-) I just had my first experience with directing a full length show. I am a junior at Newberry College (Winter 1999), in SC, and I was given the opportunity to student direct the Winter Production. I picked the play "Five Tellers Dancing in the Rain" by Mark Dunn. Well, we were almost done with a hectic run. We had to compete with rude college audiences and had a few technical problems, but they were all minor compared to closing night!!! I was sitting in the audience, in joing their respons to the show. It is a comedy and they were laughing where appropriate and they seemed to be enjoying themselves. The show was going nicely, despite the fact that one of our audio technicians had neglected to show up, until the second to last scene of the show. One of the characters, Betina (played by Trisha McCullah) was trying to get the afternoon off, but to no avail. So, in a pout, she tromps off the the bathroom and slams the door. Suddenly the audience laughs upro! ariously. I was sitting to the side of the audience, and the sight lines block Trisha's exit for me, but apparently the audience thought that it was hilarious. I was confused, but not for long. A few lines later, Trisha was supposed to exit the bathroom, but she didn't. The wall was shaking slightly. Then, there was a knock from the inside of the bathroom door. There were two other actors on stage, one of them was on the phone. They looked at each other, and then the actor not on the phone went to the bathroom door and started to push on it. Apparently, Trisha had slammed the door too hard, and the latch had passed the stop and was stuck on the opposite side of the flat. The door was not going to open. So, in a marvel of ad-libbing (and a strange allusion to Noises Off) Trisha yells, "I'll just climb out the window." A moment later she comes tromping throught the front door of the bank (where the play was set). The audience, some realizing this was not planned, and! some not knowing, erupted with laughter. The scene finished. During the blackout and scene change, I an to the booth and told the Manager to hold the blackout, as I went to fix the door. The door had to open for an emotional exit in the last scene. Well, with screw driver in hand, I went to work. Unfortunetely, the actors did not realize we were holding, and the first few lines of the scene were played in the dark anyway, so they started the scene. I had very little time to remove the back of the knob and try to fix the latch. I had the two screws out, and the back of the door knob off, and I heard the lines leading up to the exit. I was moments away from fixing it when I heard the actress say her last line before the exit, and I heard her hurried foot steps coming my way----No time. She reaches for the knob, and if falls off in her hands!!! In a final moment of improv, she throws it across the stage and runs out the front door. The audience laughed and then the mo! ment was brought back to it's proper emotional. The scene went on, with me still in the bathroom. The lights faded, I ran to the fron to the house and before the lights came up again, the audience was on it's feet!!! They all appreciated the ad-libbing (if they realized it was there) and they rewarded the actors for it! -Kirk Seaman
-In the summer of 1995 the drama departments of three local high schools got together to put on "Anything Goes". I liked it so much that I saw it a second time and took my youngest brother along. Shortly before the end of the first act, one of the school's fire alarms was pulled(as a prank) and the auditorium had to be evacuated for about twenty minutes while the entire school was searched. In the second act, when the revival meeting is being held, Reno asks for confessions. One of the sailors stands up and shouts, "I have a confession, I pulled the fire alarm!" The cast and the audience went wild, and it took a while to quiet so that Reno could go on and tell him to sit down. -Molly Marchand
-I was 14, and I was a chorus member of a high school production of GUYS AND DOLLS. During the show, as those familiar with the script will know, a mob of gangsters has to attend a prayer meeting at the "Save-A-Soul Mission." So the director had the entire chorus go on for the prayer meeting. And, he asked us all to make generic crowd noise as we came in, suggesting that we all mutter "hugger-mugger" or the like. I thought just saying "hugger-mugger" was a really boring idea. I wanted to come up with something clever and witty to say, just in case someone in the front row overheard me. Well, the set crew had had a lot of fun designing the Mission set -- there was a huge 6-foot portrait of Jesus walking on water, a huge banner reading "Jesus Saves," and the like. So I thought it would be great to walk on and say, "This is stupid -- what am I doing here? I'm Jewish!" The more I said it in rehearsal, the wittier I thought it was. And I went from planning it IN CASE someone in the front row heard me, to planning to say it TO MAKE SURE someone in the front row heard me. (Mind, I hadn't exactly informed the director I'd be doing this.) So on opening night, I walked in with the rest, took a breath, and clearly said, "What am I doing here? I'm Jewish?" And the people in the front heard me. So did the people in the back. So did the rest of the audience. So did the director, who was sitting in the back row. I hadn't intended on being quite that loud, so I was in a state of panic throughout the rest of the show, thinking the director was going to skin me alive. Instead, he came up to me after the show. "I heard what you said," he said. "Keep it in. The audience loved it." -Kimberly Wadsworth
-This happened to me in the summer of '97 during a run of Barnum at the Super Summer Theatre in Las Vegas. Being an outdoor stage we had plenty of technical and acting problems to overcome. The two best were the the night that the microphones had developed a definitive pop every few seconds whenever someone was talking. During one scene the actor playing Barnum started diving behind
other actors whenever a mic popped calling out "Snipers!" He also came up with some new lines on the night that an entire colony of moths decided to invade the stage. During most of the first act the crowd could not see the stage because of all the flying creatures. Barnums lines about "must be the worst snow storm of the century", "Cherry, I can't see you in this fog", and "Does anyone have a flyswatter?" went over very well.
-Earlednotty
-At the Moorpark Melodrama in Moorpark, Ca. I was in a production of "High Noon-ish", a spoof on the movie "High Noon". Being the bad guy I was going to be in the final quick-draw with the sheriff at the finale. From day-one, someone unknown put a large plastic water-pistol (shaped like an old Colt gun) on my dressing table with a note: "I dare you to use this!" Last night I decided to use the gun as a second "secret" gun after the first gun gets shot out of my hands. My big surprise was when the time came, I pulled the hidden water-pistol from my back to soak the heriff ...and HE pulled the same exact gun from HIS back. We got into an extended 'shoot-out' that the audience just ate up. That was fun!
-Chris C.
-Last semester at the College of New Rochelle, We were doing Steel Magnolias. There is one scene where Clairee is supposed to carry a tin of "pecan tassies" into the beauty shop. Well, I was assistant stage manager at the time, and i was watching from one of the wings during a performance. She walked in with the tassies, and anounced "My annual pecan tassies!" like she was supposed to, But the tin ended up flipping out of her hands and crashing to the floor. The tassies were everywhere. The entire cast was silent, then Clairee busts out with" Well, they're just bursting with goodness!" The audience died, I died, the director died, everyone died!, The same theater was spooked a year ago. The house lights came up during a heart-wrenching ballad for no apparent reason.-Cora
- A year ago I was a proformer in an outdoor drama. Anyone who has had the pleasure of working in one knows that you have to deal with the bugs and outside noises that can cause problems for the actors. In the particular show (which I would rather not reveal the name of) we had to deal with some neighbors of the ampitheater. They were throwing a huge and loud party and some of them were watching us through the trees. They were also drunk. During the first act this group of people were drowning out the actors. We were all very sick of them and the audience had become aware of them. We had just finished a battle, so one of the leading actresses, who was suppose to be a mean lady incorporated them into the scene as a group of celebrating soldiers. The cast and crew got a huge laugh out of it, and the audience did too. It made the situation easier. -Rhia
- I was trying out theatre for the first time and auditioned for student Directed one acts during my sophomore year at Temple High School. I was cast as a prostitute (Head of the House) named Goldie in Tennesee William's Hello From Bertha. My director needed to add some things to add time cause we were following UIL rules and it had to run a certain length. He decided to add a fight scene between myself and one of the other prostitutes, Bertha. Bertha was being played by a friend named Jessi who was a basketball player and a lot stronger than e. Each day in rehersal she would pummel me around stage like a rag doll and I would go home with new bruises every day. Well opening night I was so nervous and the fight came up. Earlier my shoes had turned up missing so I had to make a frantic dash to the costume room and couldn't find anything except for a pair a size too big. Jessi threw me to the ground and I was supposed to get up and rush her n the couch but I nev! er made it up. I couldn't get my footing and I flopped about on stage until Jessi finally had to slide me off stage. This was a beginning to a very happy theatre career. -Ashley Schmiedekamp
-I was prop coordinator, asm, and asst to the director this summer for "godspell" with a summer theatre group i do shows with. well we improved a lot for this show. we added some songs like "jesus loves me" and other stuff it was cool and the audience loved it. I mean you can't stick with the script when you have a cast of 44 for that show. during the "good samartian" story we made it like a 3-D movie, and we had the actors do fun stuff like the "priest" comes by she's saying "b5, n21, 054, etc.." and then one of the ensemble people yells out "BINGO", its soo much fun and we improved alot during the first act and part of the second, where it was approiate to do so. and yes they did change some of the improve during the show, like one night someone might say one thing and then the next they might say something else, so it was never the same each night! -Kayce
-I was the sound guy for Santa Susana's performance of "The Pajama Game!" some thing unexpected happend. If you have ever seen it you know there is a scene in the middle of a bar. Well we had two tables set up one for the main actors and one for a group of extras that are supposed to be drinking. Well while the leads do there thing all the sudden the second table starts to collapse and by the time the scene ended the table had fully collapsed. Well being that these kids are expert improvs they take the table peices and start a drunken fight and steals the whole seen! Needless to say the table and Actors where burnt to a crisp after words!!!!!!!!!!! --Casey Prout Santa Susana's Stage Tech
-Playing LUCY in "A Christmas Carol" at Master Arts Company in 1995 involved a theater built in a mall. So in order to get to entrances on the other side of the theater one had to exit a side door into the halls of the shopping mall. I had a wait between scenes, so I chated with the "Mall Santa". Every night he would ask me to trade places with him. He thought we were having more fun. Then he would ask what do you think would happen if I did do your scene? I thought it funny, small talk. So, on closing night, during one of the many street scenes with various people selling wares and shouting, the "Mall Santa" took a break from the mall and strolled through the streets of London and shook hands with Scrooge. The audience never knew that he wasn't part of the show. The director loved it. -Christine P. Carriveau
Links to other sites on the Web
send email to: 
© 1997
