Your Most Embarassing Theatre Moment

Here are a few of mine.

Dad to Maria Friedman- "Conley (that's me) makes horrible grades. I bet you did that when you were in high school too."

...and my Dad talks a lot during the shows. That is VERY embarassing. I think it is horrible when people yell out during the shows. He also points at things on the stage. Sometimes he stands up to see things when we are in the rear part of the orchestra.

Well, I love my parents because they're embarassing. So I get where both of you are coming from.

I'd walking behind Richard H. Blake on my way back to my hotel after the Wedding Singer preview and talking about how I loved the show, but didn't think he was that great - ha. Then I lookd up and saw him. haha.

Yeah of course...anything to do with theatre.

Not mine, but when I did Guys and Dolls once a kids pants fell down in Havana

Oh, well... If we can tell *other* people's stories, I've got a great one!

A friend of mine was in the German production of Grease. He had recently been ill and was taking medication that unfortunately created some unrest in the, er, poo-parlor division. Towards the beginning of a dance number in Act 1, (I wish I could remember which one), he soiled himself. Since it was the beginning of the song, he had no choice but to complete the number in his befouled state. Since he'd had some distance from the event by the time he was telling me about it, he was able to find it funny. He said the looks on the faces of his fellow cast members was priceless as the unmistakable stench began to permeate the stage.

I can laugh about this story, but every time I've ever been on stage it has run through my head and filled me with fear.

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Updated On: 5/31/06 at 11:14 PM

I was in a scene where i was in the background. I was a showgirl flirting with patrons. This one kid starts whispering to me about handcuffs and running away to get ice cream. I wanted to cry.

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i too had to sit on stage alone as miss hannigan for 5 minutes because rooster couldn't pick up a damn cue. There was also a night when i had my dress on backwards. Then the the last night, my mic almost fell out of my shorts, so i was holding my ass on stage praying no one would notice. once the lights went out i ran off the short way off stage rather thean the long way, where i was supposed to and slammed my leg into a pile of chairs. My mike was still on so i think the audience heard me say "oh ****". I still have the bruise from 2 weeks ago.

there was the time that i mispronounced mano's name.
My camera died when patti lupone came out.
when i was crying like a bitch, so hard tha i couldn't talk to any of the sweeney cast.

When I was a performer for one show I went off stage to the bathroom, did my business, talked with another performer about how much the audience was dull and boring that night, flushed, came back for the next scene I was in...my friend is about to laugh out loud, I just gave her a look we finished Act I, during intermission she tells me "um your mic was still on!!!"

Another time I was playing in the pit for a show and I turned the volume all the way down on my keyboard for whatever reason I can't remember?? I had about 15 minutes until I played again. So it's my turn to play, I start the number and I am freaking out thinking something is wrong with the keyboard, monitor, whatever whatever...the actor on stage is just kind of smiling, then I realize I still had the volume down :)

Not my most, but this is the first thing that came to mind:

I played the role of Tommy Djilas opposite my good friend as Zaneeta. During one of the crossover scenes in act two, the two run on stage to the top of the bridge, kiss, then run off.

For some reason this night, I was either really into or something, and I totally started making out with her and put my tongue in her mouth. Yes, I'm gay. No one could tell but us, but it was just embarrasing afterwards to be like "Hey...sorry about that tongue thing..."

Luckily, we just laughed about it, because it was so random.

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I was Golde in my school's Fiddler on the Roof about two years ago. I had about two minutes to go from my "Tevye's Dream" costume to my "Sunrise, Sunset" costume. I had to change in a utility closet because I didn't have time to run back to the green room before the song, but when I got there on our closing night, my dress was missing. One of the crew members had moved it by mistake, and I had to dart back to the other side of the stage to get it. By the time I was changed, the wedding procession, which I was supposed to be at the front of, had already made its' entrance. The boy playing Tevye (a close friend of mine) covered for me- but I think the audience noticed that I entered considerably behind the rest of the cast!!!

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I have two:

My first came when I was in a less than great production of Annie GEt Your Gun. I was in the chorus so I played lots of smaller roles. In one scene I was a cowboy, but in the next scene I was an Indian, so I had a really quick change to make. Our Indian costumes consisted of baggy tan PJ pants with beaded vests on top, but my PJ pants were far too large, so I had to safety pin them. Well one night while we were doing the severely over choreographed Indian dance, my pants fell down revealing my bright blue rubber ducky boxers! I would have just stepped offstage, fixed the problem, then went back on, but the number was choreographed such that if anyone was missing, the rest were basically screwed, so I had no alternative but to finish the number with my pants around my knees.

The second moment came when I did a production of Little Shop. I played all of the business characters in "The Meek shall Inherit" so I had several quick changes. Well, although I had several people helping me with these changes, they weren't the brightest of people and often forgot or misplaced costume pieces, even though I had correctly placed them where they needed to be before the number. Well after I came off for my first change one night, the sound guy left my mic up(he usually turned it down when we went offstage) and the packed house heard me whispaer franyically "Where are my F****** shoes? where the hell are they?"

I peed my pants on stage...and not when I was little. I was in high school!

It was during the dress rehearsal for a children's show called Stone Soup at the Albany Civic Theater. During the big finale number we were all supposed to pour these random ingredients into the soup kettle. One of the soldiers in the show, who was wearing cammo with a big bullseye painted on his face, ripped open a box of corn flakes and proceded to pour them all over his head while performing a lovely interpretive dance.

I laughed so hard I peed. I ran to the dressing room as soon as we finished, and when I director yelled at me for missing notes, I very sweetly said "Sorry, I peed my pantyhose. Did you want me to sit in my pee and ruin my costume?"

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This was at rehearsal and I wasn't the subject.

The girl who was playing Laurey in Oklahoma! was parodying the line "Now I've rounded up a little and the boys act different to me" and groping her chest. A group of us saw her do this right as the director stood behind her. She looked back and looked shocked that he was there. It was rather humorous.

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