my dad works for the white house and he just told me that apparently the government banned kissanime on the white house wifi cause officials were watching it like, a noticeable amount
wait, I just mentioned this to him again and he said “no, they didn’t block kissanime from the White House, they banned it from the entire Department of Defense”
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-
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.
During a high school production of Beauty and the Beast, where I was assistant costumer and assistant prop master, our director decided that we needed to spice up Gaston’s introduction. You know: in the movie, when Lefou runs in trying to catch the duck/goose that Gaston has just shot out of the sky?
Originally, the actors were going to stroll on stage with our Lefou hauling in the really neat (and real!) taxidermied deer head that we had found in a local thrift store. Now, two days before opening night, our director wants Lefou to run in from off stage and catch a stuffed duck that Gaston has just shot. This, of course, requires two things to work properly as a scene: a gunshot noise, and a stuffed duck.
The gunshot noise, we had covered. Blue-collar, redneck school? Guns a plenty to record. The stuffed duck? Harder than you might have thought to obtain.
Three hunting stores, two taxidermists, and one Pet Supply Store ™, I’d finally found a semi-realistic pheasant squeaky toy. What follows is an account of the ways this dog toy managed to be the nightmare prop of the six show run.
Opening Night: The stagehand, who was supposed to drop the bird from the ceiling catwalk, missed his cue and didn’t drop the it. Lefou’s actor rolls with it and does an excellent job of looking around foolishly before getting cuffed upside the head by Gaston. The stagehand then drops the bird squarely on Gaston’s head. Cue laughter.
Saturday Matinee: Different stagehand throws the bird instead of dropping it and beans Lefou directly in the face with the prop. Lefou falls over. Cue laughter.
Saturday Night: Bird is missing during curtain call. Director hauls the deer head down from it’s place on the tavern wall and tells Gaston and Lefou to revert to the old blocking i.e. no gunshot, no bird, just walk in with trophy. During Gaston and Lefou’s conversation, gun shot sound goes off and a stagehand throws the bird onto the stage…from the wrong side of the stage. Lefou and Gaston stare at it in awkward silence for a solid thirty seconds before Lefou makes off-script, subtle joke about Gaston’s gun going off late instead of early. Cue adults in the audience laughing.
Sunday Matinee: Director begs the stagehands to get the cue right at least once. Gunshot and bird prop go off without a hitch. Lefou accidentally catches the prop when it falls from the catwalk. He’s so startled that he caught it that Gaston runs right in to him. They drop both the gun and the bird props, and grab the wrong prop in their scramble. Gaston spends the rest of the scene gesturing dramatically with a stuffed pheasant, instead of a gun.
Sunday Night:
Director is fed up with bird prop, decides that Lefou should just carry bird prop in after gunshot happens off stage. Lefou accidentally squeezes the prop during the intro conversation, startling both actors into silence with the squeaky toy noise - apparently, neither of them realized it was a dog toy.
Monday Elementary School Show: Lefou walks on stage with the bird. Accidentally drops the prop during conversation with Gaston. Gaston doesn’t notice the dropped prop and steps on it. Cue depressingly sad squeaky toy noise. Cue ten years olds laughing.
In a dress rehearsal for Peter Pan, Wendy forgot one of her lines and started singing the star spangled banner and the audience was singing along and people got emotional
Once during the closing night of our high school production of south pacific, we were havin our pre-show pep talk, and our director reminded everyone (mostly seniors) not to go off script to try to be funny. Of course we had one lead who decided to ignore this advice. So during one scene where the sailors were “fishing” at the edge of the stage, he decides to pull up his rubber fish, make a comment about how it wasn’t big enough, and throw it back into the “ocean”, which of course, was the audience.
Now, this probably wouldn’t have been too much of a problem if he had gently tossed it, since it would have landed right behind the pit. But naturalt, he decided that this fish had to break free in the most dramatic way possible, so he winds up and chucks this fucking foot-long rubber fish with all of his strength.
So now imagine the stage crew, all of us huddled together, silently screaming as this limp fish goes sailing over the heads of the audience in what looks like a low-budget reenactment of free willy, only to slap some poor parent across the face.
I swear, you could almost hear the chorus of “mmmm whatcha saaayyy” rising from all those backstage.
From that moment on, all rubber fish were ferociously guarded by yours truly, under the direction of our stage manager.
This post gets better every time it shows up on my dash
My Junior year of high school our drama club put on Peter Pan,which involved the construction of a small boat fashioned out of scrap wood,plaster and an old wagon. A few of the actors who were cast as pirates had to ride the boat-wagon down the aisle to the front of the theatre,which had a concrete floor that sloped. About halfway down the brake they were using to control their speed gave out,and they crashed into the front of the stage at high speed.The entire boat imploded. The actors just sat there in silence for at least a full 10 seconds in the midst of the wreckage before my friend Adena screamed “ABANDON SHIP” and they all jumped out and took off running.
My school once did a parody of Cinderella and I was Cinderellas dog. At one point Cinderella, the Fairy Godmother, and the dog had to flea the ball. I thought going down the stage steps wasn’t dramatic enough for “fleeing” so I launched myself off the stage and landed painfully in the center isle about three rows in accompanied with a very, very loud thump of face on concrete where I laid there like a dead fish for a while. At this point Cinderella and the Fairy Godmother got to me, not knowing what to do they stepped over me and continued running. But Cinderella had forgotten to loose her shoe so half way out of the room she chucked it back where it hit me in the head. I bolted upright and ran shrieking hysterically out of the room. A moment later the Prince came down to where the shoe was picked it up, looked dramatically at where I had exited and said “I hope that dog’s okay.” completely forgetting his line.
This may be my all time favorite post.
I was once in a production of “Hello Dolly!” and the two leads were complete jokers and would prank each other during rehearsals all the time. The rest of the cast never thought they would do that during a show, but they told the chorus (separately) that they each were planning to add some tongue into the final kiss between Dolly and Horace. Of course, we told neither of them about the other’s plan, so during the very last show, we were all waiting in the wings to see what would happen. What happened was we ended the show with the two leads violently frenching each other on stage as the curtain dropped. They started dating two weeks later.
Last year we did “Once Upon a Mattress” and the jester was supposed to do a somersault off of a stack of like 3 mattresses and then the minstrel and Lady Larken would be covered up with a blanket, but during one show the jester knocked down one of the mattresses and we had no time to fix it so we had to throw the mattress on top of them
In my Freshman year of high-school we put on a performance of Les Mis. In said play there’s the scene where Javert and Valjean confront each-other by the bedside of the now dead Fantine. well, Javert Had his prop weapon (I can’t remember if it was a sword or truncheon,) but Valjean didn’t have his. So we the Crew decided during our builds that we’d rig up a chair to break so our Valjean could use one of the broken legs as a club kind of thing. For all of our shows it went off without a hitch, but for the last one we decided to have some fun.
Originally we really just weakened one of the legs so it would break off after our Valjean hurled the chair on the floor, but for the final chair we too saws and cut into everything. All the legs, the back poles, everything. We cut it just enough so that our Valjean would be able to sit in the chair and not break it, but when he tossed it on the ground? Chaos.
And that’s what happened.
All we told him before the show was “When your toss the chair on the ground, give it your all.” And so when the scene came all of the crew gathered behind the legs and assorted hidden places of the stage to watch. When our Valjean hurled the chair to the ground it shattered. Wood and splinters went in practically every direction and I’m sure that I even saw our Fantine flinch as she feigned death. There was no chair leg left for him to use.
So we all got to witness as our Valjean fended off Javert with naught but a splinter.
Fun times.
My father was once in a production of Arsenic and Old Lace. Early in the play, the main character finds a corpse in the dining room window seat and there’s a hilarious scene of him trying to hide it from his aunts who keep coming into the room. However, somehow the dining room table broke, a leg came loose and nearly collapsed (along with the nice table setting on top). So this scene was instead played as the main character trying to hide both a corpse and a very precarious dining range from his aunts. It was way funnier than usual.
At intermission crew was able to replace the table.
In act two, the nefarious brother returns in the middle of the night. He changed his line about the unchanged nature of the house. “It hasn’t changed a bit since I was kid……except they got a new table.” The audience was in fits.
Okay, so he’s got a girly face, and he wears tights and some high boots. Sure.
But check out that noble steed. That’s one ready-to-kick-ass-and-take-names steed.
While other princesses just run away and leave nothing, Philip gets AN INVITE TO HER HOUSE. He gets a song, a dance, and a first date.
He comes home, just to tell his dad he’s not going to marry the princess because he’s in love.
No. Other. Reason. He rides in and is just like, “I met the girl I’m going to marry. Now I’ve got a birthday party to be at. Bye Dad.”
Now how much do you think his dad weighs? That short fat little man? Probably pretty heavy.Not a problem for Prince Philip.
And then he gets jumped by goblins, both hands tied behind his back
But that’s not enough to stop Prince Philip.Oh no.
He breaks his hands free and starts chuckinggoblins.
Look at that face. That face. The “BITCH JUST YOU WAIT” face. He may be tied down by a dozen goblins but he’s not gonna take no shit from this witch.
In fact, he’s so strong, she ends up keeping him chained to the wall, but he still fights back.
Now when he finally does get free–
He’s ready to go into battle UNARMED. He don’t need no shield or sword, he’s going to go punch Maleficent’s face in with his fist. If Flora didn’t stop him, he probably would have, too.
Backed up against a cliff edge, nowhere to go. Fighting off goblins. But there’s so many and just one Philip.
NBD I’LL JUST JUMP AND SLIDE DOWN THE ROCK PILE IN MY SKIN-TIGHT TIGHTS.
Gate closing?
who gives a fuck? certainly not prince philip.
Lighting hitting rocks around me?
NBD BRO
Giant forest of thorns?
Bitch, get out of my way. I’ve got a princess to save.
So there’s a blind kid in my class, and today we were having really bad thunderstorms in our area. All of the sudden there’s a huge crack of thunder and all the lights go out. Some girl screamed “Oh my god i can’t see anything!” and the blind kid goes “Me either!!” and i just lost it
Indeed, this is exactly the sort of content I like to see on my dash.
Oh, D&D divine treasure.
These are perfect
These are hilarious :D I love the Sorcerer one, perfect for Lessandero.
BUT do I have a story about the Cleric
We just started a new campaign a while ago where our characters were forced into a team against their will. And the Cleric is of a religion that condemns all beings that aren’t human or maybe elvish as evil, godless creatures from hell who don’t deserve to live. That goes doubly, of course, for tieflings. Well, guess what I’m playing?
My tiefling rogue was very tempted to just stab him and get on with it, but there were Circumstances preventing us from killing each other. Just killing each other. No one said anything about being nice.
So, of course, the Cleric keeps insulting and cursing me, and the group’s Dragonborn as well, and telling us we deserve to die and what foul creatures we are etc, leading to him being regularly punched in the face.
Now but it wasn’t until our first fight - and keep in mind we were all still level 1 at this point, leaving us with all of 8-11 hit points - that we realized FUCKING BASTARD CLERIC IS OUR HEALER. So even if he was gonna heal us in the first place (which is doubtful, seeing as we don’t deserve to live), he sure as hell wouldn’t after we kept threatening him and punching him in the face.
Thankfully the elf was the only one getting seriously hurt, but we still had to force him practically at knife point to heal her.
-(Heard over the phone) “I don’t care WHAT is in your pants or what you identify as, GET THE FUCKING PISS OFF THE TOILET SEAT”
- “I don’t get why some men like to call themselves straight and then say they’d never date a Trans woman because honestly if you’re willing to exclude an entire subsection of women based on something so stupid you’re probably not worth their time anyways”
-“I don’t know why some guys worry about gay men in the locker rooms because if I was a gay guy, even I wouldn’t date me. I’ve been wearing the same shirt for three days.“
-(Over spring break) “How the fuck do you make Kraft mac&cheese”
-“What do you mean it’s written on the box– WAIT SHIT IT IS”
-“I hit on a lesbian two weeks ago in the SU without knowing it and I still feel bad about it”
-“I honestly think I’d prefer living with a (Trans) person at this point because if they’re even as half as cool as you then it’s got to be better than living with two 19 year old boys who have fucking competitions of who can piss farther on the ceiling”
-“For some reason even in college guys don’t seem to get that the only reason I get so many girls’ numbers is because I treat them like I would treat anyone else”
-“No seriously they think you have to act uninterested or like a dick for some reason”
-“No I don’t know why they think hitting on a lesbian is anything but a lot of secondhand embarrassment for the rest of us”
-“My roommate came into the room looking really dejected and when I asked why he said that he spent hours talking to this girl just to find out that she had a boyfriend the whole time and didn’t say anything” (And after me asking why it mattered) “I dunno, apparently he doesn’t understand the concept of friends”
-(After me saying I don’t get heterosexuals sometimes) “Even I don’t understand straight guys little dude, and I am one”
Also: “I’m actually really glad you’re a boy because now I can do THIS” (pretends to full on body slam me into the couch and then carries me around over his shoulder in a fit of laughter)
omg this warms my heart
Holy shit this got 1K notes you’re all gonna make my brother cocky
If he’s as chill as the last item in the original post indicates to me, that shouldn’t be a problem. I only hope I can someday ally as well as he does.
Where can I find such a quality human being? Are they collectible?
the drum is filled with hot steam and then sprayed with cold water. the pressure on the outside of the drum is far more than inside. the pressures try to maintain and find balance taking the drum as a casualty.
“Oh FUCK that’s cold!”
when youre in the shower and someone flushes the toilet
My Chemistry teacher did this the first day of class with a coke can, a hotplate, and a basin of water. I have never forgotten the scientific principles behind it, and here’s why.
There were 20-something of us in the classroom, all dying of sleep deprivation since it was the first day back to school, first class of the day. Mr. Moses was that teacher you weren’t sure how to deal with. I mean, the man’s name was Noah Eugene Moses, for starters. He drove a Harley to school, but also drove the bus. He had giant cokebottle glasses and a doofy mustache with shaggy ex-Beatles hair. He always wore suspenders and a grease-stained t-shirt because he had a potbelly and taught the shop/electrical classes. He wasn’t even really lecturing; he was throwing in tidbits of the syllabus in the midst of bad jokes and fun stories. We were all a bit nervous, because none of us had taken a class from him before, but his tests were legendary—nobody had ever made it out with an A (until I did, but that’s another story for another time and involves a really awesome bet and some hair cutting scissors).
Well, as we were fighting to stay awake, and attempting to take notes of whatever he was talking about, he was pacing around the room from here to there, straightening things and moving stuff. He was very scatterbrained, and it was easy to tell from how he kept forgetting where he put his coke. Turns out, that was just a ruse. He had the can filled with just a tiny bit of water, and the things he was moving around were stacks of papers and books hiding the hot plate and water basin. So he set his coke can down onto the hot plate, continued talking loudly enough so we wouldn’t hear the water boiling, and then knocked it over really fast into the water basin.
BANG!!!!!!!!
Three girls fell out of their seats, one dude swore so violently I’m pretty sure the devil himself cringed, everyone at least jumped and screamed, and I actually broke my pen in half.
See, with rapid decompression comes a vacuum, and with a vacuum comes a rushing of air that creates a massive sound. Think “thunder”. That’s the same principle behind it. His little tiny coke can of steam into a bucket of ice water, and we had a bang so loud the band teacher came in from across the hall to see “what was exploding today.” To which Mr. Moses responded, “Nothing, it imploded. Explosions are chapter 3.”
And that’s when I knew it was going to be the best class ever.
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-
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.
During a high school production of Beauty and the Beast, where I was assistant costumer and assistant prop master, our director decided that we needed to spice up Gaston’s introduction. You know: in the movie, when Lefou runs in trying to catch the duck/goose that Gaston has just shot out of the sky?
Originally, the actors were going to stroll on stage with our Lefou hauling in the really neat (and real!) taxidermied deer head that we had found in a local thrift store. Now, two days before opening night, our director wants Lefou to run in from off stage and catch a stuffed duck that Gaston has just shot. This, of course, requires two things to work properly as a scene: a gunshot noise, and a stuffed duck.
The gunshot noise, we had covered. Blue-collar, redneck school? Guns a plenty to record. The stuffed duck? Harder than you might have thought to obtain.
Three hunting stores, two taxidermists, and one Pet Supply Store ™, I’d finally found a semi-realistic pheasant squeaky toy. What follows is an account of the ways this dog toy managed to be the nightmare prop of the six show run.
Opening Night: The stagehand, who was supposed to drop the bird from the ceiling catwalk, missed his cue and didn’t drop the it. Lefou’s actor rolls with it and does an excellent job of looking around foolishly before getting cuffed upside the head by Gaston. The stagehand then drops the bird squarely on Gaston’s head. Cue laughter.
Saturday Matinee: Different stagehand throws the bird instead of dropping it and beans Lefou directly in the face with the prop. Lefou falls over. Cue laughter.
Saturday Night: Bird is missing during curtain call. Director hauls the deer head down from it’s place on the tavern wall and tells Gaston and Lefou to revert to the old blocking i.e. no gunshot, no bird, just walk in with trophy. During Gaston and Lefou’s conversation, gun shot sound goes off and a stagehand throws the bird onto the stage…from the wrong side of the stage. Lefou and Gaston stare at it in awkward silence for a solid thirty seconds before Lefou makes off-script, subtle joke about Gaston’s gun going off late instead of early. Cue adults in the audience laughing.
Sunday Matinee: Director begs the stagehands to get the cue right at least once. Gunshot and bird prop go off without a hitch. Lefou accidentally catches the prop when it falls from the catwalk. He’s so startled that he caught it that Gaston runs right in to him. They drop both the gun and the bird props, and grab the wrong prop in their scramble. Gaston spends the rest of the scene gesturing dramatically with a stuffed pheasant, instead of a gun.
Sunday Night:
Director is fed up with bird prop, decides that Lefou should just carry bird prop in after gunshot happens off stage. Lefou accidentally squeezes the prop during the intro conversation, startling both actors into silence with the squeaky toy noise - apparently, neither of them realized it was a dog toy.
Monday Elementary School Show: Lefou walks on stage with the bird. Accidentally drops the prop during conversation with Gaston. Gaston doesn’t notice the dropped prop and steps on it. Cue depressingly sad squeaky toy noise. Cue ten years olds laughing.
In a dress rehearsal for Peter Pan, Wendy forgot one of her lines and started singing the star spangled banner and the audience was singing along and people got emotional
Once during the closing night of our high school production of south pacific, we were havin our pre-show pep talk, and our director reminded everyone (mostly seniors) not to go off script to try to be funny. Of course we had one lead who decided to ignore this advice. So during one scene where the sailors were “fishing” at the edge of the stage, he decides to pull up his rubber fish, make a comment about how it wasn’t big enough, and throw it back into the “ocean”, which of course, was the audience.
Now, this probably wouldn’t have been too much of a problem if he had gently tossed it, since it would have landed right behind the pit. But naturalt, he decided that this fish had to break free in the most dramatic way possible, so he winds up and chucks this fucking foot-long rubber fish with all of his strength.
So now imagine the stage crew, all of us huddled together, silently screaming as this limp fish goes sailing over the heads of the audience in what looks like a low-budget reenactment of free willy, only to slap some poor parent across the face.
I swear, you could almost hear the chorus of “mmmm whatcha saaayyy” rising from all those backstage.
From that moment on, all rubber fish were ferociously guarded by yours truly, under the direction of our stage manager.
This post gets better every time it shows up on my dash
My Junior year of high school our drama club put on Peter Pan,which involved the construction of a small boat fashioned out of scrap wood,plaster and an old wagon. A few of the actors who were cast as pirates had to ride the boat-wagon down the aisle to the front of the theatre,which had a concrete floor that sloped. About halfway down the brake they were using to control their speed gave out,and they crashed into the front of the stage at high speed.The entire boat imploded. The actors just sat there in silence for at least a full 10 seconds in the midst of the wreckage before my friend Adena screamed “ABANDON SHIP” and they all jumped out and took off running.
My school once did a parody of Cinderella and I was Cinderellas dog. At one point Cinderella, the Fairy Godmother, and the dog had to flea the ball. I thought going down the stage steps wasn’t dramatic enough for “fleeing” so I launched myself off the stage and landed painfully in the center isle about three rows in accompanied with a very, very loud thump of face on concrete where I laid there like a dead fish for a while. At this point Cinderella and the Fairy Godmother got to me, not knowing what to do they stepped over me and continued running. But Cinderella had forgotten to loose her shoe so half way out of the room she chucked it back where it hit me in the head. I bolted upright and ran shrieking hysterically out of the room. A moment later the Prince came down to where the shoe was picked it up, looked dramatically at where I had exited and said “I hope that dog’s okay.” completely forgetting his line.
This may be my all time favorite post.
I was once in a production of “Hello Dolly!” and the two leads were complete jokers and would prank each other during rehearsals all the time. The rest of the cast never thought they would do that during a show, but they told the chorus (separately) that they each were planning to add some tongue into the final kiss between Dolly and Horace. Of course, we told neither of them about the other’s plan, so during the very last show, we were all waiting in the wings to see what would happen. What happened was we ended the show with the two leads violently frenching each other on stage as the curtain dropped. They started dating two weeks later.
Last year we did “Once Upon a Mattress” and the jester was supposed to do a somersault off of a stack of like 3 mattresses and then the minstrel and Lady Larken would be covered up with a blanket, but during one show the jester knocked down one of the mattresses and we had no time to fix it so we had to throw the mattress on top of them
On the spring show my friend was in the person who was playing Lysander (I think?) was supposed to do his,“though she is but little, she is fierce speech” and he forgot his ENTIRE monologue and there was a moment of dead silence before he just says,“BUT I LOVE YOU!” and just walks off stage
Tears in my eyes
My Broadway producer friends once told me a story about the eponine at the time. Everyone loves to snack on candy back stage and this girl decided to put skittles in her pockets. She went on for “Little Fall of Rain” and while she was dying in Marius’s arms, the skittles slowly started to trickle out of her pocket.
We were doing a modern version of Lysistrata, and at one point one of the husbands is supposed to toss his infant child (a doll we had swaddled in a blanket) up in the air, and his attendant was supposed to catch it, sneer back at him, and walk off stage. Well, during one of the performances, the actor tossed the baby waaaaaaay too hard, so the assistant DOVE to catch it, landing with a loud THUD that echoed throughout the theater, and slid part way off stage with a loud “squeeeeeaaaaaak.” The rest of us, waiting in the wing, grabbed his shoulders (which fortunately did make it off stage) and continued to drag him back, all while trying not to lose our shit.
My favorite will always be the production of The Diary of Anne Frank that was so bad, that when the Nazis showed up at the end, people in the audience screamed “They’re in the attic!”
During a dress rehearsal for the wizard of oz, oz forgot where he put his bag, which was supposed to hold all the ‘gifts’ for Tin Man, Lion, and Scarecrow. So his solution was to stuff the gifts into the waistband of his poofy green pants and hope for the best.
When it came time for him to pass out the gifts, it turned out that while he was walking, the gifts had slid down his pants. So he had to reach his arm down his pants to pull out the gifts, which was already bad enough, but since he had no bag, Dorothy felt the need to change her line to fit the situation.
Which resulted in a seventh grader saying: “Oh, I don’t think he has anything in those pants for me.”
