Worst Changes Made in an Amateur Production

What are some of the worst (and/or most ILLEGAL) changes you've seen made in amateur productions??

It bugs me to hell when theatres try and add characters you "You're A Good Man, Charlie Brown."

Updated On: 4/24/07 at 01:05 AM

"It bugs me to hell when theatres try and add characters you "You're A Good Man, Charlie Brown."

Oh God, their doing that at my school.

WBAF, please say you're joking. That would be priceless.

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It always bothers me when I see a community production of ANNIE and they have added a chorus of about 25 orphan girls - (and why do the "added" orphans always named after Peanut characters - Marcie - Lucy - Patty - Sally?)

But the absolute worst is when they add songs from another musical just to give a superflous character something to do. I saw a production of OLIVER where - I kid you not - the chamber maid came into Oliver's room and sang "Wouldn't It Be Loverly"

This wasn't an amateur production, but apparently in the recent European tour of Rent, Mimi dies. I know some people think she should die, like in La Boheme, but at the very least, the director shouldn't be allowed to deviate that much from the original script.

"I saw a production of FAME at a high school once and they thought it as inappropriate to have a gay character in the show. so they changed his monologue to say that he only had one testicle. (because that's SO much more appropriate...) "

HAHAH--but wait when I did Fame the script for the character clearly mad ehim not gay--it's hinted and suspected hie's gay in the first scene then in the last (set 3 years later at grad) it turned out he was just shy.... Wer eyou guys doing a Fame based more on the movie (wher ehe was gay?)

I've heard of amateur productions doing Merrily we Roll Along "backwards" so it goes in chronological order--thus ruining a huge point to the show.

I did Forum twice, both times playing Miles--the first time was in a decent but less good production where the producer upped the chorus of guys a lot--instead of 3 we had 9 or so. That said it wasn't completely disastrous--it worked well enough as much as I hate such changes

I've heard of amateur productions doing Merrily we Roll Along "backwards" so it goes in chronological order--thus ruining a huge point to the show.

I've always heard of those productions but I've never actually known someone who has seen one. Do those productions just cut the transitions that move the show backwards or do they change the years mentioned in them to make them work?

It seems like a good number of regional productions of Dreamgirls end act one with the end of "And I Am Telling You" and don't do the "Love, Love You, Baby" tag with Deena the Dreams. The production I saw at the St. Louis Black Rep last year (which was a mess anyway) cut it.

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StickToPriest, sadly it's true. The Greater Hartford Jewish Community Center's 1993 Children's Theatre Production of A CHORUS LINE featured a variety of alterations, the chief one being "Boobs & Tush" sung by a barely blooming 12 year old Val wearing a padded bra.

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I feel like a Chorus Line comes with the alternate lyrics "This & That," which makes Boobs & Tush all the more delightful.

The production of A CHORUS LINE where twin brothers both played the role of Mike. The character was changed to Mike "and Ike" (no lie) and, you guessed it, they sang "WE Can Do That". (You can find a clip of that number on that website we all know and love.)

I'm not fond of mothers instead of fathers in THE FANTASTICKS.

I know of a production of ANNIE GET YOUR GUN that changed Pawnee Bill to "Pawnee Jill".

I was in my middle school production of THE WIZ. The only song we used that was not in the movie was "So you wanted to meet the Wizard." The rest she cut and replaced I was Born on the Day before Yesterday with You Can't Win from the movie. The play wasn't bad sut that scene was horrible.

Our drama teacher showed us an earlier production of THE WIZ where they basically got the movie script, edited it, and then performed it. TERRIBLE.

There are also about ten different productions of Little Shop of Horrors on Youtube where they change the ending and sing Mean Green Mother From Outer Space with dancers dressed in green to reperesent the vines. HORRIBLE..............

I was in a production of Bye Bye Birdie in which they wouldn't allow Hugo to get drunk even off milk, so he was depressed instead. It worked if you didn't know he was supposed to be drunk, but it was just kind of odd otherwise.

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