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Your favorite "Oh no, they di-n't" moment in a performance

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#1

Your favorite "Oh no, they di-n't" moment in a performance

Posted: 4/7/06 at 11:42am

I remember quite a couple.
One time, when I saw "Hairspray" the last time, I saw Amber's understudy, and the line in "Mamma" where she sings "Oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh, once upon a time I used to dress up Ken" she instead sings "Oh-oh-oh-oh-oh-oh, once upon a time I used to play with toys" but then she catches herself and goes right on to "But now that I'm a woman I like BIGGER MEN". That was a good save.

Any others?
"How could she just suddenly, completely disappear into thin water?" - The Little Mermaid
#3

re: Your favorite 'Oh no, they di-n't' moment in a performance

Posted: 4/7/06 at 12:33pm

In Forbidden Broadway:SVU when they are doing "Thoroughly Perky Millie" and they say "...battered as a Bosnian..." whoa.
-jess- "I think every actor on the stage should have a shirt that says,'believe it or not-I'm doing my best.'" -Alan Rickman
#5

re: Your favorite 'Oh no, they di-n't' moment in a performance

Posted: 4/7/06 at 12:36pm

this isnt really a performance, but Ill post anyway: In the RENT movie, in the beginning where Antony spoke instead of sang the opening to RENT and Chris Columbus didnt even bother to change it so it doesnt ryme(sp?) anymore. It sounds funny...


PS. Michael Bennet: I still love your avatar. Marlon Brando, is amazing
Join me on journey that is the development of my first musical! Twitter/Insta @gimpymusical FB: Gimpy The Musical email @gimpymusical@gmail.com for more info!
#6

re: Your favorite 'Oh no, they di-n't' moment in a performance

Posted: 4/7/06 at 12:37pm

Oh yes! I had a similar experience to yours, Calvin. When I was in Clue: The Musical, the woman playing Mrs. Peacock NEVER got her lyrics right. Sometimes she'd just mix them around, make new words up, or just sing la la la...and this was a three-week run!
#7

re: Your favorite 'Oh no, they di-n't' moment in a performance

Posted: 4/7/06 at 1:19pm

Did a revue in the early 80's for a New Years show...one gal sang "Memory."

She went up on the bridge, "Ev'ry streetlamp seems to beat a fatalistic warning," and came out with "Ev'ry street...the...smell of meat..."

We were dying backstage.
#8

re: Your favorite 'Oh no, they di-n't' moment in a performance

Posted: 4/7/06 at 1:23pm

In a production of Fiddler I was in, our Golde mixed up the lyrics to "Do You Love Me". She reversed the verses, nothing too major.

Also, a few times during the run of a production of Assassins I was in, we had gun mishaps (not firing, misfiring, etc). One time, our Moore actually forgot her gun offstage, but we managed to catch her attention early in the scene so she had time to come up with a good adlib (and it was perfectly in character, too).
#9

re: Your favorite 'Oh no, they di-n't' moment in a performance

Posted: 4/7/06 at 4:42pm

Norbert Leo Butz and Sherie Renee Scott cracking up during DRS. It was a scene with just the two of them and they were trying their absolute hardest to get it together, but once one of them managed to get a grip the other would start giggling. The scene which is like 4 minutes turned into 10. The audience loved it. :)
#10

re: Your favorite 'Oh no, they di-n't' moment in a performance

Posted: 4/7/06 at 4:47pm

The first time I saw the Sweeney revival, Manoel started singing the intro to "God That's Good" (you can't imagine the rapture in store) during "Pirelli's Miracle Elixir." I think he really got distracted because that was the point a TON of latecomers were let inside. And they were not quiet about it, either.

But what was funny was the next time I saw it, Michael Cerveris made the same type of mistake. During the closing, he went back to "What happened then? Well, that's the play..." Poor Patti didn't get to do her last line because of that. re: Your favorite 'Oh no, they di-n't' moment in a performance

But really, many of these are the types of things only 10 percent of the audience would notice, tops.
#11

re: Your favorite 'Oh no, they di-n't' moment in a performance

Posted: 4/7/06 at 5:00pm

funniest thing i ever witnessed on a stage was my high school's production of annie during the ralph mudge scene, when rooster does the farm bit and ends on "..and a ROOSTER!" well this one night our rooster got bored and did something that went a bit like this "we have cows, and ducks, and horses....camels, llamas, koalas, elephants.... donkies. pidgeons, a few lions, puppies..." and so on until the 3 were literally falling on each other howling with laughter
"Grease," the fourth revival of the season, is the worst show in the history of theater and represents an unparalleled assault on Western civilization and its values. - Michael Reidel
#12

re: Your favorite 'Oh no, they di-n't' moment in a performance

Posted: 4/7/06 at 5:11pm

Aww, did Michael Cerveris really do that? Michael, we just SAW the play, you wouldn't be giving anything away.

I remember one night he kept messing up the "there's a hole in the world like a great black pit..." part. Actually, I can recall two nights where he's messed up that line; maybe it gives him trouble. When he sang it right before "Worst Pies in London", he seemed to forget the words completely and sang, "There's a hole in the world like a [mumble]... filled with sh*t... and the people of the world... are sh*t."
#13

re: Your favorite 'Oh no, they di-n't' moment in a performance

Posted: 4/7/06 at 5:20pm

I can completely imagine that happening in Sweeney. I guess part of the performance has to be automatic (either the singing or the playing of instraments) otherwise you wouldn't be able to do it.
#14

re: Your favorite 'Oh no, they di-n't' moment in a performance

Posted: 4/7/06 at 5:40pm

Obba Babatundé during his entrance as Billy Flynn in the National Tour of Chicago with Jasmine Guy compeltely forgetting every line that was written for him and him laughing hysterical and walking off stage and queing the band to start again...PRICELESS!
Jack: For your information, most people who meet me do not know that I am gay. Will: Jack, blind and deaf people know you're gay. Dead people know you're gay. Jack: Grace, when you first met me, did you know I was gay? Grace: My dog knew.
#15

re: Your favorite 'Oh no, they di-n't' moment in a performance

Posted: 4/7/06 at 5:46pm

now any ad-libs worth mentioning?

Has the Knight of Ni ever gone "Rakkalakka boom boom" one time? I remember Steve Rosen told me that he said "So come up to the lab...and see what's on the slab..."
"How could she just suddenly, completely disappear into thin water?" - The Little Mermaid
#16

re: Your favorite 'Oh no, they di-n't' moment in a performance

Posted: 4/7/06 at 5:53pm

oh yeah... sorry!!! I have the video of "Mine all Mine" during Standing Ovations 2.
They mess up the lyrics where they go "I'll keep you safe from harm/Come spend your life on MY AAAAAAAAAAARM..."

They mumble it and it sounds like "I'll glinghgli mayym glengh GHLAARM/Come spend your life on MY AAAAAAAAARM...."

Jeez, for their first performance in the states, they kinda spoiled it for us.
"How could she just suddenly, completely disappear into thin water?" - The Little Mermaid
#17

re: Your favorite 'Oh no, they di-n't' moment in a performance

Posted: 4/7/06 at 11:08pm

When I saw Lion King on tour in LA, "Scar" forgot his lines during Be Prepared, so all we got at one point was "hmhmmhhhmhmh - BE PREPARED!" Meanwhile, the chorus below was singing the real lines!


"Hey little girls, look at all the men in shiny shirts and no wives!" - Jackie Hoffman, Xanadu, 19 Feb 2008
#18

re: Your favorite 'Oh no, they di-n't' moment in a performance

Posted: 4/7/06 at 11:16pm

When I was about nine, I was in a camp production of Joseph... Since the role of the Narrator is a huge role, two girls sang the Narrator's lines together. So, when the Narrator(s) sing(s) about how Joseph's brothers put lamb blood on his coat to trick his father into thinking Joseph was dead, the two girls completely forget to sing. Except the piano accompagnist (it was a pretty low-key production) kept playing the music. So all you heard for about three minutes was the music to this scene, but no lyrics.
There's a lot I am not certain of...
#19

re: Your favorite 'Oh no, they di-n't' moment in a performance

Posted: 4/8/06 at 12:40am

I remember during Les Mis tour in LA when once Cosette forgot her line in "In My Life." The part where she's supposed to sing:

"In my life, there are so many questions and answers that somehow seem wrong"

But she sang "In My life, in my life in my life in my life in my life in my life"
"Hey, you! You're the worst thing to happen to musical theatre since Andrew Lloyd Webber!" -Family Guy

Updated On: 4/8/06 at 12:40 AM

#21

re: Your favorite 'Oh no, they di-n't' moment in a performance

Posted: 4/8/06 at 12:47am

In a production of Pippin at my high school, Theo's duck got lost about two days prior to opening night. The boys in the cast found a stuffed chicken and wrote a whole song for it, vaguely rhyming "chicken" to "Pippin" and some other great little ad-libs. It was hillarious.
"Writing should be easy, like a monkey driving a speedboat..." -[title of show] "I'm tired of following my dreams. I'm just going to ask them where they're going and meet up with them later." -Mitch Hedberg
#23

re: Your favorite 'Oh no, they di-n't' moment in a performance

Posted: 4/8/06 at 1:33am

Our school production of PIPPIN...

Theo - His name's Otto. You're not very smart.
Pippin - At least I know that a duck belongs in a pond and not in my bed.

I don't know how our Pippin looked at the duck, but whatever he did, the duck went ballistic. Started quacking and flapping its wings like mad. Thank God the kid playing Theo had to run off stage with him. It was one of the most hysterical things ever. You couldn't get something like that to happen again!

Updated On: 4/8/06 at 01:33 AM

#24

re: Your favorite 'Oh no, they di-n't' moment in a performance

Posted: 4/8/06 at 2:25am

Jekyll and Hyde Broadway - Sir Danvers cell phone going off while he was in the middle of a scene on stage before the quartet...we had to do the scene facing upstage because we (and everyone in the audience) were laughing sooo hard!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

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