Worst Changes Made in an Amateur Production- Page 3

[Jon]

Posted: 4/24/07 at 7:32pm

Because the actual gospel NEVER says anything about Jesus and the apostles drinking wine...

[jewels732]

Posted: 4/24/07 at 8:01pm

This isn't necessarily a bad change. But it is bad casting. I was in the Music Man last summer, and the director cast a girl with a lisp as Amaryllis. I thought it was quite odd for her to be making fun of Winthrop for having a lisp, when she had one herself.

[neddyfrank2]

Posted: 4/24/07 at 8:02pm

I just watched Mike and Ike- that was really dumb!

[BigFatBlonde]

Posted: 4/24/07 at 8:03pm

Nothing too spectacular...


but I saw a church production of Purlie with Helen Martin (from the Original B'way Cast)

In the middle of the second act the show stopped cold and an announcer stepped on the stage/pulpit and said.

"We sho do appreciate yo coming to see this here fine production of Purlie. But before we continue"

(mind you, the show had already clocked 3 hours)

"we have Laticia Owens, Little Miss South Central of 1993, to do an authentic interpretive dance fo you!"

C'mon, Laticia..


Then this teenage girl came whirling on the stage and girated for half an hour ... then, just as quickly has she appeared,she was was gone...

the actors still frozen on stage picked up like nothing happened.

I almost pee'd in church.

[bjivie2]

Posted: 4/24/07 at 8:19pm

I've seen a production of GUYS & DOLLS where they gave Adelaide's friend two songs from the 20's and a production of FAME where they added "Nothing" from Chorus Line.

[TheaterAddict7652]

Posted: 4/24/07 at 8:45pm

I was in a production of Peter Pan where they had three of the Indians sing "I'm an Indian Too" from Annie Get Your Gun.

In a different produciton of Peter Pan that I was in, the director decided to call the Indians "the Amazons" because the term "Indian" wasn't PC enough for her.

[defyingravity11]

Posted: 4/24/07 at 8:48pm

In a production of Fame, "Backstreet's Back" was the number that Tyrone choreographed and "On My Own" was added in right after Carmen died.

[Mythus]

Posted: 4/24/07 at 8:58pm

I was one of those added characters in my high school's production on YAGMCB. AND the director added lines for these characters from the comics. I was so close to calling the licensing company and getting the show shut down. I mean, come on. She added, like, ten characters. Her excuse was that the show didn't have enough characters for a high school of our size. Maybe you should do a show with more characters, then.

[Neverandy]

Posted: 4/24/07 at 10:57pm

BEST THREAD EVER!

[BreakingTheCircle07]

Posted: 4/24/07 at 11:10pm

Mike and Ike is soooooo funny!

I directed Pippin with a female Leading Player and it really was not a problem. I'm all for keeping things as scripted and since gender is not stated in the script, it worked out. It brought Pippin and the LP's relationship to an interesting new level.

[SweeneyPhanatic]

Posted: 4/24/07 at 11:35pm

I'm glad I've never been so fortunate to see anything as bad as some of these. My worst was perhaps when I did Little Shop last year and rather than make big claws and put out faces in flower blooms, our director had us climb out of the plant and move downstage like zombies...I hated that. Luckily, the rest of the show was awesome!

Another was my old school's production of Sound of Music. The director felt that the audience wouldn't like it as much if it wasn't like the movie, so he and the music director created a mix of the movie and the stage show. Max and (whatever her name is, I can never remember)'s song/s were cut, and "I Have Confidence" was tossed in. They do great shows, but I feel so bad for them b/c they have such a small performance space. Each scene change was over 30 seconds long and rather than use the actual incidental music, they piped some of the soundtrack to the movie through the speakers.

Oh, same school did "Narnia" when I was in sixth grade. All was fine until Aslan died. Then they inserted a dance for the White Faun to do set to a Christian pop song (private Christian school...guess we had to...yet we did Fiddler the next year...).

[CastAlbumFan]

Posted: 4/24/07 at 11:51pm

This thread is freakin' awesome! I haven't laughed so hard in a long time! Here's some I remember:

Teen Angel's line change for the song "Beauty School Drop-Out" in GREASE: "But no customer would go to you, unless she was a BOOKER!!!"

New lyrics to "Thurio's Rhumba" from TWO GENTLEMEN OF VERONA: "She said 'Love lovea lovea lovea, Peace peacea peacea peacea, hope hopea hopea hopea, friends friendsa friendsa friendsa, mates matesa matesa matesa wow!'"

I have been in a CHARLIE BROWN production in which they've added characters. In fact, they turned Patty into Peppermint Patty! Without changing the lines!

[VonTussleGirl]

Posted: 4/24/07 at 11:59pm

Inserting the character of Shrek into a junior theatre production of Into the Woods.

[CastAlbumFan]

Posted: 4/25/07 at 12:03am

VonTusselGirl might be the new frontrunner! I can just imagine the coronaries that Sondheim and Lapine would have had if they had seen that!

[LuPonatic]

Posted: 4/25/07 at 12:08am

In my High School's production of Godspell, besides having the random chorus of girls who hearded on for a musical number, then off again as if they never existed, the "Jeffrey" part was cast with two guys...not double cast, they shared the part, walked on stage as one, split up the lines, sometimes speaking at the same time, and we had to refer to them as one person...FREAKY!

[SahDu]

Posted: 4/25/07 at 12:11am

I'm noticing lots of Grease changes. I guess it's a good idea that that (I think it's) MTI came out with a school version with lyrics like:

Well they couldn't teach you anything, you think it's such a bother.
But no customer would go to you unless he was your father.

Not too bad actually and it works for junior high age kids. What a great thread!

Updated On: 2/15/14 at 12:11 AM

[theaterdude87]

Posted: 4/25/07 at 12:28am

My Middle School added "Joyful, Joyful" for the nuns to sing in SOM.

I also saw Fame with a company that I did shows with and they added "Mary Peeps" she was Serena's BFF and she had some of Serena's solos..= LAME!

Updated On: 4/25/07 at 12:28 AM

[LuPonatic]

Posted: 4/25/07 at 12:37am

a production of Little Mary Sunshine where most of the forest rangers and indians were played by women.

YAGMCB with all those added characters, including two 7 year old girls who played woodstock and birdfriend and who flew around during Snoopy's songs...I have to say they were really cute!
Updated On: 4/25/07 at 12:37 AM

[LizzieCurry]

Posted: 4/25/07 at 2:07am

Shrek?

DO TELL HOW THIS HAPPENED! :)

[PerforMeg]

Posted: 4/25/07 at 2:56am

Shrek???? Shrek! Shrek...wow.

I saw a production of Jesus Christ Superstar which was pretty good overall but they added a character named the Angel of Death. I saw this in the program before the show started and I just went "Oh good lord". So we get to the part where Judas is about to kill himself, and from the back of the house comes this g-g-g-g-gay guy with an amazing body who was the choreographer.(The rest of the cast was middle aged overweight people from a certain midwestern state) He did pirouettes around Judas and handed him the noose. It was turned into an interpretive dance session. oh yeah, and he was black. The only black person in the show. Can you say politically incorrect? I wish I had a picture of the look on my face.

In high school I played Sarah Brown and I didn't get drunk. Just "happy".

[broadwaybelter]

Posted: 4/25/07 at 3:00am

I must comment on a few productions i've seen.

The Wizard of Oz: The director added strange references to The Lion King somehow when the cowardly lion came into the story.

Beauty & The Beast: Mixed the entire show with a combination of some poorly written original version with the Disney Version which was quite a mess. The characters were renamed (Mrs.Potts=Mrs. Kettle, Chip=Chipper, Lumierre=Torchierre, Cogsworth=Zipherblot, Belle=Beauty, etc). You can see where this is going, no need to go on.

[BroadwayBound86]

Posted: 4/25/07 at 3:05am

When I was in junior high we did a production of Bye Bye Birdie and there wasn't enough leads for one of the teachers favorites so they added a character. Insead of Kim having just a younger brother she had a younger sister as well.

In my high schools production of Joseph....Dreamcoat the brothers were both male and female. We didn't have many males involved in theatre. They also had two girls as the narrators

In a production of Into The Woods that we did they added characters called "wood nymphs" to make sure everyone they liked got a role.

In a production of You Can't Take It With You they had a set of twins play Rheba....they had them rotate scenes.

[LizzieCurry]

Posted: 4/25/07 at 3:11am

The church production I saw of Joseph had two narrators -- but that doesn't break the contract, does it?

I've also seen productions where Joseph had sisters. Heh.

Posted: 4/25/07 at 3:14am

"I have been in a CHARLIE BROWN production in which they've added characters. In fact, they turned Patty into Peppermint Patty! Without changing the lines! "

Well to be fair I don't think Patty was even in the comics post the mid 70s...

E

[Jon]

Posted: 4/25/07 at 9:12am

...and that's why she was replaced by Sally in the new version.