Most Unprofessional Thing You've Done as a performer!- Page 2

[elphieisperky]

Posted: 6/8/05 at 1:16pm

Probably the most unprofessional thing I've ever done as a performer was just being in the Mystery of Edwin Drood. On our last night, we were out of character for like, the whole play. It was one of those plays where you can't help but laugh in the middle of it, even when you're on stage.

[timote316]

Posted: 6/8/05 at 1:29pm

The most unprofessional thing I've done was "modify" my costume to make my costars laugh onstage (and not telling them about it beforehand).

I'm supposed to come out in a khaki shirt and khaki shorts during 'Copacabana'. For some reason, this was supposed to get a laugh, but it never did. So, the last night of the show, I hiked the shorts way up on my stomach, wore black socks pulled up as high as possible, and wore an oversized straw-type hat. That got a good laugh (including from the girl I was doing the scene with, who had no idea I was going to do it - she had to turn away from me to keep her composure). The best part was, all of this was in character.

[kas]

Posted: 6/8/05 at 1:32pm

i've laughed, tripped, mooned people onstage while standing in the wings, loaded props, and yes, left to get a beer before curtain call. Now - i'm out of the game, so i can confess :) oh - and i also accidentally came onstage too early and interrupted a solo; made absoultely no sense that i just waltzed on. i damn near cried when people in the front row started laughing. i also kicked a tap shoe into the third row during anything goes, and had my skirt tucked into my nylons during my entire competition number for latin at the marriot in boston. but i ended up winning - go figure.

phew! i feel bettger confessing.

[Broadway_freak]

Posted: 6/8/05 at 1:38pm

oops Updated On: 6/8/05 at 01:38 PM

[Broadway_freak]

Posted: 6/8/05 at 1:38pm

In our final dress rehearsal for our school play of "Jury Room", it was time for the foreman of the jury to act out the scene with the psychic. Needless to say the girl who played her was a comedic genius and everytime she spoke I started cracking up. I couldn't stop laughing. It got to the point where I had to stop the show and just tell her to tone it down for right now. Thank god it was only a dress rehearsal, if it was a performance I probably would have crawled under a rock and died of embarrasment.

[ckeaton]

Posted: 6/8/05 at 1:44pm

Seussical.

Posted: 6/8/05 at 2:09pm

I did Children of Eden and sang Generations everynight for two weeks in a Bulgarian accent, and laughed my entire way through Piece of Eight clearly visible to the audience... oops!

[TheatreDiva90016]

Posted: 6/8/05 at 2:59pm

Okay, I do have one more, but I was in High School...

We were doing I REMEMBER MAMA, and I played Mr. Thorkelson, the nerdy undertaker. Earlier, on the day of opening night, the girl playing Mama and I were watching the movie, and in it, my character ran in fear from the Uncle when they are first introduced. She said I should do that to. So I did, without telling anyone. I was blocked to stay by the front door, but instead, when the Uncles character was yelling at me, I ran through the scene to the opposite side of the stage. Everyone just stared at me as if to say, "WTF?"

Needless to say, our student director was pissed and she actually beat me with the cane she was walking with.

It was there and then I learned not to change my blocking.

[AnothaPartofMe]

Posted: 6/8/05 at 3:04pm

Moonwalked (and got applause...) during "Sun in the Morning" in ANNIE GET YOUR GUN.

[MTRBOI24]

Posted: 6/8/05 at 3:06pm

During the auction for Oklahoma I played Jud and was lurking in the background and a "extra" was in the background and planted Burger King Cheesburgers in the picnic baskets and during the auction he was taking the cheeseburgers out of everyones basket and was eating them on the stage, LOL, I was laughing HYSTERICALLY which cause me several times to step off stage and get a hold of myself. I have it on video which is great, lol. Of course I am much older now and dont do any unprofessional things onstage!

[LaVieBoheme2]

Posted: 6/8/05 at 3:06pm

I was Olivia in a production of Twelfth Night, and I was in the middle of doing a rather dramatic monolouge when someone behind the scenery dropped something thet made a really loud noise, and in the middle of a sentence I screamed out "what the hell?" on the top of my lungs to the scenery. I somehow quickly regain charactor but I heard the entire company cracking up laughing at me, but my director was pretty pissed. Other than that I can stay professional...ONstage. What I do in the wings is my own businness (hehehe). Elyse. No day but today.

[littleredridinghood]

Posted: 6/8/05 at 4:30pm

"Probably the most unprofessional thing I've ever done as a performer was just being in the Mystery of Edwin Drood. On our last night, we were out of character for like, the whole play. It was one of those plays where you can't help but laugh in the middle of it, even when you're on stage."

Ooh, Drood...

So we're doing it last year and the Chairman says something like "So where's the mystery?" Some random person in the audience (not a plant) yells out, "Your personality is the mystery!" The Chairman hardly takes a beat, turns to him, and goes, "Oh really sir. I wish I could say the same for your sexuality!" The cast that was on stage (all the principals) was practically dying. Puffer and Deputy fell, they were laughing so hard.

My personal one was as Lucy in You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown, getting annoyed when people were blocking my entrance (which was also the entrance to the room), and saying something like "Schroeder...AND ALL THESE PEOPLE THAT ARE ENTERING AT THE END OF OUR SHOW..."
Updated On: 6/8/05 at 04:30 PM

[Parks]

Posted: 6/8/05 at 4:37pm

...get ready for this:

I once called a cast member a b!tch (this was in middle school, BIG deal back then) and got in quite a bit of trouble for it. It's either that...or when I missed a cue for Curtain Call...with a VERY small role. I'm so dangerous. Grrr...

[melissa errico fan]

Posted: 6/8/05 at 4:38pm

Over a decade ago, I joined a production of Arthur Miller's "After the Fall" ten days before the first performance, in the role of Quentin. It is the lead role and has tons of speeches. The character is onstage 99% of the time. For about the first two weeks of the production, I had to have most of my lines fed to me through an earpiece. That is pretty unprofessional. But, I did finally memorize my lines, and was good for the rest of the production. Plus, I met my wife in the show.

[kas]

Posted: 6/8/05 at 4:45pm

that's so cool that they could actually do the earpiece thing! yes, there are more conventrional methods :) but i think that's pretty cool.

[JohnPopa]

Posted: 6/8/05 at 4:50pm

I did a horrendous community production of the equally horrendous musical 'Personals.'

I never did learn the words to the opening number.

I also dropped an f-bomb during a cutting of 'Godspell' at State competition.

[melissa errico fan]

Posted: 6/8/05 at 4:53pm

"that's so cool that they could actually do the earpiece thing! yes, there are more conventrional methods :) but i think that's pretty cool."

It was the only way I could make it through the performance without looking like a dear caught in the headlights!

[DefyGravity23]

Posted: 6/8/05 at 4:55pm

Talked about my high school director (from freshman year) behind her back with a fellow cast member. Turns out she was standing right behind me. I forget exactly what I said about her...but I think it had something to do with her smoking pot (she WAS a pothead, she went to rehab after that year). But let's just say she hated me after that and I wasn't cast in the next show, sadly.

[Dreamcatcher]

Posted: 6/8/05 at 4:57pm

Broken character a couple times and during a school production of Arabian Nights a few years ago, a bunch of the cast was playing spin the bottle and truth or dare behind the building when they weren't in the scene. Ahhh good times good times..:-P

[TheActr97J]

Posted: 6/8/05 at 5:01pm

No etoile... not revenge on the audience; everything I did was in character. They were cracking up. Besides that whole performance that night was already spiraling down the toilet. I actually am upset that that audience didnt get to see the real show I worked my ass for two months to prepare.

[TheActr97J]

Posted: 6/8/05 at 5:17pm

Oh... same bastard director... different incident. Talk about unprofessional, this man was the most unprofessional person I've ever worked with.

It was a rehearsal with about two weeks till opening; my lines still weren't perfect because Whiteside is on every page but two! So we were running a scene in the middle of act two... i drop a line (about three sentences long), but stay in character and keep going. Me and the other actor found our place quickly without ever making it apparent that we missed anything. However, this moron was holding the script and told me that because I dropped that line we were starting the act over again.

For the rest of the rehearsal he continuously harassed me, shouting insults at my during my dialogue. By the end of the rehearsal, I couldn't stand it anymore. I leaned over to this girl and said, "I'm gonna f*cking kill Mr. *****" Of course guess who was standing right behind me. Definetly got thrown out of rehearsal, but... boy is this guy a piece of work.

[VonTussleGirl]

Posted: 2/18/07 at 2:20pm

Forgive me for bumping this thread, but I felt like bringing it back. :)

There was a scene during Sideways Stories from Wayside School in which another actor had to read an "SOS note" I had written and he had intercepted. During rehearsal I would just write the actual lines ("Help help help! We're being held captive by Mrs. Gorf's crazy son!") on the paper, but on opening night I wrote "Don't break... I know you want to... don't laugh, Tyler.. you're so close... don't break!" He cracked up and retaliated by spraying spit all over my face during our "confrontation."

[sing_dance_love]

Posted: 2/18/07 at 2:53pm

Ok i have one that i was kind of involved in and one i wasn't at all but its a pretty funny one

1. When i did "Singin' in the Rain" in high school, we had this really great director that was very creative but his "thing" was that he added a dream sequence into EVERY show. So we had this sequence where Cosmo falls asleep after "Good Morning" and dances with a bunch of sheep that he's counting. (Don't ask; though it was helpful because it gave me time to change into my water-proof suit for the "Singin' in the Rain" dance) Anyway, so the curtain call was a big tap dance where the cast is tapping to the title song and we all look up and the assistant director, stage manager, and all the sound crew are in the sound booth wearing the sheep heads and waving. So of course the whole cast bursts into laughter while trying to finish this tapdance. It was interesting.

2. Ok, i wasn't even in this show but i thought it was a hilarious story. So when my theater company did "Little Shop..." they had two casts, and the two Seymours made a bet to see during the final two performances who could kiss their Audrey the longest. And the WHOLE cast knew about it except the two Audreys. So during the final matinee the one Seymour kisses his Audrey and tries to hold on but she eventually pulls away, so for the night performance, the other Seymour was determined to beat it so when its time he kisses his Audrey and kisses and kisses and she starts to pull away and he grabe her arms and holds her and they end up kissing for something like 4 minutes. And the whole audience is like "HUH?". So yeah, he definately won the bet. haha.

[Marcus2]

Posted: 2/18/07 at 2:59pm

Once when I played Sneezy (classy or what?!) We were at the sleeping bed of snow white and the apothicry person comes on and says "I'm afraid no aillment of mine can cure her" now this girl is one of those I'm brilliant but is actually crap kinda person. She has nigerian accent and moves her head from side to side very largely. Now some of the cast caught on to this and soon word spread to look out for it.

So the whole cast ended up in hyterics on stage each night, but as we were all supposed to be crying we just made it out that we were hysterically crying. Was so funny!

Someone missed there cue when I was playing Feargal in Back to the 80's. I was supposed to accidently hit them so they can ask what I am doing. Then I talk about my Karate. Well I'm standing there doing the Karate Kid wax on wax off for about 5 times thinking of crap what to do. I just turned to someone and said "Oh you want to know what I am doing?!" and went for my lines. Was so weird.

Also in a concert we did we had a girl singing "what a feeling" from flash dance. Anyway for the last night as the girls were dancing and singing someone ran across the back of the stage with a huge painted "Gaviscon" sign, not sure if its the same in America but they use the song in an advert in England for heart burn tablets. It was so funny from the wings! I think the audience didn't know any wiser ha!

And another as I was playing Feargal, I come onstage to realise that Micheal has been sending fake love letters to Elieen. So I'm all angry and annoyed and then Debbie says "the only difference between you and a bucket of crap is the bucket" every time she said that line I had to turn to the back of the stage and smile it was so bad!

And another in rehersal I said "Mr Miyagi says to be a fully developed grasshopper one must use head and hands to guide hands" I cracked up and lets say the director was less than happy!

Wow that was long! Updated On: 2/18/07 at 02:59 PM

[Horton]

Posted: 2/18/07 at 3:00pm

During a production of Mame I played the older Patrick was in I would do two things nightly.

1. I would spit in Mame's face as much as possible during our confrontation at the Upsons place.

2. I would zip up my fly after Gloria and I made out.