Goofs on Stage! - 2008/02/26 10:55A recent experience inspired me to start this thread! What are some embarassing, accidental, funny or unintentional goofs that happened on stage while performing? What did you do? How did you recover?
I'll start off. This past week, my high school has been doing Steel Magnolias. It's basically exactly like the movie (the director of the movie really wanted to stick to the script, and they did). When Shelby gets that big haircut in Act 2 Scene 1, she has to wear a short wig. To start off the scene I (playing Truvy) am supposed to unwrap her hair from under a towel as to surprise the audience. Well, last night, when I unwrapped the towel, the wig came with it. Well obviously we could not control our self considering the lines were "Are you ready to see the new Shelby?" and "Wow, this is so new, so different" We were all cracking up on stage and so was the audience. The audience eventually began clapping because the laughter continued. At the curtain call at the end of the play, when all of us bowed, all five of the girls that had wigs bowed and then took our wigs off too. So far, that's been one of the funniest moments of my stage career.
How about ya'lls?!
Post edited by: mslexy403, at: 2008/02/26 10:57"If life seems jolly rotten, there's something you've forgotten. And that's to laugh and smile and dance and sing"
Currently: Nothing! So sad..
Favorite Roles: Cosette in Les Miserables
Dream Roles: Lady of the Lake (Spamalot), Val (A Chorus Line), Millie Dillmount (Thoroughly Modern Mille)
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StrikeALight
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Re:Goofs on Stage! - 2008/02/26 14:27One time, at band camp...nope sorry, wrong time! XD Anyway, during our production of West Side Story, Maria managed to break the balcony railing off. At the end of the scene (on OPENING NIGHT no less!) she had to sort of...shuffle off stage with it.
In a recent production of 'Grease' I went to see at my school there is one scene where one of the T-Birds (I forget which) gets his very tight skinny jeans pulled off by two others! So The scene was going as planned....until Kenicke forgot to take the guys shoes off! So they ended up DRAGGING the poor guy round the stage by his jeans, which were by this time round his ankle for about five minutes! Whilst myself and severla other drama students, who know these guys well, are DYING on their behalf! FINALLY Kenicke rips the jeans off him and in an ecstatic unscripted move, holdst hem up the audience who all cheer! What made this even better was the de-jeanneds next line which was '...Ah cr*p!' The audience completely lost it laughing...Sophs
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Starlet_Actress21
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Re:Goofs on Stage! - 2008/02/26 15:39I've had many funny experiences, but probably the funniest was during the final show of one of my favorite to date, an origianl called Stories from the Attic. In the play, the 2006 Kids (I was one of them) and the historical characters are enchanted into playing character from clasic stories. The closing story was the battle scene from Peter Pan (my character played Wendy). In the scene, there are a bunch of swordfights between different characters, and it looked really awesome every night. How the "spell" is broken is that the girl whose character was playing Peter got "Hook's" hook on the end of her sword, pulled it off, and we were all oourselves again. So this had all gone great every other night- "Peter" would get his hook on the tip of her sword and pull it off. Usually, it would hit the wall or something. Well, there happened to be a hole- only ONE hole in the ENTIRE set, up by the ceiling. So "Peter" got his hook off of his hand and it soared through the air... and went straight through the hole! It was so funny, we were all crying, we were laughnig so hard.
Actually, we had an injury because of that hook, too. When we were rehearsing that scene, "Peter" flung the hook off and it flew through the air- and right into one of actor's eye. She was about ten, and she just kind of stood there, not doing anything- until she realised that she couldn't openher eye. Then she started crying. However, she was a trouper and came back on five minutes later after getting it checked out.Auditioning for: Brigadoon, theatre season, American Music Theatre, Into the Woods, Sound of Music, and AMDA.
Currently In: Nothing
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bjgruber
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Re:Goofs on Stage! - 2008/02/28 15:12In High School Musical (kind of embarassing, but we did it well) I was the skater, Ripper, with the solo in Stick to the Status Quo. When I was jumping up onto the table to sing I hit my leg on it and fell off. I got back up and sang my solo anyways. Everyone laughed at my and it did hurt a lot, but it was still funny Favorite Shows: Spring Awakening, Avenue Q, Hairspray, Assassins, Parade Dream Role: Melchior or Moritz/Spring Awakening Current Role: Bishop/Comberferre in Les Miserables Upcoming Auditions: Busch Gardens, Thoroughly Modern Millie, All Shook Up, VCU (Classical)
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IOwnTheEnjyVest
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Re:Goofs on Stage! - 2008/02/28 16:06When I was doing Sound of Music, the battery in my microphone became dislodged and when it didn't work for the ending scene so you could barely hear me and when I was taking my bow, the battery completely fell out and I didn't realize it until after the show! It was so embaressing."Doctor Who, Doctor Who, does whatever a doctor can do.."
PREVIOUSLY: Sister Magaretta in The Sound Of Music
CURRENTLY: Les Misérables directed by Ivan Rutherford ))
UP COMING: Senior Ensemble's next show
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nyc_etoile
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Re:Goofs on Stage! - 2008/02/28 21:34I was in this revue show at a theme park and for the end pose of the show, we do this giant jazz hands starburst type thing. Well my costume was this black top that was held together on one shoulder by a big metal (looking) ring. One day when we got to the final pose, I flung my hand out and part of the shirt came undone from the ring and fell straight down, exposing my entire left breast in a nude colored bra! Geez I don't even know what I did, because my shirt had fallen apart back to front, and I still had to bow. lol.
In this same show, I had a solo singing to all the boys on stage, so they are all gathered around me, looking at me, grooving, and I'm singing around to all of them, and I'm looking at their faces and.... completely forget my lyrics, after singing them like 250 times before. I pretty much mumbled for two bars making up words and all the boys I was looking at were absolutely cracking up in my face. I couldn't keep it together. We all started laughing on stage and it was ridiculous.
AGAIN, in the same show, one time I was singing another solo and I'm on stage by myself, but something sounded weird, I didn't know what it was. When I came back offstage, everyone was like "what was that??" and I didn't know what they were talking about. Apparently, there was a backup track of someone singing the same thing as me that had accidentally gone off so it sounded like there were two of me singing, lol.
That's what happens when you run a show for 7 months, 6 shows a day. And crazier things yet have happened.~*~ Kris ~*~
Currently In: Rehearsals for Nine The Musical
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mezzo_soprano
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Re:Goofs on Stage! - 2008/02/29 14:26When I was in Romeo and Juliet, Friar Lawrence's mic went out right before his huge ending speech.
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broadway4LIFE
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Re:Goofs on Stage! - 2008/02/29 14:38when i was in Twinderella (a stupid, not funny version of Cinderella......see the connection?), the princess tripped on her dress and fell smack on her butt.... it was actually the funniest thing in the whole show. but dealing with this kind of material, that's not a big suprise...~ Kaitlin ~ Always Rockin The Boat ~
Favorite Shows: Young Frankenstein, Curtains, Little Shop of Horrors, The Producers Dream Roles that I have NO CHANCE of Getting Because of Something i Have no control over: Ulla from the Producers or Inga from Young Frankenstein (neither tall nor blonde - such a shame too, because this is one of my favorite "character roles" to play), Igor from Young Frankenstein (i'm no man, no matter how many times i play one), Gary Coleman from Avenue Q (skin color) SEEING ON MARCH 29TH ON BROADWAY - YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN ^^ AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!
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Curly Blonde Hair
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Re:Goofs on Stage! - 2008/02/29 23:13In the scene in "The Sound of Music" when Brigitta comes out with the book, I was supposed to have a plain book that didn't have a title or anything on it and would look right. During closing night, for some reason my book wasn't where it was supposed to be, and one of the nuns was reading a book, so I asked if I could borrow hers because there wasn't time to find mine. She let me, so I went out with her copy of "Jane Eyre". As I was crossing the stage and reading it, I turned a page, and some papers fell out and landed both on the stage and in the pit. It turns out that they were notes she had been passing with Uncle Max about how much she hated our Maria and he hated our Captain Von Trapp. They were both pretty mad, but the show went on.
During Les Miserables, I was taking chairs off of the tables during "Castle on a Cloud", and one of the chairs just randomly collapsed. I was still supposed to be singing, so I just picked them up and tried to hide them as if I were scared of being in trouble.This isn't a golf tournament, being loud is more than acceptable!
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carrot cait
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Re:Goofs on Stage! - 2008/03/02 16:14I'm sure there will be many more during the actual performance, but we have had some hilarious stuff happen with people trying to learn lines:
1. Our Lumiere has no idea how to pronounce French words, so during the scene where he's supposed to say "enchentee, madamosielle!" (pronounced oh-shon-TAY), he comes out all, "ENCHANTY MADAMOSIELLE!". It was hilarious.
2. We all try to get off book really early, so for the most part when someone doesn't know a line they just try to save face by making up something that their character would say. So during the end of... Something There, I think?... our Mrs. Potts was all, "Shh, I'll tell you when you're older. Come along now, let's give them some... uh, it's past your bedtime."
3. For lines that need to be cut off, we make up the rest of what the person is going to say so that if the person who's supposed to do the cut-offing forgets the line, it's not just hanging there. So during the Beast/Belle argument, our Beast couldn't decide what to say for his "If you don't come down to dinner, I'll drag you by the hair..." so Cogworth just chimes in with "...and stuff your face into the mashed potatoes" in his perfect little English accent. It was great, and that's what we decided on.
Which I suppose are much funnier if you're there and not just hearing about it.
Also, we don't have most of our props yet, so while choreographing Belle, I had to use the first book I could find backstage, which happened to be "The Comprehensive AIDS Dictionary". That was fun...- Caitlin / Cait -
Favorites Belle in Beauty and the Beast (2008), Jupiter in Cymbeline (2006), Narrator in Joseph... (2005) Present (possibly) YAGMCB...
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Starlet_Actress21
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Re:Goofs on Stage! - 2008/03/02 19:18Ha ha, today during our performance, I carried my messenger bag onstage as usual and set it down next to my desk, as usual. Then, I walk away from my desk, say a line, and walk back. When I went to walk past my desk to sit behind it, the stupid strap of my bag got wrapped around my ankle and I had to kick it off.
Also today- the girl who plays the older me and I have to throw an apple to each other. Neither of us were very good at it in the beginning, but we've been practicing, and during our last couple of rehearsals and performances, ew've caught it, no problem. But today, something was off, so when I threw it to her, it went, like, way over to the side, and she had to chase it to catch it. And when she threw it to me, it fell short. Luckily, a boy in the cast thought quickly, picked it up, and tossed it to me. It was so awful, though, because my family was there, and I've been telling them how much my catching/throwing skills have improved! Auditioning for: Brigadoon, theatre season, American Music Theatre, Into the Woods, Sound of Music, and AMDA.
Currently In: Nothing
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ashleysn1derland
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Re:Goofs on Stage! - 2008/03/02 22:06When I was playing a Stepsister in Cinderella, I had to fall on my stomach and sort of "army crawl" to the prince. My dress was a size 14 and at the time I wore a size 6. It was so huge that while I was crawling it fell off my shoulders. It was humiliating!
When was in the Comedia farce La Bete, our Valere forgot his line in the middle of his "play" which went on for about 6 pages. No one new what to do because is we went to one of our lines it would completely mess up the entire show and make no sense, so we stood their for about 3 minutes until someone finally went to the very end.
In the second to last scene opening night of Peter Pan the set fell over. We had no time to put it back up so we left it like that during the last scene. Luckily nothing was broken.--Ashley-- Current Production: "High School Musical" (Ms. Darbus) Upcoming Auditions: "The Children's Hour"(Auditioning for Mary or Martha), "On The Razzle", "The Wizard Of Oz", "Blood Brothers", "Hamlet"(Auditioning for Ophelia!!!!!) Dream Roles: Rizzo "Grease", Fantine "Les Miserables", Ms. Lovett "Sweeney Todd", Gwendolen "The Importance of Being Ernest" , Ophelia "Hamlet", Cherie "Bus Stop", Mama Rose "Gypsy",
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Christine_wannabe
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Re:Goofs on Stage! - 2008/03/03 02:52My first play, i ever did was Disney's Cinderella and i was 10, i played the Fairy Godmother. After i sang my song, i was supposed to put my wand up in the air and confetti was supposed to shoot out from the curtain. We were performing at a school for the students, so the stage was different. I put my wand up in the air and nothing... So i was confused and totally just walked OFF stage !!! I heard silence and then realized i was still supposed to be ON!!! My mom was one of the stage managers and i was all like "What should i do?!?!?!". I she told me "GO ON!!!!" So i did and said my line and walked off. Later i found out the reason they didn't shoot the confetti was because i would of got hit in the head, because i was too close to the machine!!! So it could have been worse!!!!-Laura
Favorite Musical: PHANTOM OF THE OPERA!!!!!!! As for more "happy" musicals i like BATB, Music Man, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, and Singin' in the rain!!!
Next production: R&H Cinderella?
“Practice as if you are the worst, perform as if you are the best.”
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carrot cait
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Re:Goofs on Stage! - 2008/03/03 17:44Ooh. And last year when I was Jupiter in Cymbeline... Jupiter is the god(dess) who essentially oversees the happenings of the play and makes judgements, but (s)he's only on at the beginning and the end. Our final performance was at a huge festival on an amazing stage with a balcony running across the top, so during that performance, I was supposed to do my monologue and race off. But during the school performances, which were a week or 2 before- well, our school stage obviously doesn't have a balcony, so I was supposed to exit through the crease in the back curtain... and I couldn't find it. For a good minute or two. So I gave up and just walked offstage; it was kind of funny in a humiliating way.
Also, when I was a freshmen, we did Pericles, and I was one of three Gowers, which are essentially narrators. It's meant to be played by one person, but we split up the monologues (which is all Gower had, since s/he didn't interact with any other characters). I made a beat sheet and used a hair tie to attach it to my leg under my dress, just so I wouldn't forget my scenes and cues, etc. And then I missed an entire monologue. Even worse, our part was kind of combination narrator/techie, so we had to more around and arrange 3 triangular periachtoids (ugh, spelled that wrong) so I also screwed up a set change. And then started crying backstage. Ohh, that was not good.- Caitlin / Cait -
Favorites Belle in Beauty and the Beast (2008), Jupiter in Cymbeline (2006), Narrator in Joseph... (2005) Present (possibly) YAGMCB...
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Christine_wannabe
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Re:Goofs on Stage! - 2008/03/03 19:36carrot cait wrote: Ooh. And last year when I was Jupiter in Cymbeline... Jupiter is the god(dess) who essentially oversees the happenings of the play and makes judgements, but (s)he's only on at the beginning and the end. Our final performance was at a huge festival on an amazing stage with a balcony running across the top, so during that performance, I was supposed to do my monologue and race off. But during the school performances, which were a week or 2 before- well, our school stage obviously doesn't have a balcony, so I was supposed to exit through the crease in the back curtain... and I couldn't find it. For a good minute or two. So I gave up and just walked offstage; it was kind of funny in a humiliating way. I always have a hard time finding the opening to the curtain too! -Laura
Favorite Musical: PHANTOM OF THE OPERA!!!!!!! As for more "happy" musicals i like BATB, Music Man, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, and Singin' in the rain!!!
Next production: R&H Cinderella?
“Practice as if you are the worst, perform as if you are the best.”
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!!! I heard silence and then realized i was still supposed to be ON!!! My mom was one of the stage managers and i was all like "What should i do?!?!?!". I she told me "GO ON!!!!" So i did and said my line and walked off. Later i found out the reason they didn't shoot the confetti was because i would of got hit in the head, because i was too close to the machine!!! So it could have been worse!!!!