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| re: What are the 'best' onstage mishaps that you've seen in live theater? | |
| Posted by: dmcree 08:59 pm EST 12/20/17 | |
| In reply to: What are the 'best' onstage mishaps that you've seen in live theater? - GrumpyMorningBoy 10:15 am EST 12/20/17 | |
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| Three memories, i’ll try to be brief: Most serious mishap - Billy Elliot in London. As the bedroom set lowered into the floor for Billy’s big number after his father said he couldn’t go to the dance audition/school, the young man jumped from the bed platform to the floor and missed! Fell down into the trap, but caught himself and was hanging by his fingers. Stage managers ran out to pull him to safety. Performance stopped, of course. After 20 minutes or so, the management announced the young man had been sent to the hospital to be checked out, and they would start the 2nd act with a different Billy and finish the show. The boy came out of it fine, but when I later saw the show in NY, there was a railing and the exit was much more controlled. Funniest - most recent revival of The Women on Broadway. Crystal is in the tub, on the phone . Gets angry with the caller, bangs the phone receiver on the edge of the tub and it breaks in half. She continued the conversation with half a receiver while the audience shook with laughter. Many smaller casualties in this performance. Silliest - college production of Peter Pan. Early bedroom scene, the dog comes in and Peter and the kids hide (this moment is used in the script to attach the flying wires to the actors while they are off-stage). Dog leaves, actors come back out, Peter starts “I’m Flying” but Wendy is suddenly jerked in the air. Right wire on wrong actor. Peter starts singing “You’re Flying”, backstage is pandemonium, audience very confused (or something). As with all of us who have seen/been involved in theatre for a long time, there are many, many stories. |
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| LOVE that Peter Pan story. | |
| Posted by: GrumpyMorningBoy 01:18 am EST 12/21/17 | |
| In reply to: re: What are the 'best' onstage mishaps that you've seen in live theater? - dmcree 08:59 pm EST 12/20/17 | |
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| I've got such a soft spot for it, because it was one of the first semi-professional shows I ever did as a kid, and when Foy came out to install the fly rails, I just remember being mystified at how complicated it all was and how easily things might go wrong. Thankfully, we made it through the run without any significant flubs. There are MANY videos of Peter Pan mishaps, but to hear "you're flying!" -- that's hilarious! - GMB |
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| re: LOVE that Peter Pan story. | |
| Last Edit: Chromolume 10:02 pm EST 12/21/17 | |
| Posted by: Chromolume 10:01 pm EST 12/21/17 | |
| In reply to: LOVE that Peter Pan story. - GrumpyMorningBoy 01:18 am EST 12/21/17 | |
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| I've done Peter Pan a number of times, and also have a soft spot for it. But there was this one production - it was a community theatre that got me in on short notice to accompany and MD, in the last week of rehearsal or so. Good production, but hampered by a set they had rented at the last minute (I can't remember if their scene designer was fired or quit - but I think it was one of those two). Mostly it worked out ok, but somehow the last set change in Act II (going into the home underground) was impossible. I had no chance to create new scene change music, so all we could do was play the little bit of "Wendy" provided in the score at that point, over and over and over and over and over. And over. And over. And over. They had the Lost Boys come out "in one" to improvise movement/dance and sing their "we have a mother, at last we have a mother" over and over and over, which really didn't help much, except that there was something to watch, lol. And I would predict that the average time for this change was 3-4 minutes, which in that context is FOREVER. Looking back, I don't know why I didn't suggest playing the Overture again, or something... (PLUS, much as I love the show, I've always felt that Act II is way overlong - it works properly in terms of the layout of the story, but oh, it feel like it never ends lol. So this extended scene change only made it seem longer...) |
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