Mirvish Cancels First Performance of BLADES ON STAGE After 30 Mins due to Holes on the Ice

The first performance of Mirvish's holiday show BLADES ON STAGE, now playing at The Princess of Wales Theatre, was canceled just 30 minutes in due to holes in the ice on stage.

There are no performances of BLADES ON STAGE scheduled for Thursdays, and there has been no announcement of any further cancelations at the time.

One of the performers in the show, Violetta Afanasieva, tweeted earlier about one of the numerous incidents which occurred during the first performance, and resulted in the cancelation.

She also later tweeted further, explaining that she fallen on the ice during one of her routines as a result of the poor condition of the ice.

Violetta took to twitter a third time to show a photo of a broken, leaking pipe - which may have caused the poor ice conditions for the first performance.

One audience member from the first performance told BroadwayWorld that "they barely made it through the first act... (The show had run just) 30-40 mins before they called an early intermission to access the ice and decided to stop the show." The audience member also told us that the most serious falling occured during a West Side Story sequence - during the number "Somewhere" - during which two performers fell quite hard and decided not to finish the number.

"Luckily, it didn't look like anyone was injured..." the audience member advised us.

"They stopped the show right after "Le Jazz Hot" [from Victor/Victoria] making it seem like it was intermission when it wasn't. After 15 minutes or so, they made the announcement that they were going to stop the show and that people can get refunds or exchange for the Dec 26 performance when the ice has been set better. They did call it an "experiment" and how they need to learn how to make ice better or something."

"I never been so afraid of watching ice skating before with all the falling that was happening on stage. I am still glad they stopped before anything serious happened. "

ABOUT BLADES ON STAGE

Canada's finest skating artists are being brought from the ice rinks into the legitimate theatre. Elvis Stojko, Shae-Lynn Bourne, Violetta Afanasieva & Pete Dack are among the luminaries who will star in this brand new show specifically created for the Princess of Wales Theatre. The massive stage of this state-of-the-art theatre will be frozen to allow these world champions and Olympians to present their brilliant moves to an audience enjoying the comfort of a real theatre. They will be interpreting many of the standards of musical theatre, with a few holiday favourites thrown in. BLADES ON STAGE promises spectacular holiday entertainment for the whole family.

Tickets are on sale now at Mirvish.com. BLADES ON STAGE plays Toronto through Jan 4, 2015.

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