obsessionisaperfume:

spadeart:

this-isnt-your-captain-speaking:

queeninsomniac:

sammywhatammy:

redheadeddisneyfreak:

sheriffwxy:

totalspiffage:

soulpunchftw:

agatharights:

musicofthestage:

crutchiee:

tbbackus:

lucasbieneke:

Apparently my director went to see a production of West Side Story a few years ago, and the guy playing Chino forgot his gun before coming out for his final scene. Once it got to the big scene where he is supposed to shoot Tony, he screeched “Poison Boots” and kicked the actor playing Tony until he went down. The girl playing Maria then had to jerk the shoe off of Chino’s foot, and had to do the gunshot scene asking “How many kicks Chino? How many kicks, and one kick left for me”. 

There should be a blog dedicated to theatrical urban legends. Like that opening weekend of Dracula where Dracula (still hungover) vomited all over the audience during the first stage direction that everyone has a friend of a friend that worked on the show and was there.

or the one where the bridge never came out for Javert’s suicide and so he just pretended to stab himself and then lay there until the lights went out

best story i heard was when a friend of mine saw a show where juliet forgot to bring the dagger out on stage so she just ripped the squib out of her chest and blood squirted everywhere

During a passion play a friend of my brother was supposedly in, one of the roman soldiers who was supposed to stab jesus on the cross and accidentally grabbed the wrong spear- he was supposed to grab one with a fake tip, but instead he grabbed one with an actual metal tip and, well

Jesus screamed “JESUS CHRIST YOU STABBED ME”.

Since that Jesus had to be taken down due to a bad case of stab-itis, the backup Jesus came in, but he weighed significantly less than the original Jesus- which would have been fine, except that at the end the cross was supposed to ascend upwards with Jesus on it, and the weights hadn’t been adjusted.

So Jesus, instead, ROCKETED UP into heaven (or, just, above the stage).

This is wild from start to finish

I was in Peter Pan once and one night at a performance, the adhesive holding our Hook’s mustache on was wearing off. It was near the end with a big fight scene and when he got attacked, he let his mustache fall and went “YOU RIPPED MY MUSTACHE OFF!” in a scandalized tone and it added a new note of hilarity to the whole scene (which was supposed to be funny anyway)

In my seventh grade play, which was a midsummer night’s dream, Thisbe didn’t have a sword so she stabbed herself with a coathanger

My junior year we were doing Romeo and Juliet and after Juliet poisons herself it was supposed to go dark and she’d get off the stage. well the light crew accidentally turned them back on and Juliet who was sitting up slammed back down on the wooden bed with a loud bang. To which my theater teacher says into the com “zombie Juliet” and everyone who heard that had to keep as quiet as possible while our eyes were filling with tears.

i attended my county’s performing arts high school majoring in vocal studies, (mostly geared towards musical theater and opera styles) and once a year we got a field trip to new york (we were in jersey, so it’s not exactly far). we would do one touristy thing, an actor’s workshop with friends of our teachers working in various performing industries in nyc, and then see a show. 

my first year doing this, our industry contacts were 1 actor, 1 casting director, and 1 producer to get different aspects of the business, and they all gave us amazing advice and told fantastic stories. the actor in question was Zazu on Broadway’s The Lion King for several years, and told the best story by far.

in The Lion King, there are only two pieces of pre-recorded noise in the whole show. one, when Pumbaa does a MASSIVE fart while fighting the hyenas, and the other being Mufasa saying REMEMBERRRRRR as Simba climbs Pride Rock. the actor told us while struggling not to laugh that, during one night’s performance, someone forgot to flip the tape of these pre-recorded noises.

so, at the end of the show, the great climax where Simba finally accepts his place in the Circle of Life, the heavens parted and-

PFFFFFFFFFRRRRRBTFTBTBFTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTTT

everyone froze. and then all ran off stage positively HOWLING with laughter.

the lesson: sometimes there are fuck ups you just can’t recover from.

ohoho here we go

during midsummer night’s dream, puck was on a fly and landed on me at curtain call

titania was supposed to lie on the moon, which had a hidden bench on the back. somebody apparently forgot she was still lying on it and raised it as quickly as humanly possible, thereby shooting her into the rafters

in phantom (maury yeston version), there’s a swordfight and one night after the fight was finished and the lights had gone down, there could be heard a faint, “uh, guys? I think I’ve been stabbed” from Raoul. went a couple inches deep. in a strange twist of fate, eric was given a sword again the next year when he played lysander.

ah, theater

letmeplaytheliontoo

A few years ago, we did Ruddigore at MBC and there was a particularly nasty stomach bug making the rounds of the cast and crew. There’s a scene where all the paintings of the dead ancestors come to life to haunt the new bad baronet. And one night one of the dead ancestors didn’t so much come to life as lean out his frame and violently vomit all over the floor. He was so out of it that he just stood there and one of the teachers had to crawl on hands and knees behind the skrim and pull him off stage.

And last year Oak Grove did The 13 Steps and the lead actor broke a leg (or tore something, can’t remember which) like a week before opening. So they had another dude dressed in the same outfit and every time the lead had to do the insane physical antics he would yell, “stunt double!” and the second guy would run on, do the stuff, and then run off again.

Then there was the time in “Bullshot Crummond” where we were supposed to be sending a message by homing pigeon, and the homing pigeon, which was on a fishing line, got dropped into a movable partition and they couldn’t get it out, so my scene partner ran backstage, leaving me madly vamping, and came back on with a stuffed fabric pheasant from earlier in the show. “AHA,” he adlibbed, “We have a… CARRIER PHEASANT!” He ended up stuffing the message into a hole in one of the seams–right up the pheasant’s ass.

We’re three feet away from the audience, trying not to burst out laughing.

Live theater, man. Gotta love it.