Best improvisation moments

[Emcee4ever]

Posted: 10/24/16 at 11:22pm

What were the best improv moments you've seen/been part of when something unexpected happened or went wrong during a show?

[Ado Annie D'Ysquith]

Posted: 10/25/16 at 8:34am

At Encores Lady Be Good, there was a scene where Douglas Sills' character handcuffs himself to another person, but the handcuff chain broke. Everyone in the audience cracked up, but Sills played it off super well...he looked at the crowd aghast for a moment (you could tell he was surprised) and then pretended the handcuffs were supposed to break.

On a personal note...when I played Ms. Darbus in High School Musical, I dropped the cell phone bucket in my first scene. I picked it back up and said quickly, "Dear God I'm clumsy!" shocking the nuns in attendance. Then I charged right on to my next line.

[TheGingerBreadMan]

Posted: 10/25/16 at 8:55am

Jackie Hoffman had some great improv moments in The Addams Family. Some should be on YouTube.

[Leaf Coneybear]

Posted: 10/25/16 at 9:17am

I heard that Ben Platt once used the name "Nic Rouleau" instead of Nabulungi and only a few people got it

[godlessondheimite]

Posted: 10/25/16 at 9:28am

David O'Reilly called Nabulungi "Nigel Farage" at the West End Book of Mormon. Ben Platt also used "Adele Dezeem."

[Kad]

Posted: 10/25/16 at 10:22am

In the final performance of Xanadu, Jackie Hoffman rather infamously recreated the last scene of West Side Story.

[LizzieCurry]

Posted: 10/25/16 at 10:25am

godlessondheimite said: "David O'Reilly called Nabulungi "Nigel Farage" at the West End Book of Mormon. Ben Platt also used "Adele Dezeem.""

Those aren't really ad-libbed, though. Brian Sears has been using Nigel Farage since he started, and Cody Jamison Strand also used Adele Dezeem right after the Oscars. (I wouldn't be surprised if there's a Cunningham google doc they all share!)

[Kad]

Posted: 10/25/16 at 10:38am

Yeah, there's a history of shows having a line or moment that's a designated "ad-lib" spot for a performer- and after night after night, the performer generally has a stock set of things they can fall back on. The amount of genuine improvisation in productions is really, really low.

[Mr. Nowack]

Posted: 10/25/16 at 9:20pm

When I saw SHE LOVES ME during "Ilona" something happened with Jane's shoe and she had to take it off and then after the number she shouted "Now let me put my shoe back on!" It wasn't even any kind of cleverness but it was just funny and a special "theatre moment."

A devastating one I witnessed when I did tech in High School was when an actor was a solid 5 minutes late for her cue and the other two actors had to make ludicrous small talk for the entire time smack dab in the middle of the emotional resolution of the show.

[Call_me_jorge]

Posted: 10/25/16 at 9:54pm

Kirstin's last performance with wicked

[Crazy NooNooHead]

Posted: 10/25/16 at 11:19pm

Kristin Chenoweth was putting a coat on during a scene in On The 20th Century, and one arm just wouldn't go into the sleeve. I thought it was intentional until Andy Karl asked if she needed help. They both laughed a little, and the audience cheered when she got the coat on.

 

I also did a production of Forum in college, and both of the pillars fell down during our final performance. Luckily it was one right after the other, so a lot of audience members thought that was supposed to happen.

[Emcee4ever]

Posted: 10/26/16 at 12:02am

I saw a production of The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde where the gun Hyde pulled on Enfield broke. He fiddled with it for a few seconds before ad-libbing "Must've been made in China!" and tossed it aside. it got the biggest laugh of the night.

[sorano916]

Posted: 10/26/16 at 12:11am

When Lin's headmic died during tick tick boom at City Center and he didn't leave the stage but they gave him a handheld until he couldn't use it anymore so Leslie and Karen came on to adlib while Lin's headmic was fixed onsite.

[bct14972]

Posted: 10/26/16 at 12:59am

Not so much an improvisation moment, but one of my favorite moments nonetheless:

 

We saw the La Cage revival when Harvey Fierstein stepped in. During "The Best Of Times", he sits on the lip of the stage, holds the hand of a patron at one of the front row tables and sings to them for the first verse. At my particular performance, he held the hand of a male senior citizen (who, after talking to him after the show, was, I believe in his 90s). Light laughter through the audience proceeded as they normally would have, but by the end of the verse when he sits the hand back down, instead of letting his hand go, the old man slides his hand up higher and grabs Zaza's boob.

 

Harvey and the entire cast couldn't suppress the laughter and the band had to stop the song so that the entire cast could get their laughs out. After about a minute of the cast laughing (it was a long time), Harvey goes "Woo, we're having fun tonight!"

 

We were indeed!

[ChairinMain]

Posted: 10/26/16 at 1:41am

JCM in Hedwig. Um....any of it. 

[broadwayguy91]

Posted: 10/26/16 at 2:28am

There's a bootleg video of Phantom@Majestic Theatre where Joseph Buquet fails to appear to tell the girls the tale of the Phantom. So, the actress playing Meg didn't miss a beat and took on the role Joseph Buquet does - making it look like a bunch of teenage girls telling ghost stories around a campfire.

[darquegk]

Posted: 10/26/16 at 9:28am

There's a LOT of this in many Rocky Horrors. Two years ago, I was cast as Riff Raff opposite an unusually tall Brad. As Riff in the annual production here has some choreo and blocking based on how he is usually taller than Brad and Janet, they put me in large platform boots. Not well made ones.

 

During the Time Warp, the platform on my left shoe came loose and was soon flopping behind the foot. Between the sex scenes, the "hot wax attack" left the heel completely detached. "F*CK it, I'm a hunchback now," I shouted, throwing the broken shoe into the pit. Without the shoe, I was a good five inches higher on one side than the other, and did the rest of the show like that... until, during Space Ship, the nails holding the platform on my right foot broke free and lodged themselves in the staircase, sending me hurtling down face first.

[Wee Thomas2]

Posted: 10/26/16 at 10:41am

Threepenny Opera at the Atlantic a couple years ago, there's a scene when they try to open a desk drawer but it was stuck.  The actor (was it F. Murray?) looked out and said "well the drawer is stuck but if it opened I would have pulled out . . ." and the show went on

[LizzieCurry]

Posted: 10/26/16 at 10:46am

I saw one of Andy Karl's first performances as Tommy in Jersey Boys. He was giving the "Frankie’s married, we’re playing clubs nights, Frankie’s cutting hair in the daytime" monologue, which is given as he walks up the stairs, and he tripped (didn't fall, but it was a very noticeable trip), so he added in "We're slippin' on the stairs," and it was wonderful.

[marcslope]

Posted: 10/26/16 at 6:46pm

Bebe Neuwirth in "Chicago," when it was still at Encores. She was finishing "When Velma Takes the Stand" and did a wrong dance step, so she ended the number about two seconds after the button. She glanced up at James Naughton and rushed, "This is my new finish, Billy, how do you like it?" Terrific.

[notalwaysontime]

Posted: 10/27/16 at 5:21am

This afternoon at Hedwig, Darren slipped when trying to sit on the edge of the stage and went all noticeably wobbly on the line about "This that you see before you is presently being supported-" and that's when he slipped and without missing a beat he carried on fluidly like "Oops, not supported even, unsupported. it's being unsupported at the same time by being supported by the same groaning planks[...]" and then back into the lines

And I'm not sure which lines are scripted in the show for the actors or which is them, but regardless if this one was written for Lena or if it was her own, it was Genius and got the biggest reaction of the night. (It just might not fit 100% in this thread but for those who can't see her, I feel like it needs to be shared) While she was playing Hedwig tonight, the part where Yitzhak is singing the song from the Hurt Locker and Hedwig interjects, she said "Lena Hall was better in the role." and then when she ripped the sheet music away from him she added "No Tony for you!" The entire theater erupted both times.

Updated On: 10/27/16 at 05:21 AM

[Emcee4ever]

Posted: 11/3/16 at 12:47am

I read about a production of Macbeth where a weapon broke during every single performance in the 4-week run, but one instance was spectacular.

"During this particular performance, we had gotten to the Macbeth vs MacDuff fight without a weapon breakage thus far, and everyone was holding their breath to see if we'd get through the performance weapons intact. On the third blow of the fight, Macbeth's sword shattered. The sword blade flew backwards and embedded itself in the proscenium, the pommel dropped to the stage, and the quillons flew upstage, striking the cyclotron, leaving the actor standing there in front of God, the audience, and MacDuff holding the grip of the sword and with a full four-minute swordfight to perform. The actors improvised a brilliant grappling fight, ending with MacDuff standing over the prostate and pummeled Macbeth with his sword raised to decapitate the unfortunate Scot. The alert light crew went to a full blackout just as the sword came down, and the scene ended with a dull "thunk" in the darkness as the sword hit the stage. The crowd, as well as the crew and cast backstage, went berserk with applause. When asked later what he would have done if the blackout hadn't happened, the actor playing MacDuff replied, "Well, I probably would have decapitated him. It's OK - he a method actor anyway."

[ManyaAndTheatre]

Posted: 4/15/17 at 2:32am

I went so see Dear Evan Hansen on one of their first shows off-broadway.

I don't remember which scene but Mike Faist mistakenly said Evan HanSON, instead of Hansen and giggling under his breath Ben Platt simply replies with "MMMbop!" making everyone laugh.

[@z5]

Posted: 4/15/17 at 3:00am

Taye Diggs' first show in HEDWIG...he tripped over the microphone wire, slid/fell on the car, and messed up a punchline of a joke...his improv was really great with all those little things. 

 

And, of course, John Cameron Mitchel is an absolute master of improv. First thing that comes to mind is when a few people came in after the opening song, sat in the front, he took their drinks, drank them, and dumped the remainder on the latecomers' head. What a show.