Theater Mess-ups — Page 3

When i saw little shop of horrors last month, everything was fine with the cast, it was the set that was the problem. When the dentist's office came out (it comes out from both sides of the stage) it smashed together and some of the "diplomas" fell off and broke.

during my school play 2 years ago we were doing annie and there was some vocal issues with the cast members playing the servants and warbucksso the girl playing miss hannigan and i were instructed to stand behind the door of the set with a mic and sing for the groupo and warbucks (i handled that). well one night the guy playing drake forgot this and when he went to get sandy flung open the door we were behind, so miss hannigan went flying and landed in one of the orphanage bunk beds and i was left standing with a spotlight on me and nothing to say.

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Tonight I went to a musical called "He camed in a boat". The band was inside the stage, and in the middle of a number the violin broke a wire... the poor musician had to ran away from the stage to change his violin, while the winds of the band picked up his pentagram and started to cover him.

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I have a couple of good ones

when a theatre that I used to work with did "Sweeny Todd" sp
they had the barber shair over the orchestra pit, when the person was killed off the chair recliend and they should slide into the pit.... however you had to sit just right in the cahir for it to allow you to slide otherwise you would sit there and have to force yourseld to slide down. because of this you would hit your chin on the front of the stage

I did Grease a few years ago and the girl playing Sandy hadnt eaten that day, so we litteraly get to the end of summer night( the break right after the song before the dialogue starts) and when the song ends I go back to my math book (I was Eugine) and we never start again with then I hear the girl playing Jan ytell for out stage manager cause Sandy had passed out and busted here chin on the very edge of hte stage

when I did Little shop of horrors my senior year I was Seymore and right after grow for me I was putting the soat on for the second stage of Audrey 2 and the plant just fell out of the pot I yelled a few curse words when it happened and the greatest thig was my mic was still on

A cell phone went off durring the Jail scene in Hairspray with Matt and Carly, right begore Link say I love u and they kiss Matt covered by saing " Tracy I can hear the bells"

when I did the music man last year the director/set designer had never worked with a fly stystem and an orchestra pit before so they thought someone would either get hit by the scenery or fall into the pit. To fix this he painted yellow and white crosswalks on the stage EVERYWHERE where we shouldnt walk to keep us from getting hit and then put a ladder over the opening in the pit just so we could see and know where the giant hole in the floor was.

I did Bang Bang Youre dead my jr year in hs and I was supose to have a fight with someone on stage where they acted like they hit me but one night the guy actually hit me. and we all knew he ment to do it cause he hated me for some odd reason

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One of my first major parts was Glinda in the Wizard of Oz in 8th grade---and our Toto was like on crack or something. Once during a performance he attacked my dress and started pulling at it, and I didn't know what to do. So there I was performing the whole scene with this little dog attached to my dress. He would run off and on stage the whole show. He also didn't like the Scarcrow and would try and eat him while they were onstage together.

During "The Internet is for Porn," (AVENUE Q), they have the puppets singing in the windows- and I saw that one of the puppets fell over the window- and you could see two faces in the window- looking totally shocked! (I'm almost positive that one was Jen B. but I'm not positive) It was like puppet suicide, the puppet (it might have been Rod, I'm not sure) was just drooping over the sill. It would have been even worse if it fell out of their grasp and hit the ground.

LadyGuenevere, that is hysterical! I would have loved to see that in person. :)

I was there the night that Taye Diggs was in as Fiyero and threw the broom to Idina who totally missed it. He then said something like "oops" and proceeded to run back and try again. Idina swung her hands together like a clapboard and then she, Taye and Kristin couldn't stop laughing. I remember a lot of people on this board complaining about how unprofessional it was but I thought it was funny.

Also, as a former Rent head, I can think of a million things that Norbert did as Roger that were little mess ups. He missed catching the bottle of Stoli a bunch of times. One time he screamed out "Spring" instead of "Happy Spring" and he also messed up the chords during his guitar solos. Oh Norbie. :)

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At little shop once, when Douglas Sills sang Dentist!, at "I AM A DENTIST!" he forgot to open his jacket.. so 45 seconds after that he said to Chiffon "And i have a uniform too baby!" (and opened it)

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Updated On: 8/29/04 at 03:51 PM

hahaha so many times. When i saw les mis and Valjean and javert are fighting and Valjean was supposed to scream JAVERT but he accidentally spit a huge loogie across the stage and the audience started laughing.
Also, when i saw wicked in the same scene kristin chenoweth almost fell but it looked like it was supposed to happen and she accidentally flashed the audience...or well...the mezz.

We also had a Guys and Dolls blooper...when I was a fish, I was in the chorus and in the Cabana scene when Sky and Sarah Brown (i think that's her name) run out, Sky was supposed to throw her over his shoulder and run out...well, he ended up basically just tackling her into the rear curtain...I swear they fell for 2 minutes with legs and arms flailing every where and everyone on stage going "NNOOO!!!!" in slow motion...


I also played Hamlet last year for our school OneActPlay state contest and during our district meet, I was dragging my dead best friend (Polonius)away and the entire set almost collapsed like it had in a rehearsal. We didn't even know it, but everyone watching said it defied gravity and physics by not falling over.

PETER PAN...6th grade.

Final dress rehearsal, all the teachers were allowed to come with their families for $1 a ticket.

Middle of the I'm Flying scene, and for some reason, our Pan flew VERY slowly that night. She dangled from her wire and was dragged left to right. She was waving and flapping her arms, like a swimmer, trying to go faster. Looked OH SO BAD! Never found out why this happened.

That's what you get for using FOY over ZFX .

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I just remembered another one, I spent a wonderful first preview night watching Cupid and Psyche.

First of all, ALL THE LIGHTS went off, and Laura Marie Duncan (Venus) said "Ahh....live theater!" Love her!

Another time, she was talking to Cupid when she swayed her head to the side and her earring flew off across the stage. There were a lot of costume and lighting changes after that, though. But I had so much fun. It really improved, but I was really happy to be able to see it- I didn't feel that one cent was wasted, despite technical problems.

Updated On: 8/29/04 at 07:12 PM

another one:
during a production i co-starred in of sorry, wrong number we were plagued with errors for the 2 performances the school allowed us to do (they were saving the budget fro the king and i) we had continual issues with the lighting and sound cues the worst offenders were these:
after mrs. stevenson talks to the first operator the light was supposed to go out on the operator to allow the switch over to the 2 hitmen. at both shows there was a 2 minute delay on this cue.

and at the end of the show when i came out to kill the old lady the train sound effect was supposed to drown out her scream then a blackout so when the lights came up she was dead. Well when we did it both times neither the lights nor the sound happened so i ended up graphically faux slitting her throat to cover

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o0o0o0!! i have a fun one...when i saw Wicked for the 8th time (yes, call me a loser, im all up for it) on June 27th, the standbys, eden and laura bell, were on and ready to go (YAY)...however, during the scenes prior to "dancing through life", one of the shelves moved on stage as usual but then came to an abrubt halt and started to tip over at which point a talented member of the ensemble ran over and pushed it back into a resting position...this, as a result must have delayed the stairs for the ozdust ballroom scene moving out, forcing norbert and laura bell to just walk on from stage right, it was hillarious!

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