Urban Legends and Anecdotes of the Theatre- Page 3

[Patash]

Posted: 3/28/13 at 4:17pm

Not famous. But years ago doing resident one week summer stock at Flat Rock, North Carolina, where each week the company did a new play, our delightful ingenue actress was doing Any Wednesday, Sunday in New York, Barefoot in the Park, and I forget what else all in the same season. She was struggling to find a totally different way to make all her roles different and doing a great job of it, meanwhile contending with those almost identical interior sets with lots of doors. Late in the season during final dress of one show she delivered her exit line and turned to go out through the kitchen. She turned upstage looking at all the closed doors. She started for one then paused. She started for another then paused. She turned full front and calmly asked, "Where the F__K is the kitchen this week"? It was kind of the essence of one week resident summer stock.

[orangeskittles]

Posted: 3/28/13 at 4:44pm

Didn't everyone have a girl from a rival high school fall into an orchestra pit because someone said Macbeth? I've heard that urban legend from probably 10 people, all over the country.


My favorite addendum to the Sondheim sex dungeon story is the one where he's having a dinner party and someone- usually Mary Rodgers- goes to the bathroom and discovers a boy tied up, so she returns to the party and tells Sondheim to go untie him.

[SeanMartin]

Posted: 3/28/13 at 4:52pm

OMG, Patash, I know that theatre! I designed a season of five plays there, and it was complete chaos.

[Gothampc]

Posted: 3/28/13 at 5:07pm

It has been said that Ethel Merman attended the opening night of Applause on Broadway. At the end of Lauren Bacall's first solo, several people heard Merman's trumpet of a voice say "Pick a note Betty."

[Reginald Tresilian]

Posted: 3/28/13 at 6:12pm

Goth, the variation I've heard (and always loved) is simpler: As Bacall's last note ends, Merman's unmistakeable voice is heard to exclaim "Jesus Christ . . . !"

[PalJoey]

Posted: 3/28/13 at 6:17pm

See that's the thing. Merman wouldn't actually heckle another performer. That would violate her old-fashioned, good-girl professionalism.

What makes the story funny is that she involuntarily exclaims "Jeeeeeeeezis Christ!"

NOT because she's being rude, but precisely because she can't help it.

The note is THAT bad. THAT'S the point.

Posted: 3/28/13 at 6:27pm

Mary Rodgers wrote in to Savage Love this week about that very incident. (Changing the "he" to "she" of course!)
Closed door incident