For those who are involved in live theatre know that things don't always go as planned. Please tell us of your experences with these (sometimes) funny moments.


I was working on the play Company. During one song, the guy is singing on stage and his wife says for off stage left in the middle of the song, "Harry darling, come to bed."  Well, one night the woman who played the wife, left the stage and went into her dressing room which was on stage right. Then you hear her dressing room door bang open, you can see the back curtin move as she is running behind it and hear another loud BANG. Then she says very weakly from in back of the stage (rather then from stage left) "Harry darling, come to bed."  She got her line in but I think she hurt herself in the process.


I have more stories to tell but I'll let others tell some of theirs before I tell another.




Cat

This past March, I played one of the 2 " Venticelli " (Salieri's personal spies & gossip-mongers) in Vokes Theatre's production of Peter Shaffer's "Amadeus".  During the opening sequence at the start of Act 1, the two Venticelli are downstage, close to the edge of the proscenium, exchanging a series of fast, rapid-fire lines back and forth to each other, punctuated by moments when the 2 Venticelli stop talking, freeze, and an ensemble of other cast members standing in the shadows upstage hisses loudly, in unison, "SALIERI !!". 

During one performance, Bill (the other Venticelli) and I were rockin' and rollin' through our lightning-fast, frenetic repartee, and we came to one of those moments when we were supposed to stop talking, freeze, and wait for the ensemble upstage to hiss their "SALIERI !!" ... Well, Bill and I stopped talking, we froze in-place staring at each other, we waited, and ... nothing ... total silence from upstage ... we waited a couple more seconds, and then we immediately resumed our fast-paced exchange as if everything had happened the way IT SHOULD HAVE HAPPENED !!

When the cast discussed this mishap later, everybody was mystified why the ENTIRE upstage ensemble -- about 10 or 12 people -- all simultaneously missed their cue and remained silent for one of the "SALIERI" 's  ... it was freaky ... none of us could figure out why a whole group of people all simultaneously blew the same cue!

One painful experience came when I was in Skyfire.

My sophomore year, we did "Joseph & the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat".

We suffered three injuries that production...
The first one came during a staged "drunken" scene, during which we sang "Those Canaan Days".
The young man playing Reuben (Joseph's oldest brother) hated me with a flaming green passion, so while I'm sitting at this table, slumped over, he lifts up my head during the song, and slammed me face-first into the table top. Caused me to get a nosebleed, and it was noticed, as we were "on the air" when it happened!

Next, there is a calypso-styled number towards the end. One of our other male leads was running to do his dance steps, and ended up sliding into an involuntary splits position...the slide carried him right off the stage. The stage had been freshly waxed & polished the previous night. He was sidelined for 2 days, due to an overstretched groin muscle.

Finally, the one playing Joseph dons this coat with fiberoptic lights sewn into it, at the end of the production. The lights dim out, and only the lights from the coat are to be seen, right?
Well...someone forgot to double-check the wires, because the coat burst into flames, just before the curtain closed, 3 nights before closing!
...Needless to say, it was a HOT production.

I was involved in Children's Theatre. We did a production of "The Emperor's New Robes" (a Japanese version of the "Emperor's New Clothes") where I played the Emperess and this guy Bob played the Emperor. (Type-casting. Bob was tall and had a bit of a booming voice so he always played our "royality".)  I was supposed to be "shocked" and "horrorified" seeing him in his long underwear but I was really trying not to crack up because the long johns were just a bit small for Bob. Anyway, he says this line, "You shall be killed with the seven knives for this" followed by someone else echoing, "He shall be killed with the seven knives for this", and then a second person saying, "He shall be killed with the seven knives for this.".

Fast forward about a week or so and we are doing Aladdin. (I was Aladdin's mother). It was dress rehearsal and we were supposed to be preforming in about an hour's time. One scene, just about everyone was on stage. The Sultan's line (yes, Bob again) was "You shall be killed for this." EVERYONE could hear those two echos in our minds "He shall be killed with the seven knives...". We all looked at each other and just all busted up laughing. I don't think there was one person on stage who wasn't laughing their @sses off. Luckily this was only a rehearsal. Our director was in the house and said, "What's so funny on stage?" I was TRYING not to laugh but I don't think I was doing a good job.

So comes the time to preform. We all knew that scene was going to be very hard to get through. Bob said his line and I think there was a snicker or two but everyone kept it together. I made a point of not looking at anyone because I knew if I did, I would lose it.



Cat

I  have billions of these stories.

I was doing this giant production of macbeth...(playing a role and working onstage, after being killed)  ...well, the set was a huge black castle that spun on a big lazy susan thing...and it turned by people with ropes. well, once we went too fast and i could not get my hand out of the loop at the end of the rope ....lol....so lights came up and i just had to lay on the floor in front of the castle, center stage, facing upstage, pretending not to be there...

THAT is wny you wear stage black.
sooo funny

During the same production of Company, one of the actresses started doing this monkey act during down time. I don't know why but she was doing it ALL THE TIME. Anyway, during the "production number" of "Side by Side", there is one part where everyone breaks off and starts doing little bits and the guy who played Bobby had a whistle and acts like a ring master. He said, "Ladies and Gentleman, I would like to introduce you to my good friends. Over here we have a man standing on his hands, over here we have a ballerina.." etc. etc. After that little bit everyone goes off stage, grabs hats and canes and went back out on stage to complete the number. As one woman went off stage, she always had something different to say each time. I remember one time she said, "You people are crazy. I'm going out for a smoke". Anyway, one day the "ballerina" decided to change her act. The guy who played Bobby blew his whistle and started in with his lines. "Ladies and gentleman, I would like to introduce you to my good friends. Over here we have a man standing on his hands and over here we have a...." and he stopped dead. Because there she was doing her monkey act instead of the ballerina thing. As the other woman started walking off the stage to get her hat and cane, she said, "It's the monkey lady". We were all back stage cracking up.

There was a time in between scenes where I came out from stage left with 2 chairs, put them down and went off stage right. She was coming on from stage right to start the scene so we passed each other on stage during the black out. One day as I passed her, she did her "monkey vocals" very soft to me. I walked off stage laughing. I often wondered if the people in the first row heard her.


Cat

I haven't seen many mishaps.  But there have been times when people did things on purpose just to challenge another actor to handle something awkward on stage.  I don't remember the show (K, might it have been "Forum"?) -- but in one show, one of the main characters had to take a swig of a drink.  A couple of the other cast members put something awful-tasting into the mug (rather than the water or fruit juice or whatever that was supposed to be there).  So during the performance, the guy takes this swig of nasty liquid and has to just keep going as if nothing happened.

Another time, I was playing the Queen in a mini-version of Rogers & Hammerstein's Cinderella.  In one scene, the King turns to the Queen, holds out his hand and says, "Shall we go?"  She's supposed to say yes, take his hand, and allow him to lead her off the stage.  We were performing for little kids -- who don't really notice all the details.  So during one performance the King held out his hand and said, "Shall we go?"  and I said, "No darling, I'd like to stay and watch the dance."  He handled it well but was ready to kill afterwards (no sense of humor  ::))

Well I am no actor but I am an avid audience member.

One of the funniest bloopers I saw was during Guys and Dolls. There was a scene where one guy had to point a gun at another guy. The sound effects guy hit the wrong button and we hear a phone ringing.

Without missing a beat the guy holding the gun raises it to his ear and says "Hello ??"

We laughed hard - and below us in the orchestra pit - so did the embarrassed sound effects guy !!!

Since Ashlee Simpson did "Chicago", wouldn't be suprised if there were many bloopers on the days she appeared on  ::)