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 Posted: Tue Oct 26, 2004 6:44 pm
C'mon, everyone's had a painful theatre experience. Either a really bad show you've seen, or a REALLY bad one you've been in - spill.
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Posted: Tue Oct 26, 2004 6:48 pm
Hey, it's my thread, I'll go first.
The worst show I've ever been in was my college's production of "The Good Person of Szechwan" - the show CUT was about 3 hours and our director reworded about half the script. There's a scene at the end where the gods leave through a pink cloud (it's actually in the script), and our pink cloud had a door. Figures someone forgot to latch it from the back, and the door opened during the show, as the cloud was flying out. Worse yet, it got stuck on the way out. To top it off, for the 3 parts of the gods, we went through 6 different people, some of whom played the parts of all 3 gods at some point during the rehearsal. *Shudders* I don't like thinkinng about that show... sweatdrop
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Posted: Tue Oct 26, 2004 6:50 pm
A really bad one I've seen: Forever Plaid
A boy's group from the 1960's which died in a car crash comes back for one night to perform their show. Good music, horrible characters, awful jokes.
A really bad one I've been in: The Music Man
Normally a good show, but you have to have singers as well as actors. I played Mayor Shinn and Marian and I were the two most active on the stage. Our quartet was absolutely horrible.
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Posted: Tue Oct 26, 2004 6:52 pm
Worst Show I've ever seen= "1776"
Only show I have ever fallen asleep at.
Worst Show I've ever BEEN in= "Damn Yankees" and/or "Once Upon a Mattress"
Let me explain. You would are going by the show itself (as in the script, songs, characters, etc.) then that for me would have to be "Damn Yankees." I just don't like it. End.
If you go by the way it was staged when I did it, then it's "Once Upon a Mattress." I really liked the story and music from it, but the director had no vision! The sets were dull, the costumes sucked, and there was no life to it. The ensemble LITERALLY would come on stage, stand in the same spot, sing, and leave. It was retarded!
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WickedElphie Vice Captain
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Posted: Tue Oct 26, 2004 6:55 pm
Alice in Wonderland, it was the last showing we did and it was horrible. The person in the light booth messed up the cues and I got caught onstage when there was supposed to be a black out, part of the set fell apart, and the worst was when the crew was trying to lower a wall and ended up ripping the stage curtain. Pretty bad...
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Posted: Tue Oct 26, 2004 7:39 pm
Worst I saw: Joseph.
Usually this is a pretty awesome show. The year before I saw the absolutely horrible version, I was in Joseph, and it was bundles of fun. However. As part of a theatre camp, we go to a dinner theatre to see a show. It was a theatre in the round, which I actually like. Unfortunately, it wasn't blocked for being in the round. Not only that, but someone decided to use recorded music instead of a live orchestra. Bad idea. It skipped, and the narrator - who had a beautiful voice, but was a rather large lady they put in a red sequin vest and suit - was absolutely lost half the time. There was one dancer who was good - the others didn't sing and didn't know their choreography. It was horrible.
The worst one I was in (not counting the ones at my old school because I really couldn't choose) would probably be 42nd Street. I really liked the show, and it was tons of fun, but my director did not expect it to be as hard to put on as it was. The day before our preview, we had blocked about half of Act II. If anyone knows the show, there's a song called 'We're in the Money' that's sung by some really poor people. I was one of those people, but we didn't have time to get costumes for that. So I was wearing my ensemble costume - a nice, flower-patterned skirt, and a clean white shirt with pearls. >_<
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Posted: Tue Oct 26, 2004 8:51 pm
Thinocerous was my worst play. I was only tech, but still. Let me explain, the plot of the play is the townspeople turn into Rhinocerous.... not only that but we used baby powder to show the smoke the Rhinocerous kicked up, only to find out lead actor was allergic to abby power, and the set feel down during performances, and one of the actors split his pants on stage...
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Posted: Wed Oct 27, 2004 1:19 pm
I guess the worst I've seen was also a version of Joseph done in the round. Joseph was good, but they did use a tape and it wasn't really blocked well for being in the round. Worst part was all of the brothers getting lost on "Those Canaan Days" - my mom was sitting next to me, and they saw her tapping to the beat, took her as their conductor, and stared right at her the whole time. sweatdrop
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Posted: Wed Oct 27, 2004 2:30 pm
Seven Brides for Seven Brothers I went to see this at a neighboring school and it was the last performance, during one part it was like the Cart Crash in our Les Mis stressed it was so horrid, the cart they were in had the wheels moving at different times and it was obvious the wheels were cardboard xp The biggest flaw that I've seen was in our Les Mis The trap door was just an AC vent and wasn't capable of holding more than two pounds, but during the Innkeeper's song one person's foot went through it and later in the performance someone had to fix it, it was the CLAW!  ^Basic Idea
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Posted: Thu Nov 04, 2004 9:08 pm
during my schools performance of Chicago (non-musical version) alto of stuff happened, BAD STUFF.
Well, every 2nd night of ashow we ahve this thing called "The Techie Curse" and well, we cant help it, but EVERYTHING tech goes wrong. It was days ago but all i cna remember is that instead of a doorbell there was music, a randomd flashbang went off durign a scene. a dresser with alto of glass on it fell over, which knocked over a 14 foot flat, ALL DURING THE SHOW!
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Posted: Fri Nov 05, 2004 6:05 am
Yeah, Saturday performances have always been cursed. They're usually the worst show because everyone's tired from Friday and used up all their excitement.
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Posted: Fri Nov 05, 2004 8:25 am
DispatchNA Yeah, Saturday performances have always been cursed. They're usually the worst show because everyone's tired from Friday and used up all their excitement. I've always found Friday to be the worst. Thursday's usually opening night and the adrenaline's rushing for finally opening. Saturday's usually closing night and the adrenaline's rushing because you want to leave the audience with a lasting memory.
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WickedElphie Vice Captain
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Posted: Fri Nov 05, 2004 8:31 am
I always found that our Thursday was the best overall.
Friday is the best with tech, but everyone is so nervious they don't give 100%.
On Saturday... ALL HELL BREAKS LOOSE!
And Sunday, usually no one cares anymore.
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Posted: Fri Nov 05, 2004 9:13 am
Pharaoh Ramases DispatchNA Yeah, Saturday performances have always been cursed. They're usually the worst show because everyone's tired from Friday and used up all their excitement. I've always found Friday to be the worst. Thursday's usually opening night and the adrenaline's rushing for finally opening. Saturday's usually closing night and the adrenaline's rushing because you want to leave the audience with a lasting memory. Thing is, this will be my first show with a Thursday night performance. In middle school, we just had Friday, Saturday and sunday performances. So I don't know what'll happen.
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Posted: Sat Nov 06, 2004 10:10 am
The worst show I've been in was Pirates of Penzance. It was horrific. Microphones shut off spontaniously, people forgot dances, things could be heard cashing down backstage. Scenery toppled over backwards and actors neglected to remove large props that they were responsible for (such as barrels) from the stage between scenes. The crew ended up having to do an unexpected black-out in order to remove the barrel and replace it with the bench that was origanally supposed to be on stage during that scene. We eventually recovered, but just barely. It was a vary painful experience.
Other various mishaps:
Wizard of Oz: A periactoid tower came crashing down on a Techie's leg
Footloose: The guy who played Ren was Tone-Deaf. Not one note was on pitch, or even in the right key for that matter
Romeo and Juliet: My partner and I spun when we should have walked into the circle and clapped during the Capulet party scene.
Romeo and Juliet: We finished up Tybalt's death scene and the lights went down. The curtain began to close for intermission and the music came on. Suddenly the music cut out. We stayed frozen as the curtain continued to close. The curtain was two-thirds of the way shut, then got caught on something. Apparently, the lack of music served as a cue to bring up the house lights as well as the stage lights. So, imagine the auditorium and the stage fully lit, and the cast standing frozen in front of a malfunctioning curtain with spuratic music in the background. Looking back, it was actually quite funny. However, since it just happened last night, it's still a bit of a painful memory.
But when all is said and done, I think these mistakes and variations make it fun to be an actor. You need the bad to be able to fully appreciate the good. Besides, mishaps make for great stories later on. biggrin
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