# my OMG story



## theatergeek123 (Sep 15, 2005)

Hey Everyone!

This is a story that I look back on and laugh, but when it was happening we were mortified!


3 years ago my middle school did Grease. During the cast party (before our first performance) someone shouted MacBeth into a microphone so everyone heard it. Later that night we had the show. I go on to do Greased Lightning and the CD doesn't work, its scratched. So we are doing all of this improv just to stall until they get a new CD. Of course, they don't have a CD, so it goes to a blackout. A different scene goes on. Then we go back on to try to do Greased Lighting one more time. It doesn't work, so we decide to sing acapello. Everyone laughs and claps for us. Then about 4 scenes later we are supposed to be singing "Look at me I'm Sandra D" and instead We Are Together comes on. So we sing We Are Together and make up a dance routine as we go along (we didnt have our partners on stage) That was the end of our horrors, but we had to end the play a full act short.

The second night, we go on to do Greased Lightning...again. Of course the CD that they had just burned didnt work either, so we were screwed again singing achapello. The rest of the show ran smoothely until the final scene where Sandra D trips and sprains her ankle. 

Thats my horror story!

~Mike


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## Foxinabox10 (Sep 15, 2005)

We had the power go out at the end of the first act of Footloose. We stalled by having the barbershop quartets singing and then finally decided to start the second act and not ten minutes in, the power comes back on, so we had to stop to let everything boot back up and everyone to find their microphone packs. Over the intercom comes "so and so is on 7, he switched with her, and he just picked up some random one." I couldn't believe actors thought they just pick up any microphone and it turns on. Haha.


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## theatergeek123 (Sep 15, 2005)

lol...that is worse than ours!


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## ricc0luke (Sep 15, 2005)

hehe... man... Grease... the last day at the community theatre we had 2 shows...

Just before the show begins, frenchie falls down the stairs... couldn't move her arm without crying... luckly, she survived the first performance amazing, and went to the ER where they shot her up with pain killers for the second show.

Our kiniki throws out his knee during greased lighting and can barely move it...

Our roger gets his foot caught when he stood up on a bench on stage and twisted his ankle when he jumped down...

Our Jan is throwing up between every scene, and it doesn't help that twinkies are her least favorite food...

And the last big thing was that this was during a week of 100+ weather and our air conditioners couldn't keep up... so we had 2 people backstage passing out from heat exhaustion and dehydration and such.....

And that was all for the 2:00pm show......

We were lucky the 7:30pm show went as well as it did.....


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## ricc0luke (Sep 15, 2005)

Oh, and I forgot to mention that half of the car fell apart... and the actors proceded to run over those parts durning the afternoon show...


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## Inaki2 (Sep 16, 2005)

Ly last show in High School was a musical version of "Midsummer's Night Dream". Now I probably won't remember everything that went wrong, but here are the highlights:

Smoke machine locks on and fills the whole place with fog.

1 Intellabeam shorted and melted part of the AC Distro (the lighting company had bypassed the fuses)

We had a power cut during a show

The night before closing night my console's EPROM decides to take a dump. I call the rental and they send me another console. I had a 48 Ch. Jands ESP, they send me a 24 Ch. one. So I put it in Wide mode, record 3 songs (while the people were waiting in line) and improvise 144 cues without a 2nd scene. Oh yeah, he director went on stage and told everyone we had technical issues but "Inaki is the man and will make a great show anyways"

Last night of the show I re-program it all in the new console. Halfway thru the show everything goes dark. After fumbling with the DMX adapter in my console for like 10mins because that seemed to be the issue the school's electrician notices someone has put the metal foot of their chair and damaged the DMX line. During all this time the stage is bathed by the 2 followspots as wide as they could get. Everyone sees the electrician on the balcony handing a dancer a new DMX line. The show finishes.


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## theatergeek123 (Sep 16, 2005)

wow...those are bad


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## kingfisher1 (Sep 17, 2005)

Inaki2 said:


> Ly last show in High School was a musical version of "Midsummer's Night Dream". Now I probably won't remember everything that went wrong, but here are the highlights:
> 
> It was a Mid Summers Nightmare Eh?


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## SketchyCroftPpl (Sep 25, 2005)

Ha ha wow ... we do a 5th grade show every year, and last year the 5th graders did macbeth. Dunno why it was choosen. Imagine 5th graders doing a summary of macbeth in 45 min. Yeah. It was bad enough just because of that. And then not to much stuff really went wrong. I mean some missed cues and all I guess. Thats a rather "good" story though. I know an actor or two who likes to try to screw with people and they almost say it or say mac or something like that. They get total hell for it though and its often kinda funny. Personally, I don't believe anything bad will happen and its just a word like any other.

~Nick


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## herr_highbrau (Nov 27, 2005)

*On the subject of Macbeth*

Well, I'm in the middle of Macbeth at the moment (Just had the tech rehersal) and I've been saying macbeth all the way through! I personally believe bad luck can be alleviated by good planning and profficiency in your chosen field. So to all those who believe in such superstision, I say...

Macbeth!  

(However, I do believe walking under a ladder is bad luck. Especially if you aren't wearing a safety helmet!  )


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## sandals1621 (Nov 27, 2005)

Lets See....
(dont know how many years ago... but a while) Doing some straight show, Lighting stikes power substation knocking out power to the theatre after 15 minutes we release the audience.

While Teching a tour, hurricane comes up the east coast, knocking out power and not a generator to be found.

While on a tour some kid with a knife in the audience finds my snake and cuts through it.
2K super trouper exploding it's lamp during the show causing me severe hearing loss (even to this day 7 years later) and breathing troubles, needless to say, went to the bus and didn't load out.
Truck not showing up to the show until 5 minutes after curtain.
400amp tie-in with only about 180amps being pulled at the time blows the fuse on the black leg, we loose 1/3 of the rig, and then everything else being the opto was plugged into the black leg.

And I know theres more, at this point theres not much that hasn't happened during/before or after a show


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## Mayhem (Nov 27, 2005)

Crusty Demons Australian Tour this year – Massive storm here in Perth causes the outdoor show to be postponed to the following night (lightening strikes in every direction around the speedway looked amazing) Not only did we have to pack up all the gear, but had to wait for the weather to clear to do most of it. A river of water was flowing down the track at a depth of about 2”. Two smoke machines got a nice flushing! The announcement caused some minor rioting in the crowd but nothing like the riot that happened after the show the following night. Great fun trying to collect up equipment whilst idiots are trying to steel it. Then the 30 minutes standing in the middle of the track trying to avoid being hit by bottles that were being thrown from the crowd.

Outdoor wedding a few years ago in a botanical garden (which is closed after 5pm, meaning that there were no grounds staff on, just us, catering staff and the guests). Twenty minutes before speeches, sprinkler system off to the right of where we were all set up went off wetting all the QI lights that I was using to uplight the trees bordering the area. Needles to say all power to these lights was shut off. Ten minutes before speeches, sprinkler system went of where we were set up causing us to dive for power switches and place rack covers on. By the time we had done this, all CD cases had about an inch of water in them. After managing to place the van in between our set up and two sprinkler jets and plant pots over the others, we opened up dried off all of the gear and were ready to start some music. Unfortunately, almost all of the guests had left. The park blamed an electrician who had been working there for not resetting the timers after he had finished. They got a service bill from us as well.


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## saxman0317 (Apr 23, 2006)

*Re: On the subject of Macbeth*

well, we tend to do our cast/crew partys (seperate things!!) after the shows are over, considering that were always using that time to finish everything that we couldnt do before since the actors took over the stage and were not allowed to do much. But during a dance recital i was helping sound with at a different school we ended up having the firealarms going off. Total chaos, firemen, messes made...just not something that id want to go through again. Although, it does make me mad when actors refuse to wear their mics because "their good enough to not need them and con project perfectly well..."


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## kingfisher1 (Apr 24, 2006)

*Re: On the subject of Macbeth*

haha, grease. just finished a run of that show,

Danny dropped thing ring he was about to give to sandy into the bowels of greased lightning, numeorus ad-libs followed.

grease lighting making it's entrace through the aduienc almost ran over my grand-father,

Danny, missed an entire scene due to an stupid stupid costume change, similar thinkgs occured before "freddy my love" more fantansitic ad libs. overall though every thing went seam less.

Now, my worst tech experience was when i managed to get a scene and a half ahead while subbing for a friend on the closing night of "Lost in Yonkers", yeahi don't talk about that, bad memories.


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