Lots of superstitions among show biz folk. The way I understood it, it's kind of like Murphy's Law -- something's bound to go wrong and the opposite way. So if you wish a superstitious singer "Good luck" is pretty bad thing to do, as most likely it could end up badly, so it evolved that to counter it, you wish them something bad like "break a leg" or "merde" (which is French for "shit"), so you hope the opposite happens.
When I sang a lot of opera, a big expression we would say before going out to sing was "In bocca al lupo" which means "in the mouth of the wolf", to which the other singer would reply "Crepi il lupo!" (may he -- the wolf- choke/die), rather than us singers!
Lots of stuff about the Scottish play, since there are many examples of fires, uprisings, riots in the history of production of that play.
Whistling in the dressing room (or anywhere) backstage is a no-no, which has a basis in reality since years ago whistles were used among stagehands as cues for changing scenery. A whistle by somebody at the wrong time by the wrong person could find you or someone on stage with a piece scenery whacked on your head, literally. |
