Most Unprofessional Thing You've Done as a performer! — Page 4

Called people while onstage during the cell phone number of High School Musical.

I was with a touring production of Madame Butterfly. For the wedding scene in Act One we had baskets that we actually put food in. One of the ensemble members' kimonos knocked over one of the baskets and a rice cake rolled across the stage. I completely lost it and unfortunately it was during a serious part (not that the opera had any comedy in it to begin with), but I just could not control myself.

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I an doing Rocky Horror right now (note the avatar) and during Frank's death he is on the runway and right before "I'm Going Home" his voice needs water so we figured a martini glass would be suitabale...well there is water left over and before he died he picked up th glass as he was draging himself to his death and drank it. We all lost it on the stage.

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Yankeefan thinks he's funny cause it was the same production. he was our aast. stage manager or something.

"I worked on a production of Grease (way back in high school, appropriately) where the entire cast (off stage) was in love with one another. A great sight to behold: everybody scampering out of sight for five or so minutes, thinking nobody knows. That, sadly, was the least of the problems, considering the costumes didn't fit, the musical director couldn't fake his way through the score, and the director couldn't control her cast. "

Yea, he's 100% correct. I, (obviously miscast as Marty, should have been Rizzo, based on this) fooled around with Danny (not during rehearsal) and Kenicke (Ok, I'll admitt we were wrapped up in a curtain and in the prop room). Our Patty, ironically, hooked up with 4 of the T-Birds. If the 5th wasn't played by a girl, she'd have gotten him too. It was high school though. No big deal. And my costume didn't fit at all and the director was insanely out of control.


But that reminded me of another one. We were learning our choreography for We Go Together. Marty and Kenicke are partners, according to the riff chorus, which thrilled me cause we learned it as I had my little fling with Kenicke. As we learned it we stood on stage with the entire cast and, misbehaved (nothing bad, don't worry) and nobody saw. In fact, the choreographer said, "G-d, why is it that only Brett (me) and __insert Kenicke actor's name__ act like they like each other? Can any of you pretend like you like each other for a 5 minute song?"


And the other most unprofessional thing was her choreography. Everything was the box step.

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Not me, but during the same scene from Sideways Stories I had mentioned earlier (but during a different performance), the same actor spread Tabasco sauce on the bottom of the cookies five of us had to eat, as they were the most crucial prop of the second act.

OK< I'm not a performer but I've gotten even with a few less than professional performers on stage...

On the running crew for The Foreigner, I couldn't stand the guy playing the redneck klansmen (Owen ?),anyway, in Act II he has to let himself into the fishing lodge through a door onstage. For the last performance I locked the door so he couldn't get in- the set had representations of doors and windows but not walls, so all he had to do was walk around the door but he couldn't figure it out.

in another show, we had a girl who liked to hug the proscenium, after multiple notes, she couldn't get it through her skull to step away from the wall, so every time she hugged the wall we made sure her mic fedback. Whenever she got to close, whooooop. She still didn't get it.

never piss off your techies !

The last show I was in, I was right behind the leads (mostly good friends of mine) for the curtain call, so I tried to make a point of kicking at least one of them in the rear end each night.

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This is an old, old thread, but I was just rereading it and laughing at some of the stories on here. I have a funny recent one, too:

Closing night of Get Smart, I'm Agent 99. During the scene where Max and I first meet, there's a throwback to the TV show where I take off my hat, shake out my hair, and we lean in for a kiss but pull back at the last second. Well, the guy playing Max had been messing around with me during some of the shows and had gotten me to break character a couple times, so during this final show, I didn't stop and laid on him what was probably the deepest, most passionate kiss that stage had ever seen. He played it off well (and the lines that followed - "Say, you're a girl." "You noticed." "As a matter of fact..." - just made it even funnier), but still, definitely not something he expected.

Variations On the Death of Trotsky: I'm playing Trotsky. The actor playing Manuel asked me one day if I would stop spitting in his face while yelling at him during one of the variations. Keep in mind, I'm angry, speaking in a Russian dialect, and projecting: spit happens. So at the next rehearsal, I made sure to get my mouth really wet before the scene, and deliberately spit all over him during the scene. No, it wasn't nice. But it made me feel good at the time.

A Streetcar Named Desire: I'm playing the collector and am a part of the backstage crew. The scene is when Stanley goes off and is supposed to be pushed under the shower. Usually we had some room-temp water for him, but for the last show, we had a big container of water, kept in the refrigerator overnight, plus three trays of ice cubes waiting for him. Once the ice started hitting him and the water really got going, our big, tough Stanley yelped like a little girl. It was awesome.

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I adlib a lot. Usually in comedy roles. It's not that unprofessional. Or at least I don't really consider it to be. Usually it's because I can't remember my actual line, but sometimes it's just because I thought of something really funny just then and I can't help but say it. Our director gets really pissed off when anyone goes off script though so I do get hounded for it.

I was just recently a part of a community theatre production of The King and I, I was the asst. stage manger. I can think of many moments, it was bad. haha.

The set we had was good sized, and hevery - it was all made of wood. We had to completely change the set between every scene, some pretty quick changes.

My favorite - opening night, we were in our quickest set change after the ballet getting ready for the library scene. We go from an empty stage to our biggest set. Well, it had been about 3 mins and the director was getting antsy. Just as the stage manager also on headset told them in the light booth that we are ready and she started to pull the curtain, I noticed that two crew members were still on stage! They were behind the wall, so luckly the audience members had no idea, but I was saying "No, no, there are still people onstage!" but it was too late. And of course that was the longest scene. But the worst part is that one of the guys is almost completely deaf, so he didn't even know the curtians were opened! He started to walk off as the other guy grabbed his shirt. I guess the wall started to wobble. It was a riot. We were all cracking up backstage. I love live theatre.

This wasn't something I did, but an actor thing. So, the very last scene is the serious scene were the King dies and his oldest son takes over. The actor who played The Kralahome is supposed to be onstage when the curtain opens proping up the King. And he is supposed to have three pillows under him, but only two made it on the stage. So the poor King had to do a long sit up the entire scene. He could hardly project because he couldn't hold himself up. The actor who played the Kralahome was in the bathroom at the time, and came on stage half way through the scene. The King would say a few lines, lay his down, then pop his head back up to finish. It was like he kept dying and coming back. It reminded me of the Frog in Shrek the Third. haha. After the show was over the King was holding on to his stomach and said he's too old to do stomach crunches.

Last one. This one was more my fault, but this was at a rehearsal. In the previous scene there are some books on a stool in Anna's house, I was supposed to take the books off that and put them on a black stool and put it next to the deathbed in the final scene. Well, I didn't notice that another crew member took the stool off until it was too late. So there's the line where the King says "Why is your head above mine?" And Anna is supposed to sit. The actress who played Anna was great at the ablibs. She noticed the stool wasn't there, so she said "Well, your highness, I must stand." I didn't forget the stool after that. haha. But it was funny at the time.

I guess the most unprofessional thing I've done is missed a show on account of being depressed and sick. I called the stage manager beforehand so that they could find a replacement for me (as I had two small parts).

I adlib a lot. Usually in comedy roles. It's not that unprofessional. Or at least I don't really consider it to be. Usually it's because I can't remember my actual line, but sometimes it's just because I thought of something really funny just then and I can't help but say it. Our director gets really pissed off when anyone goes off script though so I do get hounded for it.

We used to adlib in Snoopy! and our director would flip his sh*t because apparently if we forgot a line, we were just supposed to stand there and do nothing about it.

I never bothered to take that rule into consideration. In the show, Snoopy has a scene where he comes onstage dressed as the Easter bunny with a basket of eggs. Ours would run around the theatre and enter through the back door and come up the aisle. As he would be coming up the aisle, my line was: "Look! The Easter beagle is here!" One night, he was having a problem getting the door open (it was stuck). As I was waiting for him to make his entrance, I filled the space in by saying things like "The Easter beagle will be here soon! I can't wait! He'll be here any minute!" and by the time I was done, he was able to make his entrance.

I'd also hold one of my notes out for as long as I could in "The Vigil". Every night I'd try for a new record, and my music director would be sitting at the piano waiting for me to get on with the song. That's not really unprofessional, I guess.

When I worked backstage for My Fair Lady, the crew had an arts and crafts station set up. We'd make all these creatures out of beads (the kind that you have to iron to make them stick together). Sometimes we'd find ways of putting them onstage. A few of the actors would hide them in their costumes, put them in the flower baskets for the opening scene, etc. One of the guys would almost always go onstage drinking coffee while in costume, too.

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