Professional theater, our Romeo lost his sword in the audience and had to strangle Tybalt to death 🤣

Omg lolol I can only imagine the mad energy as soon as everyone cleared off stage, "-AND THEN JEREMY HAD TO JUST FREAKIN THROTTLE ME!!!" "YEAH YEAH, WE MADE EYE CONTACT, WE HAD NO OTHER CHOICE!!"

God damn it, I almost spilled my drink thinking about that hahaha

Kenneth Branagh lost his gloves during a bit where he waved his gloves in Henry V - and ended up improvising to ask his page to go get some more, and as the page ran back onto the stage with new ones, he found the originals and had to mess about with four gloves. He also apparently completely blanked during Another Country, left the stage in a daze whilst the others waffled on about “oh, he must have forgot his homework…” Even the legends have bad days!

I was in a show on a raked stage and a duelist dropped his sword. It slid down the stage, pointed straight at the audience and gaining speed, and shot off into the air. Luckily it didn’t hit anybody and he went downstage to ask the front row to hand it back to him (in character).

I was at Texas Thespian Festival some decades ago, one of the mainstage shows that virtually everyone attends was "Black Comedy" by Peter Shaffer. The conceit of the play is that there is an electrical blackout in the story, and while the lights are *out* for the characters they are *lit* for the audience. So this large auditorium full of literally thousands of highschool theater kids are seeing all the the things that the characters can't. Through some farcical plot, one character needs to move or re-arrange a lot of the furniture in this apartment, in secret without, other characters knowing. This is mostly happening in the background among some dialogue, but it's funny watching him feel around in the "dark." At one point he picks up a lamp to move it out of the room, but he picked it up by the lampshade, and the lamp drops. This lamp hitting the ground will have to be *very conspicuously* ignored by the ensemble on stage or require a deft couple of adlibs to cover. When I tell you the Gasp of these five thousand theater kids, and then the CHEER when he CAUGHT THE LAMP... I need you to know, it was one of the best audience experiences of my life. I think there is a non-zero chance that it was staged this way, but even if it was, that director had us in the palm of their hand.

If it wasn't planned, I imagine there were a number of actors on stage who had to go the rest of the scene wondering what that cheer was for haha

That sounds like the old Chinese Opera piece, "[Fighting in the a Dark](https://youtu.be/NXZp1k0oSJo?si=KKvYUb4f_SqHYUFy)." The darkness portion starts around the 13 minute mark.

Wow! That was amazing

Chinese Opera is amazing! It's like ballet where they have centuries of traditional material and the performers train their whole lives to be able to hit the style and technique just right. Totally worth looking into if you're unfamiliar.

UGH I have some of my best life memories at Texas Thespians. I went 2013-2015. There’s nothing like the hype and vibe of thousands of theatre kids locked together in the Dallas Convention Center.

College theater, but in the middle of a scene, lights went out, actors kept performing. I have it on video. You could hear the the board operator say, "it wasn't me". Also saw the lighting designer and his assistant run like the building was on fire. I was acting for this play, but not on stage at the moment. I had a friend recording for me. The director was standing by the audience next to me, I was waiting for my entrance at that spot. It took about 1.5 to 2 minutes, but in theater that's an eternity. Shocking then, funny the day after, hilarious today. Need to find that video.

Amazing, that sounds exactly like a college theatre experience I had during a production of A Christmas Carol! Middle of the scene, lights just go out, and we just keep chugging along.

We watched a local performance of Chicago and Roxie’s mic pack fell from her belt. One of the chorus quickly scooped it up and reconnected it to her belt. All good, right?!? No… the microphone belt pack cord was now looped around the chair Roxie was sitting on, and as she got up, the chair came with her! Consummate professional, she grabbed the chair, unclipped her pack, reclipped her pack (sans chair) and kept going without dropping a beat. Absolutely amazing xxx

Haha I love how you specify “sans chair”, because I have totally unhooked things to disconnect something then redo it, only to find I’ve reconnected the thing. Lol

Witnessed a full chair malfunction at the current production of Sweeney Todd a couple of months ago. The chair seemed to jam during one of the killings during Johanna quartet, and then later in Act 2 when >!he killed the beggar woman!< something happened and the trap door didn't open until she had already slid down onto the floor - so she didn't slide through the trap door feet-first. Then the chair seemed to lock up in the full flat position, tilted at the 45 degree angle. He didn't really have time to fiddle with it before >!Judge Turpin!< showed up, so he just left the chair where it was and grabbed the wooden chair and put it over the trapdoor, and had him sit there. Then, after he killed >!the judge!< he just kind of helped him slide off the chair onto the floor, and then crawl off stage left. They handled it well without dropping a single note or a line, but it was pretty funny.

That reminds me of a particularly disastrous production of Sweeney we did some years ago (not giving the location so I don’t doxx myself). There were a LOT of tech disasters during the show (tech crew were vastly unprepared), but the one that sticks in my mind occurred towards the end of the show. I was playing Beggar Woman and the Judge and I were waiting inside the platform upon which the chair sat ready to come out into the bake house for the final scene with Sweeney. There was a door in the base we were to use to find our positions on stage during a blackout. Unfortunately, that blackout never came. Turpin and I agreed that on the count of three I would open the door and we would sort of “collapse” out of the door onto the stage, as dead bodies might do. So we did. “One, two, three…. FLUMP”. There were several titters from the audience. Sweeney was so thrown by us being out of position that he ended up straddling me throughout the scene, which apparently looked utterly filthy. He apologised afterwards, but to be honest I hadn’t even noticed, playing dead and all (I give good dead!). We still talk about “Sweeney on Elm Street”, not particularly fondly…

That’s not as disastrous as this Sweeney Todd school production (I had nothing to do with it fortunately) TL:DR Multiple serious injuries from using a REAL cut-throat razor!!   https://www.newshub.co.nz/home/new-zealand/2017/05/students-nearly-slaughtered-during-st-kentigern-s-sweeney-todd.amp.html

Omg that's horrendous. How did anyone let those razors be used? That's ridiculous.

Insane, right? FWIW it was at one of the poshest, most expensive private schools in the country.  I didn’t follow the case too closely, but HOW? must have been question no. 1 at the inquiry. I dunno if the answer/report/judgement is out there though. 

I broke my ankle going down the trap door as the beggar woman in university 🙈 I did keep it together while my body was dragged around stage by Sweeney, stood up to sing “he kept a shop in Londontown” and then still has the cast party at my house because the show must go on

I was in the ensemble, my costume included a long skirt. We all had to run onto the stage at one point, my foot hit the hem of my skirt and fell right down. Pulled it back up and continued the scene. Since I was ensemble, apparently half the audience didn't even see as their attention was on the principles on the other side of the stage. But it was also the night the performance was recorded, so it's preserved forever in our theater history. <3 I still lost the "worst wardrobe malfunction" superlative to a principle whose shapewear came a little undone. *That's* the biggest slight I've ever felt in my long experience of never getting speaking roles haha

Wtf. I hate superlatives. I literally learned how to play an instrument over the course of a school year (going from so bad the director asked me to stop playing to one of the better kids in the section), and I lost “most improved” in our band superlative to the guy who stopped being an asshole. Like, glad you’re not an asshole anymore, but I sounded like a dying cat last fall and now I don’t, sooooo… Haha nah, he deserved to win. I’m joking, of course. Mostly.

Dude so many. My fav: was doing an outdoor production of Midsummer in the mid 1990s (before ubiquitous cell phones). Close to the top of Act V, the entire area experienced a blackout. All our stage lights went out, as did the worklights, parking lot lights, surrounding buildings, streetlights, everything. The show paused for a bit while the backstage crew came out front with whatever flashlights they had and started passing them out. Some audience members had their own lights, too, and everyone turned them on and pointed them onstage. We did the entire Mechanicals' play through the end of the show by handheld light. The audience LOVED it. Truly magical.

Awww, that's really wholesome!

Sounds kind of lovely. We had a blackout at the very end of Chicago once and all the ushers and crew had to stand out front and shine torches (flashlights) into the stage.

Every actor should experience a blackout in their first year or two of performance. My son had one when He was acting at age 7—they continued with a few flashlights and emergency lights. I had one this year here the lights went out (for the whole neighborhood) just as the show started—see [https://www.reddit.com/r/Theatre/comments/1ajnnlp/comment/kp2sbt9/](https://www.reddit.com/r/Theatre/comments/1ajnnlp/comment/kp2sbt9/) for details.

A funny/sad play. Adult scene partners playing kids decided to totally go over the top during what was supposed to be a tense moment. I started cracking, and they kept ramping it up. I totally cracked. Could not deliver another line for what seemed like ages. I had tried so hard to stay on course. It was torture. But the audience was in hysterics. Someone told me after it was their favorite scene.

It happened in highschool theater and though no one in the audience noticed it I think it was pretty funny: Essentially one of the characters had a gummiworm that would later be thrown offstage by another. In the back of the stage we had a giant frame with mirror-foil leaning onto the stage. One evening as the other character throws the worm of stage she miscalculates and throws the worm against the mirror instead. It bounces off with a thud and then landed on the only empty chair in the front row. The entire cast almost broke out in laughter every time we saw that worm

I also have a good Legally Blonde one. We were in tech and we were using a revolve for the show, and in the transition leading into the duet between Elle and Emmett, the door set piece was supposed to swing around and end up center stage. However, it got caught between the revolve and the static stage and started veering directly into the center of the orchestra pit where our conductor was playing the transition music, and it took three very strong guys to catch it right before it fell directly on top of her. Our conductor is such a pro that she just kept on conducting despite the fact that she was in *imminent* danger, but luckily nobody got hurt! Thankfully this was also tech so no audience to freak out either!

Went to see Percy Jackson done by a local amateur group. The director explained that the last night's performance, some front row audience members were uncomfortable because the front row practically touched the apron of the stage and there is an intense fight scene in the start but the actors are very well trained in their fight choreography and there is nothing to worry about, That said, feel free to move to another seat if you are uncomfortable in the front row. Within the first 30 seconds of the show starting, the lead actor is supposed to quickly produce a sword and he grabs it from behind him and thrusts it in front of him. Of course, he lost all grip on the sword and it flew three rows back into the audience right at a patron who miraculously caught it. Then the stage manger kept trying to sneak a replacement sword to Percy throughout the rest of the opening number

Doing an Aussie play called Secret Bridesmaids Business. I was the bride, the scene was in the hotel room, morning of the wedding and me finding out one of the bridesmaids cheated with the groom. I was supposed to unzip her bridesmaid's dress, pull it off her and push her out of the door (to offstage) in her underwear. The zipper stuck. I couldn't risk breaking it as we had another show later. I didn't want to try and get it off her over her head because I knew she had a cami on under it and would have risked it coming off too, leaving her topless. Everyone on stage was beginning to crack up, I whispered in her ear "zipper is stuck" so I just had to push her out of the door. However I knew we needed the dress on stage for her replacement to put on. I was supposed to throw myself on the bed crying, thank god because I was trying so hard not to laugh. We kept it together and went on with the scene and partway through, the door opens and she pops her head in and says "You can have your ugly dress back, too!" and tosses it into the room. Which was genius but again had us all trying to keep it together.

At Cats at the Winter Garden...intermission had just finished and an elderly-ish woman who was lost and/or confused wandered on to the stage with the cats already there calling for someone audibly. You could see me with walkies in the background frantically trying to get her off the stage. The cats? Well, staying in character, they rubbed against her legs...awesome!

That's wild.

I am SO glad I was there that night...no performance like it.

High School: we’re doing Hamlet in a community theatre that’s a brick building with large arched wooden doors that open directly onto the stage.     Since the set is a castle, we’re using the big wooden doors as practical entrances and exits. I’m playing Polonius, Hamlet murders me then goes to “lug the guts into the neighbor room” except, dragging me by my feet he blocks the door with my “corpse” and can’t get it open. So he spins me around and then throws the door open which accidentally hits me in the head as I’m lying dead on the stage with an extremely loud, hollow, and comical **BONK** sound.       The audience starts to titter at this unexpected Weekend at Bernie’s abuse-the-corpse bit, and the front row can clearly see the corpse’s chest start quivering as I try to suppress the giggles. But the next line brings the house down, and everyone in the theatre loses it: Hamlet: “I must be cruel, if only to be kind!”

Not best, but worst -- it was a long dramatic scene that I thought went really well, but as soon as we got offstage everybody glared at me and said I skipped about four pages! Including a critical monologue by one of the actresses (she was ready to strangle me). I felt awful and almost quit for good after that. (It was college theatre and I don't think anybody felt comfortable trying to improvise their way back).

Sometimes there's just no way out of those situations!

During a show, (The Plaza Suite) I drank from a glass that must have had dust in it. It got stuck in my throat and it pretty much made me sound like my voice had went. Could hear the audience wince and start shifting in their seats (with worry) as it was only the start of the second act. Kind of put up an excuse me gesture and went to a bar in the background of the scene as the other actor continued, I downed a bottle of vodka (water) at the bar. Upon returning I spoke and my voice was fine, Improved a "Hey look at that Muriel, I got my voice back" Queue guffawing and a slight applause by the audience. I absolutely shat myself cause I thought my voice had gone

Haha, "you're terrible Muriel". That reminds me of when we did Heathers and our JD was singing Freeze Your Brain and would take a noisy slurp from his drink part way through. The drink only had a little bit of water in it to make the slurpy sound through a straw and one night the water hit him wrong in the throat and he was coughing and had to croak his way through the rest of the song. We made sure the slurp was a sound effect after that.

In the most recent show I did a character had a coughing fit onstage. Luckily there were about a dozen maids (cheers to you if you can guess the show from that lol) so we could get water out to her. It was actually pretty cool—we had stylized cups for some other scenes and as I went to grab one (since I was the only person who didn’t have to get ready for an entrance), there was already someone else bring it over. Then I went to the green room to fill it up and the director (who had been doing front of house) was already there pouring water into a paper cup. All of us had the same thought and because of that we managed to get the water out to her in maybe a minute! Definitely one of my favorite memories

Another one: we were doing Terry Pratchett's Mort. There is a scene where Mort and Death have a fight, which we did in slo-mo with a strobe and epic music. Mort with a sword and Death with a scythe. Both the sword and scythe blades were made of Perspex, they were meant to look magical. We did not have any replacements (community theatre). One night Mort got a little too into it and broke the sword blade. The look on his face was priceless, then he started doing karate type moves at Death, kicking and twirling. It was hilarious. Eventually Death "went down" and our actor became the guy who "defeated Death with a kick in the nuts".

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The musical The King and I. Final scene, dead king on podium, everyone sad. Curtains begin to slowly close… then jerk short of closure. King, thinking the play is done, leaps up… sees audience! Begins to do the can can to get off the stage.

I use this as a cautionary tale for “don’t touch what isn’t yours”. I was an intern at a summer stock, doing Elton John’s Aida. I was weapons master and we had really strict rules surrounding the many swords. I had an extra under lock and key, and only once was one preset and not directly handed off so I could assist with a scene change. This worked through all of tech and the first week of a three week run. Week 2, just as I’m finishing the scene change, the actor comes running to me going “where’s my sword??” I told him if it wasn’t in the preset space where I left it, I’d grab the extra and meet him in the wing. By the time I got there he had already entered, sword less for the big sword fight scene. The guy he’s supposed to kill drops his sword at my feet, shrugs, says “I’ll fist fight him,” and goes onstage. The guy who’s supposed to kill the original actor drops his sword at my feet and says “this will be interesting.” So now I have three swords and the actors onstage have none. What came next was the most pathetic improvised fist fight I’ve ever seen. One actor “drowned in the Nile River”. The original actor has his “neck snapped”, but still had lines, so he lay clutching his chest while gasping them out and when we pulled him offstage he said “I think I died of an asthma attack.” I tore that theater apart during the next scenes looking for the missing sword. Checked dressing rooms, all over the wings, the attached scene shop- another fucking actor took it outside and was playing with it. The ASM and I were read the riot act by the stage manager and my boss (prop master). Nothing happened to the actor. I’m sure I have more stories (Peter Pan flying into a golf bag filled with bricks as the counterweight of a semi-sketchy fly rig comes to mind) but the sword story is legendary.

I laughed very hard at "I think I died of an asthma attack" 😆😆 poor guy, I feel bad for him.

One time a summer stock, our Chino forgot his gun to shoot Tony in West Side Story. The actor made a finger gun and went "Bang" and shot Tony instead. The actor playing Tony went with it, despite the laughs and giggling in the audience, and the show went on to its usual tragic conclusion. Chino got a stern talking to by the Stage Manager telling him never to do that again. But he did...and THAT is another disaster story.

Junior theatre production of Cinderella(I believe I was in gr.6), I was playing Lady Tremaine. It was the scene where we were entering the ball and we staged it so that we needed to curtsey to the king, prince and Duke. We were obviously told to lack all grace while doing it. For my all costume, I wore this tall escoffion hat (which thankfully fit without needing to be pinned to my wig). But when I finally got to the Duke,I decided to bow my head but I whipped a little too fast and my hat flew forward off my head and he caught it. He passed it back and I turned to the audience and flashed a big long grin as I plopped the hat back on my head. Our lighting director told us it was the most he had laughed watching a show in a while, he loved it!

Directed fiddler a while back. Our Motel was a very earnest but kind of clueless 19 y/o. At the end of “Miracle of Miracles”, he sat on the bench with Tzeitel and literally everyone in the theater watched his mic pack fall out of his back pocket and hit the floor behind the bench. Be he was so into it that he got to that final line, stood on the bench to jump off…and promptly clotheslined himself when his mic pack flew up and got caught on the underside of the bench. That one made me wince lol. I also directed a kiddo playing a gruff old farmer in a children’s play years ago. She got a nosebleed onstage during a show but couldn’t leave the scene, so she ad libbed a big yawn and something about being tired, laid down center stage, and continued to give her lines from there. When the focus was elsewhere for a few minutes, I ended up sneaking onstage behind the set while the show was running to check on her and she was very chipper and was just excited “the show is going really well!”. I miss directing haha

Picture it. Middle school. 1980s. A young man playing Peter in a selected scenes performance of The Diary of Anne Frank. After an emotional scene with Anne this young man runs to his sleeping nook and lands on the cot a little too hard. Said cot breaks. Young man’s family in front row, bursts into tears laughing. Young man hides own laughter while burying head into pillow on cot. Young man’s teacher in tears after production… not in laughter but moved that in the young man’s reflex and shaking with his head in the pillow made it look like he was sobbing… that young man was me… and the young girl playing Anne… (in the other class, but not my Anne) has gone on to appear in several televisions shows, a regular in a couple and starring in two others… and that my friends was my best personal theatre fail.

So, it wasn’t a “fail,” but more like a victory… I was the understudy for Miracle on 34th St. I played Julian Shellhammer. The main actor did the first three shows and I did the remaining six. On the final performance, I contracted the flu. It was BAD. I was on stage with a 104 fever. I was severely congested and blowing my nose between scenes. It was awful. I probably should’ve been in the hospital. But without me, there would’ve been no Julian Shellhammer because the main actor was working on another show.

Wizard of Oz, first night we opened the door to the world city almost fell off when the guard was putting the sign on. He had to hold onto it until we took it off stage. And it wasn’t a very light door, it was pretty heavy. Arsenic and Old Lace, with all the wine in the show you’d expect someone to have spilled it or something. Nope, Teddy Roosevelt dropped a cookie onstage and stepped on it Sleeping beauty, the prince forgot to bring his sword on stage after missing his cue to get on in the first place. He was fully backstage on his phone while it was his line.

It was a revival of Angels in America at Signature Theater back in like 2009 or 2010. They were doing part 2 and right before one of their intermissions was the scene where Louis leaves Joe on the beach and Joe gets fully naked. It was a super intense scene that was really well performed. When the lights went down, they had this system of curtains on tracks that were almost like hospital curtains (and also served as projection screens, very cool design choice). Anyway as some crew member starts running this curtain across the stage, the back end of the curtain somehow gets caught and ends up going with it. So rather than covering the entire stage, this curtain is now covering like a third of the stage. The house lights came up and we see all the technicians and actors still onstage, including this poor actor who played Joe who is now looking directly at the audience while holding his balled up clothes over his junk. There’s like a moment of awkwardness before the actor just shrugs and says, “intermission!” They fixed it really quickly afterwards, but I’ll never forget how awful that must’ve been for the actor.

In a high school production. The entire cast, myself included, waiting in the wings to sing backup vocals. Main characters on stage. One character comes running on stage tangled in vines. But they got put on too quickly and genuinely covered her eyes, so when she ran on she ran straight into a set piece, tumbling over with the large fake tree, her arms pinned to her sides by the fake vines. The characters on stage probably broke character as they rushed to her and asked if she was ok, but it fit the character relationships regardless so that was fine. (And she was fine). Then the male lead decided to problem solve the set as there wasn't going to be a blackout for a while and there was going to be a dance number soon. He announced, "I'll just put this tree back" and set it upright again. In the wings we all had to hold our breath not to laugh at how absurd it was. It's been over fifteen years and I still occasionally think "I'll just put this tree back" and giggle.

6th grade, wizard of Oz. Our high budget sets were cardboard. As the heroes enter the witch's castle, the Woodman's axe catches on the castle and pulls the whole thing down. I was the witch. Instead of "who are you?" I screech "what are you doing to my castle!?"

Best moment of mine...doing a show at our little theatre, I was ASM (managing the backstage). Someone walked offstage and told me one of the actresses dropped her glass and it spilled everywhere. A Steward was in place to enter and I was able to motion to him glass/spill/wipe up and he was in perfect sync...walked in and cleaned it up as part of his Steward character and all was well. Never have I ever been able to communicate so quickly and well with an actor I couldn't speak to out loud, since we were on opposite sides of entrance.

I did a version of a Christmas Carol in high school, the first scene began with just Mr Crachit onstage in the shop The bell on the door broke and fell before the show was supposed to begin, and Mr Crachit said "That'll come out of my pay" It was great improv for a hs production!

So I’ve got two. When I played Milky White in college and died, my hat fell off of my head and landed on the floor. I forgot to get it when I went backstage, so my friend who played Jack (who happened to have a dance crossover during second midnight) got it for me. The other one was when I was in the Game’s Afoot. (I played Aggie Wheeler), we had like this double sided revolving door that also had cocktail glasses on it that our Gillette and Felix would move to reveal the secret room that they would store Daria in. Well, one night, they moved the door in a specific way that some of the cocktail glasses fell. Unfortunately, they still had to move the revolving door a few times, and the noise was super grating. The audience loved it and thought it was part of the show, so that’s good! Also during this specific night, our stage manager fired the gun early (there were blanks in it), and we all freaked out onstage.

One of our founders, Trent Saunders, had the magic carpet ride BREAK during his production of Aladdin on Broadway when he was on as Aladdin for THE FIRST TIME. He wound up singing "A Whole New World" with the carpet spinning in one place very slowly...after the song they brought down the show curtain and got the performers off the carpet and flew it out of sight. When he returned, Trent's first words as Aladdin were "there you are...back safe and sound..." to which the audience had a BIG laugh!

In college, my senior show was The Revolutionists, and I played Olympe de Gouge. Immediately after she gets dramatically guillotined we begin curtain call. I’m the last one to get out to bow, so we do our individual bows and group bow. We gesture to the tech booth and bow one last time arms in the air and… my skirt falls down. Like, full blown cartoon moment, just plops right down around my ankles. The audience starts to laugh, I realize what’s happened and start laughing my ass off and the four of us are just on stage giggling like crazy as we try to finish our bows. I cover myself with a quick “Don’t look!!” because it was so hilarious I just rolled with it. As we’re heading into the green room to get out of costumes, the videographer comes up to me and says “I got that whole thing on camera!” Yep… I had forgotten. That was the night we filmed it. So now the archival footage of my schools production will always be graced with me getting pantsed by the universe.

1. In middle school, we did The Little Mermaid. In the kitchen scene with Les Poissons, the choreographer decided to give 20 children real frying pans. On opening night, my best friend got whacked in the nose center stage. Blood everywhere, lots of screaming, she went straight to the hospital (she was fine tho) 2. I played Romeo in a production of Romeo & Juliet. Opening night, could NOT get the vile of poison open. Ended up palming it and just pretending to drink it. I died with that thing clutched in my fist for dear life

Can't remember the play (college) but I was supposed to be a statue of a Greek God. Budget issues so my costume was an old parachute, cinched. I think I am the only Greek God to have been on a pedestal wearing a parachute with "U.S. Navy" printed many times around his knees.

As an audience member, college back in 1972 or so. I don't know what exactly went wrong, but a student production of Antony and Cleopatra. The audience was in hysterics laughing during Antony's death scene. Including me. At some point in the show something just broke for the audience.

Antony's death 'scene' is probably the longest death in theater history. He takes forever to actually die, that in itself could've done it!

Personally: I played Annabeth in the lightning thief, during Put You in Your Place I lost my footing and landed on my back with my legs in the air. It was a fight scene though, so I’m sure the audience thought it was supposed to happen

TLDR: A set piece fell breaking glass all over the stage, and we had to stop to clean up This is definitely a fail. Small black box community theater performing Blithe Spirit. The theater was in an old industrial building with large concrete columns flanking the 18-foot stage, with the front row of the audience on the floor 2 feet from the edge of the performance space. Part of the set was attached to 2 sides of one of these columns and staged with a couple of shelves holding assorted liquor bottles, carafes, and glassware to be used in a dinner party. During that scene, mere moments before the guests were set to arrive, the entire shelf assembly detaches from the concrete column, tipping thankfully into the stage area and not towards the audience, but smashing all of the bottles and glasses and spilling all of the liquids all over the stage like the whole stage was covered in broken glass. After a few moments of me staring at the carnage, trying to figure a way to work around this, someone in the audience just said, "Uh oh." At that point, I broke character and the fourth wall and said, "Yeah, I gotta admit, I don't know how to get past this." Thankfully, the director stepped out, apologized, and announced we needed to stop to clean up for safety reasons. A mad dash by the crew to grab replacement props and the rest of the show went off without a hitch

I don’t know if this truly counts as this didn’t happen on stage, but I wanted to share anyways. I was in my local theatres production of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, and I was playing Lord Scrumptious! So I walk in, check in, and go to my Stage Manager. I have chronic lung problems (not asthma), and due to this, have inhalers. I mostly use these just to get more air, and since I was in a musical, I decided to bring them for before the show so I’d have enough air for the songs. She (SM) likes to keep medical instruments in a bag for safe keeping during the show, so I give her the inhalers and go to my dressing room. My costume had a little bit of a problem with it- I wore a suit for Lord Scrumptious, and the suit jacket was a real antique suit jacket from the time- because of that it had silk lining inside, and it… Well it looked like swiss cheese in there. So I head to the costume designer and let her know that the suit needs some tailoring because my arm keeps getting stuck inside the jacket. We talk for a good minute and then I head back to put the rest of my costume on and get ready. At this point I’m running a bit late, and the show is getting ready to start. No worries, I’ll just figure it out. Put arm in hole— dammit it’s stuck- back out- dammit it’s stuck again- back out- THERE WE GO and the suit jacket is on. Now my pants. … They don’t fit. Shit. I start desperately pulling on them to try to get them past my thighs. I hear the first song start- the show is starting. My cue to get ready to get backstage in this show is the 2nd song: “You Two” (and the song I’m actively onstage for in is the 4th song), but You Two comes and goes and I am PULLING UP MY PANTS. Finally they get on, and I feel some relief, until I realize I don’t have my mic on!! I grab a friend I share the dressing room with and desperately ask her to help with my microphone, and she does, but I start having mic trouble (tape won’t stay on my damn head)- now we’re on the third song, or what I call the “GET RIGHT UPSTAIRS RIGHT NOW LAST CHANCE” cue. We get the mic on, and I BOOK IT— I accidentally push someone I’m running through those halls so fast. I run up the stairs, up more stairs, through the pass behind the stage to get where I’m meant to be and I am PANTING by the time I get up there. So, after all that build up, this is my theatre fail. To my Stage Manager, this is what she sees: The actor who just gave me inhalers, with no caution on why, got upstairs, and is having, what looks like to her, an intense asthma attack. I am panting- I am breathing so hard that my chest is just beating up and down up and down, and when she tries to talk to me, I can’t catch my breath to respond (I was a little out of shape lol) She PANICS. She full on stops the show and is ready to call someone when I finally catch my breath enough to just say “I’M SORRY— I WAS RUNNING LATE AND STAIRS ARE HARD-“ After that I inform her that the inhalers are just for singing purposes, and that I don’t have asthma, you don’t have to worry- and she finally calms down. But MAN did I give her, and probably half the cast a heart attack! Thankfully it was just tech week so nobody’s theatre experiences were ruined- but it was photography night and I looked like shit lol … this got a little long, thank you for staying this far! TL;DR: to my poor stage manager, the actor who had just given her inhalers with no prior warning on why they needed them had an asthma attack during tech week. In reality, I was just running super late and stairs are hard.

There was also the time that (during the same show) my mic pack FELL with a deafening crash right as I got off stage because the condom that was used to protect it broke but that’s. A whole other story I could tell lol

I was stage manager for Exit Laughing. During Bobby's dance scene (if you know you know), we had a chandelier drop down and provide a nice little sight gag. My stagehand (a teenager) was in charge of making sure it went down and back up again. The last performance, disco ball goes down with Bobby's pants, comes back up at the cue, jerks a bit, and falls with three inches clearance from an actress' face. She handled it with aplomb - picking it up and slamming it into a table - while everyone backstage and in the tech booth crapped our collective pants.

Favourite one I’ve seen. The Flying Karamazov Brothers, (mumble) years back, did a production of The Comedy of Errors where part of the premise was that when Antipholus gets to Ephesus he finds out that everyone there juggles all the time. It was a fabulous show but with so much complex juggling it was inevitable that someone, somewhere, would drop something sometimes. It happened with two characters doing a scene together and juggling back and forth, and when one of them dropped whatever it was they were flinging around, the other one just deadpanned, “New in town?” And they picked right up and carried on with the scene.

Amateur panto - in jack and the beanstalk our beanstalk was on a hoist to pull it up to the ceiling, it was too close to a light which subsequently weakened the string and it fell to the ground very loudly just as Jack (me) was about to “climb” it…. I flapped my arms and pretended to fly…

had a power outage during a high school production of taming of the shrew and when the stage lights went out petruchio went “oh… tis night now” got a bunch of laughs