Unintentional Prop Breaks

Suresure theres really old posts about this great..let's start a new one:

Have you witnessed any stage prop mishaps where you can tell something just wasn't done right and it broke & the actor(actress) stalled as to what to do? (Long I know)

Last night at Les Mis, John Owen-Jones smashed the chair during the "Confrontation" scene at the hospital and I think Judy Kuhn ("dead as Fantine") jumped when it broke and JOJ just kind of looked at the chair and kept singing and just picked up a random part. Hahaha, I thought it was funny anyway.

On the Sound of Music tour a few years ago, in the thunder storm scene they were dancing around and Frederic kind of swung on the bed post and it broke off. He ended the song with the bed post raised above his head.

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during a performance of RENT during la vie boheme, Maureen's (the actress's name slips my mind) mic went out and she had to lean in to joanne's to say her lines. the actresss playing joanne was completely confused of course and thought she was supposed to be pulling away. later, the maureen eventually had to get a hand-held mic to finish the song and she looked confused the entire time

Did the "plumber-looking stagehand", look anything like this?

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One time I saw WICKED with Megan as Glinda and during Popular when she went to hit the wand on the bed on the line "is this thing on?" a piece of it broke, she smiled and chuckeled a little while Sho was about to crack up.

In one of the last performances of THE BOY FROM OZ -- during the Radio City Hall scene, one of the moving mirrors which allowed a multiple reflection of the one Rockette onstage fell. As it obviously contained a person inside the box which held the mirrors, Hugh Jackman stopped and checked if the person was hurt. Only after it was assured that the crew was unhurt did he go back to his Peter Allen persona and went back to his amazing dancing!

When the show transferred to Australia, it was an arena version and had a concert feel. During the opening night performance ( there were no previews), they were using mikes as they do for concerts due to the vastness of the venue ( 12,000-seaters). After a few moments of singing that was not projecting too well, someone handed him a hand mike ...he readily continued his performance but only after quipping "that I like the sound of my own voice" as he was the only who could hear him for a few moments

Updated On: 12/30/07 at 07:36 PM

The most common prop malfunction I've seen in Les Miz is when the Gavroche is not strong enough to hoist the bag of bullets all the way up to the barricade, or when Enjolras can't catch it. It sort of ruins the next scene, when they all of a sudden have all of these bullets to use. Also, it makes Gavorche's death seem rather pointless, when they don't even get the bullets he went out to collect. Too many whimpy Gavroches who could never reach the top of the barricade. For what it's worth, the best was Nicholas Jonas (of Jonas Brothers fame), who always made it seem effortless.

Except that Drew Sarich kept sending candlesticks flying during What Have I Done and I could swear he once had to do the finale with just one instead of two.

I saw him fly a candlestick out of his hand that landed on the steps downstage left. He spotted it, worked his way over towards it, and then stepped down to retrieve it before circling around to upstage center.

Alex (and I think Drew as well) would come out for the finale with just one of the candlesticks lit, set the pair on the table (with the cross), and then use the lit candle to light the other. More than once the flame blew out on the way, leaving him in the dark.


p.s. John Owen Jones comes out with both candlesticks lit.

... about Gavroche throwing the bag high enough ...


Somewhere, somebody must be keeping statistics. Does anyone here know?



p.s. I would place the over/under at 80%.

[At least one miss per eight show week. More often two misses.]

when I saw Adam and Anthony in Rent this past summer during La Vie Boheme when Roger goes to play the guitar for Muzetta's Waltz it didn't play and Anthony went, THAT WOULD OF REMINDED US OF MUZETTA'S WALTZ! And the crowd went nuts and the cast was dying haha

If you're going to correct people, you could at least point out that it's "would have reminded us of Musetta's Waltz".

It depends on the Gavroche really; Zach Rand almost always makes the throw, but Brian D'Addario would miss at least half the time.

If we're going into set malfunctions too, Les Mis has many tales of epic fail where the barricade broke down. I never saw that, but I did see the Rue Plumet gate jump its track and slide halfway down the stage with Adam Jacobs still on it...

My favorite was on the Les Mis tour when Thenardier, during the wedding scene, kicked one of the plates they were trying to steal and the guard guy is supposed to stop it with his foot but it flew into the wings and apparently knocked a bunch of other sutff over because there was this massive crash from backstage. Needless to say the next night, he kicked it slower so the guard could stop it.