Worst show mishap- Page 2

[Mister Matt]

Posted: 7/18/13 at 3:16pm

When Idina fell through the trapdoor in Wicked. That wasn't a big deal. The real mishap was how the fangurlz immediately reacted to it. They were crying outside the stage door holding candles and praying for her life.

[pocketponine]

Posted: 7/18/13 at 3:31pm

oh joy, haha. I was in a production of Rogers and Hammerstein's Cinderella (so fun!) and the facade for Cinderella and the Stepsisters' house fell on our stage manager!! She got a minor concussion and was really dazed but she was fine after an hour or so, but complained of a major headache. Also, during a performance of....erm...one of the plays i was in last year, our projector screen randomly decided to come down and couldn't come back up, so we had one of the costumers safety-pin it in like 8765432345678 different places. I saw a story online about a pet cat belonging to the owner of the theater (who kept it in the house for good luck) coming on stage and being incorporated into the show!

[pocketponine]

Posted: 7/18/13 at 3:31pm

oh joy, haha. I was in a production of Rogers and Hammerstein's Cinderella (so fun!) and the facade for Cinderella and the Stepsisters' house fell on our stage manager!! She got a minor concussion and was really dazed but she was fine after an hour or so, but complained of a major headache. Also, during a performance of....erm...one of the plays i was in last year, our projector screen randomly decided to come down and couldn't come back up, so we had one of the costumers safety-pin it in like 8765432345678 different places. I saw a story online about a pet cat belonging to the owner of the theater (who kept it in the house for good luck) coming on stage and being incorporated into the show!

[PositivelyEmerald]

Posted: 7/18/13 at 4:00pm

Some Wicked ones...

Shoshana Beans hat (containing one of her mics) falling of during defying gravity.

Kristen Chenoweths hilarious ad lib after her bed didn't come out for popular.

The many lift malfunctions.

Felicia Ricci snapping the broom in half right as she was about to go up in defying gravity.

The infamous power outage show in New Orleans,

Jackie Burns dropped the broom as she went up in defying gravity and sang the rest of the song without it.

Christina DeCicco got stuck in the bubble during a tornado in Oklahoma City.

The wheel chair effect in the first act often did not work.


One from the first time I saw in Evita-

Max couldn't quite lift Christina up in Buenos aires and she slipped.

[JohnyBroadway]

Posted: 7/18/13 at 4:12pm

The chandelier not rising during phantom.

[gchris11]

Posted: 7/19/13 at 1:18am

@@@@ SPOILER ALERT@@@@



at one of the Matinees of Pippin a few weeks ago, Rachel Bay Jones fell over on the clown bike during the REVOLUTION segment while Charlotte was doing her quick change in the banner. When she came out of it, Charlotte's mic was messed up and the wig was not quick right but her Hubby fixed it seamlessly during the next scene.


I have noticed the bike has since been dropped from the show.

[shrekster224]

Posted: 7/19/13 at 1:38am

About a week ago Patina tweeted something about a hoola-hoop flying into the audience and hitting a girl. If it was Patina's hoop, I would have said "thank you!" #blessed :P

[ZoeTheGoat]

Posted: 7/19/13 at 2:00am

Well...there was that lady in the show Ka who fell to her death. That's pretty horrible. The show reopened recently and that part of the show has been removed.

[SNAFU]

Posted: 7/19/13 at 4:22am

As far as Jesus Christ Superstar goes there is this: http://www.independent.co.uk/news/police-investigate-death-of-actor-who-hanged-on-stage-1246329.html
And it seems that guy in Brazil also died performing in the musical, it was not a passion play.

[tenorboyo]

Posted: 7/19/13 at 4:43am

Les Miz tour of Oz, years ago now. Eponine's click-tracked scream after " I told you i'd do it..." somehow became a machine gun firing.
" See, I told you i'd do it, I told you i'd do it...........EE-EE-EE-EE-EE-EE-EE-EE-EE-EE"
LOL

[jwsel]

Posted: 7/19/13 at 5:13am

Not a show per se, but at the Hollywood Bowl Concert to celebrate Sondheim's 75th Birthday, Angela Lansbury tripped over a mic cable and injured her knee coming out for the curtain call. She tried to downplay that anything was wrong, but it turned out to be pretty serious. I believe she had to have her knee replaced.

I don't know if I would call this a mishap, but during the Dreamgirls tour at the Ahmanson in LA a few years ago, I was at the Easter Sunday matinee. During the finale, as the Dreams are singing Hard to Say Goodbye, we had an earthquake. None of the performers stopped singing or missed a step, but there were a lot of nervous glances upwards as the spotlights swung back and forth. Amazingly, nobody left the theater until the song ended. But the instant the music stopped, half the audience jumped up and made a beeline for the doors. The rest of us stayed to give the cast some applause, but it was one of the fastest curtains I've ever seen. I don't think the performers minded; they seemed to want to get off the stage as much as the audience wanted to get out of the theater. (It turned out the quake actually was centered in Baja, but it was one of the strongest quakes in 50 years, so we felt it strongly in LA.)

Updated On: 7/20/13 at 05:13 AM

[Cornelius2]

Posted: 7/19/13 at 8:16pm

Many, many years ago a row boat with some drunken fishermen floated through the moat across the front of the stage during a musical at the Jones Beach Theater (Annie Get Your Gun?) I remember the actors on stage freezing in place until they passed

[PTOPhan]

Posted: 7/19/13 at 9:45pm

There's a story about a mid-twentieth century performance of one of the Wagner operas where a swan-shaped chariot is supposed to take the lead male singer away. The swan departed without Leo Slezak, who ad-libbed, "What time does the next swan leave?"

I've forgotten which Phantom got stuck in the angel. The audience was taunting him and he spent about 15 minutes scowling back, trying to remain in character, until the crew figured out how to rescue him.

At a recent production of "My Fair Lady," at Arena stage, in DC, much of the cast had been out the day before with the flu. The actress playing Eliza was visibly ill in the "Wouldn't it be Loverly" scene. She left the stage at the end and the next scene began. Eliza's cue to return is, "Here's Eliza, now," but she didn't show up. Another actor ad libbed, "She must have been delayed." A third said, "Let's sit down and wait for her." At that point, the loudspeaker announced a delay. A few minutes later, the performance was cancelled -- Eliza couldn't go on, and the understudy was still sick.

Twice, I've seen actors break the "4th wall" to tell audience members to be quiet during the performance. Once was at Arena Stage, which is a theater in the round, with the audience very close to the performers. One actor rather rudely told a middle-aged man to stop doing whatever he had been doing because it was distracting. At a matinee performance of "Raisin" in the 1970's (I think), a badly-behaved school group was in attendance. The lead actress gave an impromptu, polite speech about how it was hard to entertain an audience that kept making noise. She got a round of applause from the adults.

[gleek4114]

Posted: 7/19/13 at 10:15pm

A few years ago I played Albert in Bye Bye Birdie and nobody bothered to tell me my fly was down the whole time. Also about a week ago I saw a regional production of Legally Blonde and during "take it like a man" the "fitting" room door flew open exposing the actor playing Emmet. It was very amusing.

[rentfn]

Posted: 8/6/13 at 12:38am

During "Santa Fe" in Rent when Mark and Tom lifted Angel onto the bucket at the end the bucket flew out and Angel fell right onto his back and must have gotten the wind knocked out of him. He got right up though.

[Phantom4ever]

Posted: 8/6/13 at 1:00am

I have a hard time believing the one about the masquerade stairs hitting the candles from Phantoms lair. First of all, there are multiple scene changes once the candles go down and the masquerade stairs is set up during intermission so it would be impossible for the audience to witness the stairs moving. Sounds like this story probably started with someone saying "what if the candles hit the stairs" and then it become the truth after it was re-told enough times

[ChairinMain]

Posted: 8/6/13 at 2:05am

I will never forget the RSC's production of Othello when it came on tour to the Freud Theater in LA. At a highly dramatic moment (Just after Othello coldly stated to his wife "I took you for that cunning whore of Venice That married with Othello.") A stage light or something fell from the rafters and shattered upstage. I thought it was part of the show, until Othello offered a nervous grin to the audience and explained that they were going to have to take a short break.

[ARTc3]

Posted: 8/6/13 at 10:57am

I have written about this before, but...

This isn't a mechanical failure, but by far the most upsetting mishap I have ever experienced while watching a Broadway performance.

Many years ago, Bernadette Peters starred in, Song and Dance. Early in the performance I attended, Ms. Peters lost her voice and could no longer sing the show. As the first act is a solo performance, she was in a terrible situation. She hung in there and made it through the act. For that I have always had the deepest respect for her talent and professionalism, but it was painful to watch and I am sure painful to her as well.

For the stage crew who witnessed what was excruciating, I will never understand why they didn't stop the show. It was clear that Ms. Peters was in trouble and what we witnessed was more about please help her, than the world that was trying to be created by the magic of theater.

Ms. Peters was out for quite some time after that performance.

Updated On: 8/6/13 at 10:57 AM

[dblue236]

Posted: 8/6/13 at 11:00am

Once at a regional production of Rent, the actor playing Angel tripped in his boots and nearly fell into our laps. It was fairly minor in the grand scheme, though. It had no lasting effect on the show and he recovered gracefully.

[WindyCityActor]

Posted: 8/6/13 at 11:49am

I was in a production of Hamlet which was cursed.

Leartes - eye injury during duel scene
Hamlet - severe ankle strain during duel scene
Polonius - Kidney stone attack
Claudius - Concussion while walking into a support column.

[Patash]

Posted: 8/6/13 at 3:38pm

I'm trying to remember the story about Debbie Allen doing Sweet Charity and someone put bleach or something in the coke bottle she drank from while in the closet on stage. Anyone?

My favorite story was about Streetcar Named Desire -- I'm not sure where the production was -- but a glass had been broken on stage just before the "rape scene", so when Stanley sweeps up Blanche to carry her to the bedroom, he was barefoot and had to tippy tippy toe through the glass. The audience roared as it was not exactly manly or rape-like!

[suestorm]

Posted: 8/6/13 at 3:47pm

i dont think it gets much worse then when that Tiger ate Roy, unless it was when Shamu ate that poor trainer at Sea World last year

[ghostlight2]

Posted: 8/6/13 at 3:56pm

Nathan Lane was recently injured mid-show at The Nance and his understudy took over.

[howardbf]

Posted: 8/6/13 at 5:36pm

At a performance of Naked Boys Singing, they were neither naked, singing, nor boys!!! Worst. Mishap. Ever.

[GavestonPS]

Posted: 8/6/13 at 6:20pm

When I was a senior I was playing Harold Hill in our high school production of THE MUSIC MAN. During "Trouble", there was a fountain unit in the center of the very wide stage and I had to jump up on it (just like Robert Preston in the movie, naturally).

One night I landed on the fountain and it began to move--rolling off the stage and into the wings.

I wasn't hurt; I'm proud to say I rode the racing fountain and didn't even miss a word. (The acoustic tiles in our "cafetorium" were so bad we had to perform musical numbers with hand mikes so as to be heard over the orchestra.)

The funny part was actually 30 years later at a high school reunion. Former members of the MM crew sat me down and explained that the fountain unit had been DELIBERATELY sabotaged by a crew member who didn't like the fact I was kissing his girlfriend (who played Marion) each night at the footbridge.

It was funny because I was such a dedicated little thespian at 18 ("The theater is a temple" and all that), that it never in 30 years occurred to me that anyone would play such a destructive prank on stage.

When I learned the truth, I was speechless for several minutes and much laughter ensued!



Updated On: 8/6/13 at 06:20 PM