Theater Mess-ups

[Ebonic_Singer]

Posted: 8/27/04 at 1:12am

Have you ever been to a professional show and something very obviously went wrong? I love those kind of stories. How did the actors deal with it? Even if it wasn't profesional but worth postifying--post! (Ex. a set piece falling, a wrong cue, something interesting like that)

[millie_dillmount]

Posted: 8/27/04 at 1:23am

When I saw Thoroughly Modern Millie, during the "Millie seduces Trevor Graydon scene," Chris Sieber broke out of character for a moment and looked at the audience a couple of times, trying to hold in a laugh.

In the same performance, Angela "Miss Dorothy" dropped her purse.

During a performance of "Good Morning, Baltimore" on the Regis and Kelly Show, when Marissa sang, "But my feet tell me go!", her purse slipped off her shoulder and she quickly had to pull it back on her shoulder.

During the 42nd Street tour, during one of the dialogue scenes, one of the characters was standing off to the side (he was at the piano, I think he was the one who played it). I noticed that a piece of fabric or a feather began to *slowly* fall from the side towards the stage. Anyways, the guy at the piano eventually caught it, brought it backstage, and came back out.

[Type_A_Tiff]

Posted: 8/27/04 at 1:26am

One time I was at Wicked and Kristin farted in the middle of "For Good", but Idina and her were professional about it and kept a straight face and kept on singing.

That is obviously a lie.
Idina and Kristin staying in character? Puh.

Updated On: 8/27/04 at 01:26 AM

[Ebonic_Singer]

Posted: 8/27/04 at 1:29am

I just remembered one.

At Harvey's last performance of Hairspray during "You're Timeless to Me" someone in the pit played an instrument and it sounded like a bodily function was produced. Harvey pretended to "fan" it away and then Dick Latessa scrunched it up as if something smelled bad. Harvey started laughing and he got applause for a few minutes.

My mom saw the original Annie and someone took a photograph during the performance. The performer playing Daddy Warbucks completely stopped the scene and told the audience that taking pictures is illegal, then resumed the scene.

[Ebonic_Singer]

Posted: 8/27/04 at 1:30am

and im assuming type a tiff that youre kidding.

[Type_A_Tiff]

Posted: 8/27/04 at 1:34am

Yes. :) But it was really more a commentary on both their ability to crack up all the time, and the audience that eats it all up and then reports about it ad nauseum for days. (I've been guilty of that once, but I must say the Wicked "blooper" of Norbert hearing a cell phone go off and improvising that instead of animals, "people with cell phones should be locked in cages" gets me every time. I heart me some Norbert.)

[Ebonic_Singer]

Posted: 8/27/04 at 1:48am

Mess-ups are what everyone remembers. When I was Sky Masterson in Guys and Dolls, Nathan was running out of somewhere while being chased and he ran into a door and it broke off its hinge and was swaying in mid-air. I couldn't let it go so in the scene after while I was onstage I had a line then I said "What the hell did he do to the door?!" And got 2 minutes of applause. People tell me now it was the only thing they remember from the show. After all, if you see The Boy From Oz, what do you remember the most? When Hugh interacts with the audience!!

[SammyGal]

Posted: 8/27/04 at 2:24am

At Taboo once, there was a bedroom set and Euan Morton (who was boy george) sat on the bed during the scene and it hadn't gone out all the way so it slid back and he goes "did my bed just move?" and looked down and they were laughing so they missed the next line.

Also at Taboo Cary Shields is supposed to tackle Euan and throw him on the bed and he did but Euan's Boy George dreadlocks wig got in his face and he screamed "Marcus I'm drowning in my own hair!" and it was hysterical.

[Copeman63]

Posted: 8/27/04 at 2:29am

The giant moon at the end of Mamma Mia! came down, lit up, and for some reason, randomly shut off. As the scene is lit, there was only dark blues with the moon, so you couldn't even see Sophie & Sky kiss, as well as the bridge rising.

[Phantom2]

Posted: 8/27/04 at 3:21am

Somebody must have tripped on the extension cord. HAHA

[Mamie]

Posted: 8/27/04 at 4:13am

I wasn't there that night, but Frank Langella had a cute story about a goof up on stage during "Fortune's Fool". In an interview on Theater Talk he said that a chandelier on the set had come crashing down. It was right in the middle of a scene and instead of stopping, the cast just continued the dialog as if nothing had happened.

Various characters were entering or leaving the stage and they would just step over the chandelier. He thought this was pretty stupid because the audience could obviously see the thing laying there, so why pretend it wasn't? So his character, very much IN character, was supposed to order his servant to go do something for him. After delivering the order he ended the line with "and move that chandelier before someone breaks their leg". So, the fellow playing the servant exited the stage - by walking over to the prop and picking it up and carrying it out with him. The audience loved it.

[ShbrtAlley44]

Posted: 8/27/04 at 8:08am

I was in "Bells Are Ringing" at school, and in the scene where Ella (me) visits the dentist's office, we had a flat behind the dentist's chair to serve as the wall. However, it fell and almost landed on me; my friend Mike, who was playing the dentist, simply caught it and said, "Oh, I'm sorry. My office is falling apart."

Last night at Wicked, Joey McIntyre called Jennifer Laura Thompson "Elphaba."

[Jon]

Posted: 8/27/04 at 8:41am

I saw HURLY BURLY in it's pre-Broadway premiere at the Goodman Theatre in Chicago. The cast: William Hurt, Christopher Walken, Harvey Keitel, Jerry Stiller, Sigourney Weaver, Judy Ivey and Cynthia Nixon!

In the first act, Walken and Hurt screwed up some of their lines, and ended up laughing and ad-libbing for at least 30 seconds. In the second act, Walken was holding on to a balcony railing that was supposed to look like wrought iron, and one of the pieces broke off in his hands (it was really wood). Once again, the actors broke up on stage.

[Yankeefan007]

Posted: 8/27/04 at 8:51am

when i saw annie get your gun, bernadette and tom had contest to see which one of them could screw the other up first during "old fashioned wedding." then, during the nathan/matthew follow up run, in the keep it gay scene, the "choreographer" came out packing more than he usually did. the cast cut up for 15 minutes.

[venticelli]

Posted: 8/27/04 at 9:10am

my buddy saw LSOH and Audrey 2 apparently "broke-down" right before the finale. that would have been a bit of a bummer. "When this plant is working it is very evil and impressive...goodnight."

[Coondiggitydogg]

Posted: 8/27/04 at 9:25am

I did guys and dolls this year, and on opening night the gamblers all wlaked in early and were outised of the mission scene and they thought it was the scene before and i was nathan detroit so im just sitting off stage freakign out trying to get one of the guys attention. So finally i jsut walk out say "the games a this way" and they walk off start the scene with the proper people then we walk back on.

In an agatha christy play there is a waman who is dead and the inspector is supposed to some in and cehck it all out. well he trips up the stairs and lands on her and she yells AHHHHHH. and the audience starts cracking up. and the guy playing the inspector pulled this idea out of his butt about how the dead body sometimes goes in and out of audial shock and stuff it was really funny

[TheaterGeek91]

Posted: 8/27/04 at 9:38am

During the finale last night of "Turandot" (the opera), they had this odd hanging thing down that was for the scene before that hadn't been removed. This threw the set crew off so considerably that when it was time to let the confetti fall, they let it go all @ once, so it came down in this downpour.

When I was Annie in Annie, Lily, who at that time was Shirley, said, "Yeah. We don't want any money for our little Shirley." Oops.

[ChiChi]

Posted: 8/27/04 at 10:20am

This isn't so much a mistake on the actors part, but when I went to see Sight Unseen, I noticed a very careless oversight on the part of the design team. There was a section of the stage that they forgot to paint.

[Fair 2 Middlin]

Posted: 8/27/04 at 10:25am

Wicked- Popular scene, one bed comes out. I think someone else wrote about this in another thread.

[Coondiggitydogg]

Posted: 8/27/04 at 10:27am

to chichi something like that, that has bothered me for a while. In "The Producers" you know how whats her face repaints the entire office. It would be much more comedic if that wall behind the brief case were un painted so that when bialy took his briefcase the original color would still be there instead of the white.

[NBRISBY]

Posted: 8/27/04 at 10:30am

I was doing Carmen (the opera) and Carmen is in her big aria, and she was supposed to sweep all the placesettings off the table (including these thick wooden goblets) and jump on the table at the end of the number.

Well, she did. A goblet flew through the air and hit a guy standing in front of me right between the eyes. He fell over...completely knocked out. We rolled him off stage. He got stiches and was back singing the next show.

[ChiChi]

Posted: 8/27/04 at 10:32am

You are absolutley right. I never thought of that.

[Coondiggitydogg]

Posted: 8/27/04 at 10:39am

SWEEET cause i thought i was the only one for a while. I mean if she is that dumb she would just paint over the briefcase and not touch the wall

[POLisPOL]

Posted: 8/27/04 at 10:47am

There is a blooper in the dvd of putting it together with carol burnett losing some clothes

[My Fair Lady]

Posted: 8/27/04 at 11:02am

When I was in Annie Get Your Gun Sitting Bull forgot her cue. Buffalo Bill collapsed into laughter and couldn't talk.