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.
one time i was doing a performance of robin hood and i was playing will scarlett and during one scene i was supposed to pull my sword out one little john and say as threateningly as i could, “i’m afraid we will have to kill you.”
however, the sword had broken right before the show, and i was still pretty young so i said nothing and figured it would be fine
so during that scene, i pull y sword out as im saying the line, and it just slowly falls over at the hilt, so its completly broken in half, as im threatening to kill another character and we had to freeze in place for like ten minutes until the audience stopped laughing hysterically and the actors could pull their shit together it was great
Mine isn’t as great as any of these but here goes.
So we were putting on a production of “Waiting for Godot” and I was Lucky. So there I am, rigging rope around my itty bitty self with a suitcase in one hand and a basket with a wine bottle in the other. Pozzo and I were about to make our final exit in Act II.
“What’s in the bags” asks Vladimir.
“Sand” replies Pozzo
Then the wine bottle comes uncorked and water starts just pouring onto the stage and without missing a beat Pozzo adds
“And water” and we just kept rolling and it was beautiful.
I’m sorry I have to add to this post.
When my mom and dad were in college they were both in the theatre group and they were doing Romeo and Juliet and my mom was cast as Juliet (that doesn’t have any point to the story I just wanted to say that).
Anyway in the scene where Mercutio dies the actor of Benvolio is supposed to carry him off stage. And then there’s a dramatic swordfight between Romeo and Tybalt. During the middle of the sword fight all of a sudden there’s a wham and then one of the background flats starts to wobble. Apparently the actor of Benvolio had accidentally carried Mercutio head first into the flat.
So the joke my dad always tells now is. “Who killed Mercutio?” “Benvolio did.”
Published
Tumblr backup 