Worst show YOU HAVE BEEN IN? — Page 6

From the Page 1 West Side Story anecdote:
First of all, the music was taken out. ALL OF IT.

Sounds like Arthur Laurents' dream.

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That horrible West Side Story sounds hilarious. Couldn't your school have just done Romeo and Juliet instead?

Anyway, worst shows I've been in:

The Electric Sunshine Man in fourth grade. It's a musical about Thomas Edison, and I played Thomas Edison in Act One and a boy played him in Act Two. Apparently, the audience wasn't supposed to notice the difference. The boy and I each had about fifty lines, and everyone else in the show (about a bajillion people... well, the entire fourth grade) had one line each and appeared in the ensemble for two songs each.

Sample lyric of my big song:
If it's never been done, we can do it
We can do it, yes indeed
If it's never been thought, we'll think through it
Yes indeed!
There's nothing we can't do
If we're determined to
Yes we are the best
We are the best
And we'll prove it
Yes indeed!

OH THIS IS THE INVENTION FACTORY
WHERE WE MAKE THINGS THAT NEVER WAS
(Never waaaa-aaaas)
If it's impossible, bring it to us
That's what this factory, that's what this factory
That's what this factory DOES
That's what this factoryyyyyyy..... DOOOOOOOES!


The next year, we did Macbeth, and it was pretty good, but a six-foot guy with dark hair, a mustache and a bass voice (who was ten years old!) played Macbeth in act one, and a tiny little blonde boy played him in act two. The audience had no idea they were supposed to play the same character for quite some time.

The worst show I've ever done, though, was Starmites in seventh grade. Nobody at all knew their part, and neither the actors, the audience, or the director understood what the plot was supposed to be about. There was no music director, so we were just supposed to learn the songs ourselves from the CD. Our female lead didn't know any of her songs (though all of the other characters were really fantastic) and very few of her lines, and there were five scenes and two songs that we never rehearsed before the play opened. I played a cannibalistic banshee, and it takes a pretty goshawful show to make that NOT enjoyable.

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Updated On: 5/12/09 at 04:54 PM

My first exposure to Follies. Except for the four leads, EVERYONE ELSE was played by 14-18 years old.

As a senior in High School, I was Hattie singing B'way Baby. I'm pretty sure we thought we were amazing....but deep down we knew it sucked.

PS....I used B'way Baby as my audition song for a really long time.

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Quite a few basic jazz squares, actually. Oh, and our Nicely-Nicely couldn't sing AT ALL so we actually had to get our Nathan to sing "Sit Down You're Rocking The Boat".

Hey, our Nathan also sang Sit Down! But our Nicely had a great voice-- just a deep one. Nathan was the best singer in the cast, but he was also the best actor. The role of Nathan was perfect for him, despite the extremely small singing part, so giving him the song worked in our version.

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Sophomore Year of high school I was Asagai in A Raisin in the Sun. Ooooooh that production was rough, there were like one or two good performers but meh it was pretty crappy. And our set budget was basically wiped out so we did the whole thing with furniture, two doors and cardboard boxes lined up making the outline of the apartment that the moving men took away at the end. Lindner was played by two girls. We also added three cut scenes from the play (that obviously should have stayed cut). The whole thing ran about 3 hours. I felt bad for all the people in the audience every night.

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Babes in Arms, my freshmen year of high school. The music in the show is classic, and our cast was pretty good, but the show really sucked. Our director was insane and cut up half the show. It was so indecipherable, the audience (and the cast) had no clue what was going on. Really terrible show.

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"She Loves Me," Senior Year of High School. The show itself wasn't bad, but it came as a disappointment after we were supposed to do a "school-friendly" version of Avenue Q that, it turns out, didn't exist at that time. Things were so not together that people started de-inviting their friends to see it.

At the last minute it looked like we had a pretty good production when the student playing Mr. Maracek accidentally ate mustard, to which he had a severe allergic reaction. The Detective became Mr. Maracek (cue cards in hand)and the choreographer became the detective.

All in all it was pretty fun but unfortunately not that many people saw it.

A local production of "Gypsy" playing Herbie opposite a really BAD Mama Rose. She would not relate to anyone on stage and would rush scenes just to get to the musical numbers. They used some kind of dog for the Little Lamb. It was an abomination and soured me on Gypsy forever.

A production of "A Midsummer Night's Dream." One night a smokepot lit the set afire. Another night some sparklers lit one of the fairies on fire. The fairies, all in leotards and sequins, were a rather lumpen lot and embarrassed to seen. Every night someone was sick and an unprepared understudy was thrown on.

One of the opening night reviews said, "I would rather be forced to crawl on my belly through a coal mine than be forced to sit through this production again."

About 10 years ago I was in a production of "MacBird" -- The Scottish play set in the LBJ White House. Ghosts were Jack and Bobby Kennedy. I was one of the three witches, who were a hippie chick, an 'angry black man' and a migrant worker (me)

All done in Iambic Pentameter -- Hor-ri-ble!!!

Uni version of H2$ (which you'd expect to be good right?)
Our Rosemary sounded like a whale yawning and had absolutely no chemistry with Finch (who was alright but it seems to have made him rather smug).Our Biggley couldn't cope with the concept of rhythm and barely knew his lines. There weren't enough guys to fill all the parts so almost all the small male parts were doubled up, Womper ended up with a German accent to distinguish the fact that he'd already played Gatch. The lift doors always seemed to stick. The director didn't seem to believe in choreography so the only bit of dancing was a little for the opening number and a little for the ending number, other than that everything was rather stationary. The Paris original dresses seemed to fit nobody.
Oh yes and everybody kept dropping out because they didn't get on with the director so I ended up playing second cleaner with only a few weeks to learn the dance routine which involved mops that shed dust like crazy everytime we used them. The director also insisted we had a walk on cameo later in the act so I seemed to be constantly changing costume. We had to postpone opening night because the tech wasn't finished, the committee (who produce the show) and the director fell out over this leading to nobody caring anymore.

Fun times...