Those quirky moments in community theatre you love — Page 3

Oh dear, where do I begin? lol.

I also saw a community production of Chess in Los Angeles waaay back in 1995. It originally starred one of the original Broadway cast members: Marcia Mitzman Gavin, but by the time I saw it, she had left the production. Though she was there in the audience at the final performance I attended.

The Svetlana was an actress that had appeared in numerous episodes of "Married With Children" as the butt of fat jokes by Al Bundy. It was quite jarring at first seeing a Svetlana so different from what I was used to picturing in my mind. But after the initial surprise, I found she was quite good in the role.

Also, in a 1994 community production of "Into the Woods," the two step sisters couldn't sing for ****. lol. While in a pro production such a thing would be a no-no, it actually worked really well here. Hehehehe.

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I was in a production of "Sweeney Todd" with the worst director I have ever experienced. Good thing we had an amazing cast. However one key thing was over looked until very late in to rehearsals. The razor!!! About three days before opening our "director" says to the cast "So, who's getting us the razor?" We all started looking for a rental or a company who could loan us one but the ONLY theater around us that had one is stock had just rented it out and shipped it half way across the country. So our stage Manager did the best she could to make one. It was an angle finder spray painted silver with a small Elmer's glue bottle filled with blood masking taped to the handle. OMG it was horrible!!!

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Footlooser I just had the same Sweeney experance, when they got the razors one closed on my fingure and sliced it open during one of our last rehersals. Then they were like "Oh maybe we should tape those."

"....So our stage Manager did the best she could to make one. It was an angle finder spray painted silver with a small Elmer's glue bottle filled with blood masking taped to the handle. OMG it was horrible!!!"

LMAO!!!!!!!!!

"At last...my arm is complete again!!!!!!" (glue bottle falls to the floor)

"In the scene after Annie's first public performance, Buffalo Bill was supposed to come on and tell us (the three children) to go find Annie. Unfortunantly, he didn't so we had to improvise this whole scene until he arrived."

You might want to rent the Marx Brothers movie "The Cocoanuts." There is a scene in there where Chico Marx's character is supposed to tell the romantic lead that his girlfriend is marrying someone else. Unfortunately, Chico cannot remember the other guy's name. Finally, the other character (who is in jail -- don't ask) blurts out, "Do you mean Polly is marrying -----?" "Atsa right," says Chico.

how about an all male, gay version of the fantasticks? that is going on this fall at a community theatre near me.....should be...interesting

Suddenly the lyric, "Plant a carrot", takes on a whole new meaning. Be afraid. Be very afraid. Check, please!

In a production of Crazy For You there are a couple of scenes in Lank's Saloon where cowboys get into a fake fight and shoot each other.....well the gun wouldn't work so my actor thought it would be funny to just throw it at the other person....which he did. The person falls over dead as if he'd been shot.

While this was mildly amusing the first time (the audience didn't mind), he then did the same thing again a few nights later (this after being told not to do it again). Couldn't really 'fire' him though half way through a run.

In a production of 42nd Street (the first of the many times I have seen this show), the male lead in Shuffle off to Buffalo was so flaming, I called it "Sashay off to Buffalo." He was great though, and so was everyone else.

At the same theatre, I saw Into the Woods. The scene where Cinderella's dress falls from the sky? The dress got stuck in the tree. Cinderella was able to extract it with only a little difficulty. After her exit, you could hear her say "The dress got stuck in the damn tree again" before the mic was shut off.

The same production, the same Cinderella. The scene where she enters the stage and falls on her behind? Well, she did it, but fell HARD on her backside, the kind that leaves bruises. It made such a loud sound you could tell the audience not familiar with the show thought it was unplanned, and the ones familiar with the show thought it was hilarious for her getting so into the role. She took several seconds to get up, it was obvious she was hurting, but she kept in character, so I starting cheering loudly "Bravo!" until she rose. The audience joined me in a huge hand, and she was soon able to get up and continue what was an excellent performance in a great production.

Okay, it is a play and not a musical, but recently I saw a local production of Henrik Ibsen's "Ghosts", when Osvald was being bandaged after the orphanage-fire scene, he revealed some very heavy duty tattos that didn't really go with the 19th century deeply conservative rural Norwegian setting. (Though Osvald was in Paris for many years... damn corrupting Parisians).

It made me smirk.