are so many heavy fight scenes between Regina and Horace...especially Horace's big monologue which ends Act 2. That show took so much out of my emotionally...but it was, without a doubt, one of the most rewarding theatrical experiences of my life.

[munkustrap178]

Posted: 3/18/05 at 1:51am

THE WIZARD OF OZ is up there.

BLOOD BROTHERS was difficult - the entire cast would leave depressed every night.

Believe it or not, PETER PAN was actually pretty exhausting as well.

[JoshuaEads]

Posted: 3/18/05 at 2:30am

Tobias in "Sweeney Todd" and Piggy in "Lord of the Flies" are at the top of my list. Seymour in "Little Shop" can be pretty difficult sometimes.

[Derech2]

Posted: 3/18/05 at 2:34am

I've never done anything too dramatic or emotional, but the Miracle Worker was probably the most emotionally demanding show for me. I was James Keller, Helen's half brother, who'd been forgotten by his father, pushed aside by his family, and has to live with the memory of his dead mother. I was really young at the time too, and there was a scene where James Keller and the father Keller get into a fight over the late mother, which was really a jump for me at the time, but as the show progressed I got so into it that I would slam the set door and run off stage nearly crying, and I always felt like absolute crap after the scene, so depressing. LOL

[broadway_star_tomorrow]

Posted: 3/18/05 at 2:52am

Probably 'Night Mother or The Children's Hour. I've had to do shows that have had harder individual scenes, but those shows were the hardest to do overall.

[IMsooHyprToday]

Posted: 3/18/05 at 4:30am

Will Parker (from Oklahoma!)... deep, deep, DEEP inner struggles that boy has.





lol.

[Type_A_Tiff]

Posted: 3/18/05 at 5:19am

BST is using that as a hypothetical, since we know she's just a cold-hearted emotionless bitch in reality.



The most emotionally difficult I've had to do is Tituba in The Crucible in high school. That was rough. I was having so much difficulty nailing it in rehearsals but on opening night, everything just clicked, and I could see my fellow actors look at me in surprise on stage. It was really gratifying. (Yes, I was playing a Barbados slave. Yuh-shut up.)

[bjivie2]

Posted: 3/18/05 at 5:35am

This isn't a show that I'M in, but it's a show friends of mine are currently in.

There's a program that takes an up-and-coming playwright (Brian Yorkey of Feeling Electric), and he helps to write a new musical based on the 18 teenagers that are cast in this ensemble. Through improvs and brainstorming they come up with their own characters and a plot. This year's show is about a group of friends who has one of their friends commit suicide and how they all deal with it. The show opens next weekend. A student who was friends with four of the cast members committed suicide on Tuesday, so now the cast is having to deal with what they're characters are dealing with. Apparently the rehearsal yesterday was really rough. It just goes to show how relevent this material is. Totally heartbreaking.

[SallyBrown]

Posted: 3/18/05 at 7:36am

well for The Wiz and Wizard of Oz, I had scenes where I had to cry..... at first it was totally hard I didn't know what the hell I was doing. I didn't know how to cry on cue or anything like that. We spent a good many rehearsals trying to make me cry. in the end I cried.

oh and when I was doing Peter Pan, we had this wacked out director at first who told everyone to lose weight "You're children not monsters!" and told the guy playing Peter to lift weights..... which he already does but who the hell tells a 14 year old boy he has to get more abs? and who tells girls they have to go on diets for a school play? that was i guess emotionally draining....in the end that director got fired, and got replaced with a new one.



I guess the most though was The Miracle Worker. For the audition, they tied a bandana around my eyes so I didnt know what I was doing, couldnt see. That was TOUGH! So for the call backs, they asked me to act without the bandana. even harder. It got even harder as the rehearsals started, but everyone there was really really helpful

Updated On: 3/18/05 at 07:36 AM

[OtherDaryl]

Posted: 3/18/05 at 9:38am

Raul in Extremities.

[superwoman108]

Posted: 3/18/05 at 9:42am

A Clockwork Orange (the musical).

[DancerGirl16]

Posted: 3/18/05 at 9:57am

Ok this is an emotionally hard show not because of the show but because of the drama going on. It was a benefit performance our theatre group had done and every single person in the cast was talking because we weren't being addressed for a very long time. 3 kids were playing cards..some talking, and because we were tired my friends and I were just sitting there. Finally I turned to my friend Matt and said that the theatre was like another at camp and the director snaps up, and screams "SARA GET DOWN HERE NOW!" and I was kind of freaked out because everyone else had been talking and I thought it was ok. So she came up to me and said that: I have a terrible attitude, that I am an intern here and now SHE is the owner and she has never done it before but she will fire me because she had known that I was talking behind her back" this wasn't true and I was really upset because I had loved that theatre company.

We have been at war ever since.

That ruined the performance for me.

[WillParker]

Posted: 3/18/05 at 10:35am

Tom in The Glass Menagerie...so depressing & draining, but SOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO rewarding...I loved every second of playing that role.

[jacobtsf]

Posted: 3/18/05 at 11:22am

For me it was a show called "Sottopassagio" that I did this past fall. It was about homelessness in Itally.