Greetings once again from TCT. It’s taken me a long time to get back to my blog, but as I re-read my last posting, something I sure everyone does, I thought . . . gee, that’s kinda’ boring. Life at TCT is far more exciting than this and though I want to keep it informative with these blogs I also want to share some of the fun stuff, too.
So I would like to lighten things up with my first of possible many postings of “I Can’t Believe That Happened On Stage” stories.
We’ve all been there. That late entrance that caught us off guard, the costume malfunction that left us exposed, or perhaps that horrible silent moment when you know you’re supposed to say something, but you have no idea what it is your supposed to say at all. In other words, what are some of your favorite stage disaster stories? In the next few blogs I’m going to share my favorites and I invite you to do the same!
One of my favorite stories involves my favorite author, William Shakespeare, and my wonderful wife Alexandra, who is one heck of an actor herself. I was thinking of this one just the other day as I was preparing for our auditions for Macbeth. As anyone who has done Shakespeare can tell you, covering up for a missing actor is darn hard, especially when you have to do it in iambic pentameter.
Several years ago, the spring of 2002 to be exact, TCT mounted Twelfth Night in our Studio Series. It was a great show with a great cast and Alex was cast as Olivia, the wealthy woman who swears off love and ends up falling in love with Viola, a woman dressed as a man named Cesario. But when Olivia meets up with Sebastian, Viola’s twin brother, she mistakes him for Cesario and marries him.
Now, like most Shakespearian stories, Twelfth Night has lots of roles and many actors doubled up in roles. This was the case for Randy Schmidt who played a guard and a priest, the same priest that officiated the wedding between Olivia and Sebastian. Now at the story plays out, near the end of the play, Olivia and the entire cast meet in the street and when she professes her love for Cesario and calls her husband, Cesario immediately claims not to know what Olivia is talking about, so Olivia sends for the priest to confirm her story. The priest arrives and backs up poor Olivia’s tale . . . at least that’s what’s supposed to happen. One night, during the performance, Randy got a bit confused as to the order of things in the play. It’s easy enough to do with so many scenes and locations, but unfortunately for Alex, Randy dressed for the final guard scene and totally forgot about the return of his priest character. Meanwhile, on stage, the rest of the company is unaware that the priest is not waiting backstage and when the fateful moment came to send for the priest the young actor sent to the wings was forced to come back empty handed.
Now, Randy, to his credit, heard his cue line in the dressing room. But, having dressed in the wrong costume complete with sword, it was going to take him a while to don his priestly outfit. Meanwhile on stage, my dear wife turns to welcome the priest onstage and in return greeted by empty air. (The look on her face was rather priceless when she realized that not only was their no priest; there was no one to help her through the rest of the scene.)
Now, we’ve all had to fill a moment or two in plays when actors drop lines, or miss entrances. But rarely is it more difficult to “improv” your way through a scene than to do it in Elizabethan language. To her credit, Alex was magnificent. She bubbled a bit at first, but then played out the entire scene by delivery both her lines and the priests it rapid fire succession. She even turned to a fellow actor onstage at one point and gestured for them to help tell the story with her. That was when that actor just smiled and turned his back on her as if he wasn’t really in the same play and she was on her own.
A full minute late, (I timed it), a very sweaty and very frantic priest ran on stage, half dressed and gasping for air. Once again the scene was repeated only know the priest gave his half of the dialogue so the play could conclude.
To the credit of Alex and the entire cast, the audience didn’t have a clue that anything was amiss but we all had an experience we will recount for years to come at cast parties.
This was one of my favorite “I Can’t Believe That Happened On Stage” moments. I post more in the near future. In the meantime, what are some of your favorite stories of screwed up moments on stage or in the wing?
Just asking,
Shannon
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March 11th, 2008 at 10:48 am
Several years ago, I was performing Emile DeBecque in South Pacific in an outdoor theatre venue. Rehearsals had gone smoothly and the two kids playing my children were wonderful. One performance, however, was not to run that smoothly. Everyone knows the show: Emile and Nelly sing the Twin Soliloques and then Emile sings Some Enchanted Evening. After Nelly leaves, Emile sings a reprise of Evening and the kids are supposed to run onstage to sing with him. One night I finished the reprise and, you guessed it: no kids. Fortunately, I could see the orchestra director, gave him a nod, and we did the reprise again. Once again, no kids. As we approached the end of the 3rd repetition, I see one of the backstage assistants shove both kids onstage. Thereafter, the kids had a handler.
Perhaps more amusing is the performance of Oliver in which I, as Bill Sikes, had a rather large dog to help me menace the orphans. During one performance, the dog decided to pay some attention to his “personal region”. The audience roared with laughter. It was the first time, but not the last, that I was upstaged by an animal.
March 11th, 2008 at 2:54 pm
I think Marvin having a heart attack on stage during a Laughing Matters show had to be the craziest thing that ever happened on stage with me. None of us knew he had one at the time. We did a sketch at the end of Act I, and when we all ran up to the green room during intermission, Marvin complained of having heart burn really bad…from there we all figured out what was going on. Joel ended up going to the hospital with him, and the rest of us ran back on stage for Act II. We felt really bad finishing the show, but then again ‘the show must go on’. I’m just glad Marv was alright. He’s a treasure at TCTA. There is a new rule in Laughing Matters that we aren’t allowed to have any major organ failures during a show.
March 12th, 2008 at 7:38 am
I remember that night Chelle, and wasn’t the sketch about a guy that has a heart attack? Marvin will do anything to hog the spotlight.
I remember during the opening scene of To Kill A Mockingbird at the Warehouse, Scout was sitting on the porch waiting for her friend to come and begin the show. But the little guy that played that roll never came on. So Scout began saying his lines as if she were wondering aloud. When he did come running onto the stage, he was so upset he couldn’t get his lines out so she continued to use his lines as questions and answering them with her lines. It was amazing to see such a young actor handle the situation so professionally.
My favorite was the endless loop during It Runs In The Family. Don Denton and Bruce Smith caught in the Twilight Zone repeating the same two lines to each other, over and over… and over… and over - - From back stage I could see the confusion and terror on both their faces as the scene went on and on - and that too was amazing in a whole nother way.
March 18th, 2008 at 2:07 pm
I’ve had the lights go out on me three times- two of them here at Civic. But the biggest snafu ever was back in summer of 1990. I was playing Susie in the old show Babes in Arms. You know- a bunch of kids putting on a show in a barn. We ended one musical number with several of us posing on a 12-foot ladder. I was seated on top and there were four girls (two of them ON the ladder) on either side. It went off without a hitch until one performance the ladder decided it had had enough. We were singing the last note as the ladder began to bend then topple over to the ground. My leg got caught in one of the rungs and I still have a scar today from the accident (imagine that! A battle scar from being on stage!) Luckily no one broke anything. I iced my leg for a few minutes before returning to stage to do a tap number. Oy Vey!! The show must go on.
March 20th, 2008 at 10:23 am
Speaking of war wounds from theatre, I still have a scar from being the Lion in The Wizard of Oz. As the farmhand, I was supposed to get scared and drop to my knees. One performance, the two other farmhands came up behind me to scare me. I was sitting on an overturned metal bucket. Normally, I’d kick the bucket out of the way. This night, however, the guy playing the Tin Man got in the way so the bucket stayed where it was. My shin came down on the bucket and my leg got cut open. This was the same performance in which Toto took a dump on stage and the Tin Man stepped on Toto.
March 31st, 2008 at 12:35 pm
In my very first performance at TCTA,I was very lucky to be cast in Of Mice and Men on the Sheffel stage. My role was not the largest, but I had a couple of great scenes and got to share the stage with Marc Rapp and Doug Goheen, which was enough for me. Little did I know that one night, my minor role was going to be increased by a great deal, without warning. The scene was in the bunkhouse where several of the farmhands were gathering after a long days work. In order to set the scene and describe the history of the farm, an “article” in the Reader’s Digest was used. I was authored by an ex-farmhand. My character was to grab the book and hand it to the foreman (Slim) who was to deliver the article as a monolgue. Unfortunately, on evening when i handed the book to him and said “what does it say?”, it was returned to my ungrateful hands with a simple response. “I don’t know what does it say.” The look of terror on my face had to only be coupled by the deer-in0the-headlights look in his. I delivered the monologue and the show went on. Dispite this event, I’ve auditioned several other times.
May 8th, 2008 at 2:59 pm
I just saw Shannon’s description from Twelfth Night. I was in the audience that night and didn’t notice a thing, but heard about the excitment later. My husband was in the green room waiting for his next entrance. All at once, he heard this banging around and a few exasperated “words” from the dressing room. He went to check and found the “guard” trying to transform into the “priest” in record time. Randy succeeded admirably. Kudos to Alex for covering.