Excellent stories all. I have a few. I've seen a few.
Headers: Opening night of the revival of She Loves Me, Diane Fratantoni (sp?), Amalia, came out for her curtain call and went right off the stage - she was helped up and took her bow.
In my show, Stages, Linden Waddell was doing her big second act opening number, The Girl That Men Go Mad For. It was VERY dark (just a spot on her), the stage floor was completely black, and there was no glow tape on the edge of it. I was sitting in the back of the house and I could see she'd moved too far downstage. She made her cross to stage left and went right off the stage - the audience gasped, but I tell you that girl was up on her feet, climbed back up on the stage, found her light, without missing a lyric or a beat!
As for me -
My oft told Forget-Me-Not Lane story - it's a memory play, so frequently, John McMartin's character would have to sit and watch us young'uns reenact scenes from his youth. Bud Cort and I are doing our final Act Two scene, where we're twenty-one and haven't seen each other since we were sixteen. His character has grown up, changed, while mine hasn't. It's very awkward. At one point, Bud has a line, "I'm into Debussy now." After which, McMartin shakes his head and says, "Poor prig" commenting on his younger self's pompousness. Then Bud has more lines, as do I. So, Bud gets to his Debussy line, and speaks it. Silence. Silence. Our eyes both sort of veer over to McMartin, who has NODDED OFF. Bud doesn't know what to do, and I certainly can't bail him out. He sits there for the longest time and then, haltingly says, "Debussy.... He was quite a guy," really loud. McMartin's head snaps to and he finally says "Poor prig" and on we went.
There was another night in the same show where we had a really vociferous LAUGHER in a front row. Only this guy would always laugh just before the laugh line. Every single time. In my first big scene of the play, I've got all the laughs. And, just as I get to each of them, but before I actually say them, this guy guffaws as loudly as you've ever heard anyone guffaw. Other audience members start giggling because of the guffawing, and Bud and I are looking at each other, barely able to keep a straight face, and I'm sitting there delivering laugh lines that aren't getting the laughs because the buy is guffawing prior to them and no one is hearing the jokes. Bud and I finally lost it, and were just howling - trying to howl in character, of course. We got it together and got through the rest of the scene, and then laughed for twenty minutes backstage.
Finally, there was the time I was in a college theater class. We were all doing our Shakespeare speeches. As always, I was overtired, had learned mine very late, and wasn't all that prepared. I got up, struck a pose, and said, "Let ME play the fool." After which, I could not remember one other word. I started again. Same thing. Again. Same thing. I finally gave up the ghost and said, "Let ME play the fool. Play the fool ME. What kind of fool am I? Foolish me. Tra la la," and I skipped off the stage.
I put that incident in Stages.
