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

[Yankeefan007]

Posted: 2/18/07 at 11:00pm

I was Uncle Max in a terribly uncharismatic production of Sound of Music (not tooting my own horn, but I was the only person in a group of "pros" with stage presence - and the only acting experience I had before that was in the 3rd Grade play). Scenes were switched around, song order was changed (all unapproved, I'm assuming), characters were added and cut. During the concert scene towards the end, I had nothing to bring out the trophies with, so I used what I could find: a Barnes Unt Noble bag.

[lamentingenvelope]

Posted: 2/18/07 at 11:08pm

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

[KillsTwiceADay]

Posted: 2/18/07 at 11:22pm

I have a few of my own, but the most unprofessional thing I can think of was in high school- a girl I was in show choir with started having a coughing fit in the middle of "The Rainbow Connection"- a nice, pretty song, right? Well, as she was coughing, she says, under her breath, "$hit...". Problem was, the mic was right above her, and the whole audience clearly heard what she said. We all thought it was pretty funny, but our director was not amused.

[DottieD'Luscia]

Posted: 2/18/07 at 11:24pm

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.

[StarUsher]

Posted: 2/18/07 at 11:29pm

I did a lot of childrens theater and let me just say you have to find ways of amusing yourself or you'll go insane. During a production of our version of Cinderella in which I was playing the prince's mother, the actor playing the prince's best friend started doing ridiculous things in the wings to make me laugh. I have a hard time focusing when that sort of thing is happening but I got through it and plotted my revenge. The next performance while he was on stage I flashed him in a specially made lacy bra with tassles. He fought so hard to get through the rest of his dialogue and it taught him a very valuable lesson about respecting your fellow peformer's focus!

[theaterdude87]

Posted: 2/18/07 at 11:29pm

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.

[pants2]

Posted: 2/19/07 at 12:30am

I just did A Streetcar Named Desire a few months ago and almost every night when my Blanche moved in to kiss me (I was her little boy toy paper boy) I would say dirty things under my breath to make her laugh, she never did though, which was rather dissatisfying. Also at Streetcar next to my dressing room was a trapdoor elevator that goes to the stage (obviously) and one night my ipod wouldn't turn down so I went outside of my dressing room to make a call, but it was the actors lounge and they were being loud so I went into the elevator shaft to make my phone call and somehow the elevator started to rise, and since I wasn't in until the second act i was still wearing a sweatshirt and jeans and holding my phone, and I rose up right into the middle of the scene, unable to stop it, and the blanche and stanley looked at me in horror, so I did the only thing that seemed right, I said "sorry about that" and ran to the other trapdoor, that you just open and climb into, and went down into it, I was almost fired.

[LyTeMyCanDyI]

Posted: 2/19/07 at 12:42am

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.

[fabala4077]

Posted: 2/19/07 at 12:46am

hmm. Tough one. I do community theatre shows with ridiculously hyper teenagers, so I'm typically the one who keeps everyone on task.

Although... in my first ever show (when I was 11), I was Mrs. Sowerberry (undertaker's wife) in Oliver. This was in middle school, so we were pretty bored by closing night. So when Nancy died, the guy who played my husband (the undertaker) and I ran onstage with the rest of the onlookers, something we were completely NOT supposed to do. We covered Nancy with a sheet and measured her for a coffin while the rest of the scene was going on... yeah, pretty bad.

[VonTussleGirl]

Posted: 2/19/07 at 1:41pm

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.

[Carl Magnum]

Posted: 2/19/07 at 1:54pm

When I did Black Comedy in high school I ended up rewriting half of my lines and Brindsley. The problem was we had no crew so the actors had spent most of the rehearsal process trying to build a set and hang lights and find costumes. So I never got all of my lines fully memorized and paraphrased a good chunk of it with what I could remember and what I thought I had that was funnier than Tom Stoppard....I wasn't.

Also in high school during Guys and Dolls, I was playing Nathan and during the Phone Booth scene with Joey Biltmore someone's cell phone in the audience went off. I picked up the payphone and looked at the kid playing the bum on the park bench and said "He's passed out, he'll call you back" and then proceded to call Joey.

During a production of another show I walked off stage after botching some line or harmony in a number and uttered a very audible "Oh jesus F**king CHRIST!" while my mic was still live.

[Janos5303]

Posted: 2/19/07 at 1:54pm

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 !

[Trekkie2]

Posted: 2/19/07 at 2:29pm

In Oliver!, I had to dance with this girl right in front of a box, which was right in front of the thin scenery board. She let go briefly while we were dancing together to fix her hair, and I fell in the box. I couldn't get out and stared moving around to get out, and the scenery started shaking. I finally got out, but by then the song was almost over.

[scott68]

Posted: 2/19/07 at 3:59pm

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.

[Mattbrain]

Posted: 2/19/07 at 4:05pm

During a performance of The Taming of the Shrew, I was playing Grumio and because one actor missed a line, we ended up skipping what was left of my dialogue. I was so pissed off that when a fellow cast member tried to console me backstage, I told her to bite me. I apologized the next night. I am ashamed at what happened. I truly am.

[VonTussleGirl]

Posted: 4/15/09 at 11:48pm

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.

[tellybox]

Posted: 4/16/09 at 12:38am

Last year at this time I was in a dreadful production of Shakespeare's Julius Caesar. The whole thing was set in a sort of postmodern, war filled society. Ninjas were predominant beginning in Act Four, there were puppets, and cheap effects (think a stool with an attached ski pole standing in for a seat on a fighter jet). We hardly even focused on the text. And this production was for a university class!

Anyways, the whole production was just a mess. So to make ourselves feel better, on closing night a few of us created a drinking game around several laughable elements to our show. Drink once every time a ninja goes on stage. Drink two every time there is a cheap effect (instead of Caesar's Ghost appearing to Brutus, he came to him via webcam, which was broadcast on a giant projection screen).

It may have been unprofessional to be sloshed by the time curtain call came around, but we were just so angry that the first big production for grades turned into such a huge mess...

It feels good to get that one out, lol

[SweeneyPhanatic]

Posted: 4/16/09 at 1:04am

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.

[sondheimboy2]

Posted: 4/16/09 at 1:17am

I was in a production of the musical version of "Triumph of Love" and we played a Sunday matinee with only three people in the audience and they were friends of one of the performers. Well, the guy who's friends they were starts mugging up his part and almost all of us got into the act.

I was playing the Uncle (the F. Murray Abraham part) and after the opening number, my character doesn't come back on for about a half hour. When I got out there I played my entire part (except when singing) with a lisp. Not a "gay" one, but one like the little brother in "The Music Man". (My dear thithter, have the preparationth been completed?)

When the actress playing my sister came out, she had a straight pin hidden in her hand and was jabbing herself with it to try to keep from laughing. It didn't work.

[CATSNYrevival]

Posted: 4/16/09 at 1:33am

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.

[wizard2joe]

Posted: 4/16/09 at 1:35am

I remember when we used to get condoms from the sound or audio room watever that place is called (it was used to put in ur mic pack so that whenever u sweat and ur sweat goes on the mic pack it wouldnt electricute u)and pass it around on stage and put it in each others pocket and the last one had it lost

Good Times

[MillieDillmount]

Posted: 4/16/09 at 4:16am

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.

[Schmerg_The_Impaler]

Posted: 4/16/09 at 9:42am

When I did a play earlier this year (Snappy's Happy Half Hour), I was playing the abusive producer of a TV show. Well, the scene before I came on, nobody could remember their lines at all. Two pages before my entrance, there was a huge, empty silence that literally lasted at least a minute, maybe more.

So, I just came onstage, and yelled, "Bet you weren't expecting me for two more pages, were you? But that is how I roll!"

The next story, everything I did was fine for the show because my character was drunk and ridiculous, but it was still really immature. In You Can't Take It With You, I played Gay Wellington, who at a dinner party, had to burst through the door singing drunkenly and acting inappropriate. The song in the script was "The Young Lady From Wheeling," but we'd changed it to "I've Got A Lovely Bunch of Coconuts." Anyway, at the dinner party scene, I burst through the door, starting to sing the song, then I did a partial strip tease (throwing my leopard coat, my skeezy silk coat, and my bloomers) to Mr. Kohlenkhov, and I started dancing around giving Paul and Mr. and Mrs. Kirby lap dances.

Later, when the special agent dragged me down the stairs and made everyone line up, I struck a provocative pose and said, "I'm ready for my close-up, Mr. de Mille." I think I also sang "The Merry Old Land of Oz" during one of the nights.

Oh, and during the scene where I was passed out on the table, I kept randomly 'waking up' and laughing hysterically (on purpose) or making farm animal noises, with my legs wide open and red silk bloomers with black lace on. I also scratched my butt with a banana and ate it.

I didn't know that a lot of people from my church were in the audience.

[Perfectly Marvelous]

Posted: 4/16/09 at 11:27am

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.

[blondebaby589]

Posted: 4/16/09 at 1:56pm

One Saturday night after a performance of 42nd Street, about 3/4 of the cast all went bar hopping. At 2 when most of the bars were closing, we went back to someone's apartment. Our intent was to sleep since we had a matinee the next day, but instead we stayed up all night drinking more. Literally, all night. We all went to the theater for our 12:30 call completely wasted. That poor poor audience.

I also remember when I was in a production of Oklahoma, during the fight in Farmer and the Cowman a few guys had decided to tie up another guy with rope. He was stuck like that for the rest of the number.