Apparently my director went to see a production of West Side Story a few years ago, and the guy playing Chino forgot his gun before coming out for his final scene. Once it got to the big scene where he is supposed to shoot Tony, he screeched “Poison Boots” and kicked the actor playing Tony until he went down. The girl playing Maria then had to jerk the shoe off of Chino’s foot, and had to do the gunshot scene asking “How many kicks Chino? How many kicks, and one kick left for me”.
There should be a blog dedicated to theatrical urban legends. Like that opening weekend of Dracula where Dracula (still hungover) vomited all over the audience during the first stage direction that everyone has a friend of a friend that worked on the show and was there.
or the one where the bridge never came out for Javert’s suicide and so he just pretended to stab himself and then lay there until the lights went out
best story i heard was when a friend of mine saw a show where juliet forgot to bring the dagger out on stage so she just ripped the squib out of her chest and blood squirted everywhere
During a passion play a friend of my brother was supposedly in, one of the roman soldiers who was supposed to stab jesus on the cross and accidentally grabbed the wrong spear- he was supposed to grab one with a fake tip, but instead he grabbed one with an actual metal tip and, well
Jesus screamed “JESUS CHRIST YOU STABBED ME”.
Since that Jesus had to be taken down due to a bad case of stab-itis, the backup Jesus came in, but he weighed significantly less than the original Jesus- which would have been fine, except that at the end the cross was supposed to ascend upwards with Jesus on it, and the weights hadn’t been adjusted.
So Jesus, instead, ROCKETED UP into heaven (or, just, above the stage).
This is wild from start to finish
I was in Peter Pan once and one night at a performance, the adhesive holding our Hook’s mustache on was wearing off. It was near the end with a big fight scene and when he got attacked, he let his mustache fall and went “YOU RIPPED MY MUSTACHE OFF!” in a scandalized tone and it added a new note of hilarity to the whole scene (which was supposed to be funny anyway)
In my seventh grade play, which was a midsummer night’s dream, Thisbe didn’t have a sword so she stabbed herself with a coathanger
My junior year we were doing Romeo and Juliet and after Juliet poisons herself it was supposed to go dark and she’d get off the stage. well the light crew accidentally turned them back on and Juliet who was sitting up slammed back down on the wooden bed with a loud bang. To which my theater teacher says into the com “zombie Juliet” and everyone who heard that had to keep as quiet as possible while our eyes were filling with tears.
i attended my county’s performing arts high school majoring in vocal studies, (mostly geared towards musical theater and opera styles) and once a year we got a field trip to new york (we were in jersey, so it’s not exactly far). we would do one touristy thing, an actor’s workshop with friends of our teachers working in various performing industries in nyc, and then see a show.
my first year doing this, our industry contacts were 1 actor, 1 casting director, and 1 producer to get different aspects of the business, and they all gave us amazing advice and told fantastic stories. the actor in question was Zazu on Broadway’s The Lion King for several years, and told the best story by far.
in The Lion King, there are only two pieces of pre-recorded noise in the whole show. one, when Pumbaa does a MASSIVE fart while fighting the hyenas, and the other being Mufasa saying REMEMBERRRRRR as Simba climbs Pride Rock. the actor told us while struggling not to laugh that, during one night’s performance, someone forgot to flip the tape of these pre-recorded noises.
so, at the end of the show, the great climax where Simba finally accepts his place in the Circle of Life, the heavens parted and-
everyone froze. and then all ran off stage positively HOWLING with laughter.
the lesson: sometimes there are fuck ups you just can’t recover from.
During a high school production of Beauty and the Beast, where I was assistant costumer and assistant prop master, our director decided that we needed to spice up Gaston’s introduction. You know: in the movie, when Lefou runs in trying to catch the duck/goose that Gaston has just shot out of the sky?
Originally, the actors were going to stroll on stage with our Lefou hauling in the really neat (and real!) taxidermied deer head that we had found in a local thrift store. Now, two days before opening night, our director wants Lefou to run in from off stage and catch a stuffed duck that Gaston has just shot. This, of course, requires two things to work properly as a scene: a gunshot noise, and a stuffed duck.
The gunshot noise, we had covered. Blue-collar, redneck school? Guns a plenty to record. The stuffed duck? Harder than you might have thought to obtain.
Three hunting stores, two taxidermists, and one Pet Supply Store ™, I’d finally found a semi-realistic pheasant squeaky toy. What follows is an account of the ways this dog toy managed to be the nightmare prop of the six show run.
Opening Night: The stagehand, who was supposed to drop the bird from the ceiling catwalk, missed his cue and didn’t drop the it. Lefou’s actor rolls with it and does an excellent job of looking around foolishly before getting cuffed upside the head by Gaston. The stagehand then drops the bird squarely on Gaston’s head. Cue laughter.
Saturday Matinee: Different stagehand throws the bird instead of dropping it and beans Lefou directly in the face with the prop. Lefou falls over. Cue laughter.
Saturday Night: Bird is missing during curtain call. Director hauls the deer head down from it’s place on the tavern wall and tells Gaston and Lefou to revert to the old blocking i.e. no gunshot, no bird, just walk in with trophy. During Gaston and Lefou’s conversation, gun shot sound goes off and a stagehand throws the bird onto the stage…from the wrong side of the stage. Lefou and Gaston stare at it in awkward silence for a solid thirty seconds before Lefou makes off-script, subtle joke about Gaston’s gun going off late instead of early. Cue adults in the audience laughing.
Sunday Matinee: Director begs the stagehands to get the cue right at least once. Gunshot and bird prop go off without a hitch. Lefou accidentally catches the prop when it falls from the catwalk. He’s so startled that he caught it that Gaston runs right in to him. They drop both the gun and the bird props, and grab the wrong prop in their scramble. Gaston spends the rest of the scene gesturing dramatically with a stuffed pheasant, instead of a gun.
Sunday Night:
Director is fed up with bird prop, decides that Lefou should just carry bird prop in after gunshot happens off stage. Lefou accidentally squeezes the prop during the intro conversation, startling both actors into silence with the squeaky toy noise - apparently, neither of them realized it was a dog toy.
Monday Elementary School Show: Lefou walks on stage with the bird. Accidentally drops the prop during conversation with Gaston. Gaston doesn’t notice the dropped prop and steps on it. Cue depressingly sad squeaky toy noise. Cue ten years olds laughing.
Okay no. This shit is so fucking satisfying. I can not tell you the joy it brings me when an underage kid tries to buy GTA and when I tell them they need a parent, they go get said parent, and then I say “hey, this game is rated M for these reasons” AND THE PARENTS GET SO APPALLED AND SAY “NO WAY YOU ARE NOT GETTING THAT GAME.” And the look of hatred the kids give me is so raw and pure it gives me fucking life. Damn I miss GameStop.
Keeping online matches safe from annoying 13 year olds.
OKAY FRIENDS SINCE YOU LIKE HEARING ABOUT 13 YEAR OLDS GETTING OWNED LET ME TELL YOU ABOUT ONE OF MY GREATEST ACHIEVEMENTS SO FAR AS AN EMPLOYEE OF GAMESTOP.
It was spring 2014, early in the week. Pretty sure it was a Tuesday, but it’s been awhile. It was so dead in our store, I hadn’t seen anyone in over 40 minutes. Eventually, in comes this mom and we start chatting. She said she was here to buy her son a game he wanted, Grand Theft Auto 5, and could I help her find it?
Now, I’m sure many of you are aware how awful Grand Theft Auto 5 is in terms of violence, gore, and sexism. But in case you don’t, the Grand Theft Auto series has always been one of the most violent series that you can buy in stores. The very first GTA was banned in Brazil and condemned in several countries, GTA 5 has a graphic torture scene that is player initiated. GTA: San Andreas had the Hot Coffee scandal which happened in 2004 when modders found unused code in the game for a sex minigame that was player controlled. And that’s only the beginning of the controversies surrounding the GTA series (click here to read more! XXXXXXX )
Anyways, back to me and the Mom. Who will now be referred to as Mom because she is that awesome. Since I was behind the counter I pulled a copy of GTA 5 from backstock and started ringing her up while making polite chitchat, the usual cashier stuff. But everything changed when I asked for her ID because of the M rating. At first Mom replied, “Oh sure thing let me grab it.” And started digging in her purse. But then what I said registered with her and she paused and looked at me.
“M rating? What does that mean?”
“Oh GTA 5 is rated M for violence, gore, bad language, and other stuff”. I won’t bore you with the whole spiel I go into when I’m asked about the M rating but basically I just explain why the game is rated M, what the M rating means, and that they can go on ESRB.org to see why it got that rating.
So I tell Mom about the website and she whips out her cell phone and gets on the site and starts reading. And she got MAD. She starts telling me about how her son knows she doesn’t like this sort of game and how he is going to be in so much trouble because he knows better than to ask for this sort of thing as she doesn’t tolerate this in her house. And he is so grounded for thinking he could get away with this. Then, Mom looked me in the eye and asked me to look up several other games for her to see if he’d done this with any other games.
“Yea sure thing, which games would you like me to look up?”
“Bioshock 2.”
“I can already tell you without looking that Bioshock 2 is rated M.”
“MY CHILD IS SO GROUNDED FOR THE REST OF THE YEAR. What about the first Bioshock?”
“Yep, that’s also rated M.”
“OH MY GOSH, what about Gears of War?”
“That entire series is rated M.”
To spare y’all from another 10 rounds of that, basically take every popular M rated title from the last 5 years and insert them in the above dialogue.
Eventually, Mom says “Oh my gosh, you must think me a horrible parent. I can’t believe I let him have those games.”
“Ma’am, I don’t think that at all. The fact that you’re concerned about this tells me that you are a good parent. And just so you know instead of throwing out those games you’re more than welcome to trade them in here and get some store credit or cash back for them.”
“Really? I’ll have to do that, I don’t want him playing those games anymore.”
“Yea, we also take gaming consoles, iphones, and tablets too!”
“Oh that’s wonderful! Thank you for being so patient with me and telling me all about this. I’m going home and to go through his gaming collection right now!”
And off she went, leaving me bored till I finally got to leave for the night.
BUT THAT’S NOT THE END. THIS IS WHEN SHIT GETSAWESOME.
The next day I’m working again, bored out of my goddamn mind. There’s only so many times you can alphabetize the store before going insane. As I’m looking out the window I see a car pull up and Mom hops out and then pulls out two huge duffel bags and walks in.
“Hey welcome back to Gamestop! What can I help you with!”
“Oh I’m so glad you’re here! So last night I went through my son’s game collection and most of them are rated M! So I decided to teach him a lesson about why you don’t lie to your mother. Seeing as I bought him these consoles and most of the games were bought with my money, his game consoles and games actually belong to me. Therefore, I would like to trade in all this.“ And proceeds to pull out his XBox 360, PS3, and every game he had for both consoles (over 50!) as well all the extra controllers and headsets he had.
“Are you sure?”
“Absolutely.“ I will never forget her smile when she said this nor the look in her eye. This is not a woman to be crossed.
So I traded everything in and she got back over $300 in store credit for everything. And with it she bought a Wii, a couple extra controllers, and a couple games rated E. Then she looked me in the eye and asked if we had any extra boxes laying around for the XBox One and if so could she have one?
“Are you going to put the Wii in it and give it to him?“
“Yes. Along with a note saying that this is what happens when you abuse the trust of your mother. I’m going to make sure this never happens again.“ It is at this point that Mom ascended to God Tier status with all Gamestop employees falling to their knees for a chance to bask in her glory.
I got her an XBox One box and sent her on her way after asking her to take the survey on the receipt.
“Oh of course dear, you’ve been such a big help. Let me write down your name so I don’t forget it.”
“Of course! I’m Lexi, but if your son asks my name is Deegan.“ (Deegan was my store’s manager at the time.
And then she left, leaving me with the best trade numbers of the month and the greatest story I’ll likely ever be apart of at GameStop. Mom, I never got your name, but you are my personal Gamestop Hero.
an imaginary person named deez nuts polled 9% on an actual presidential poll and it was reported nationwide and people have to be told not to write him in and throw away their vote because it might mean donald fucking trump, a man who everyone hates with a toupee that looks like it was photoshopped on, actually does get elected because he is actually running. oh and despite a general lack of recent campaigning, let us not forget: wocka flocka flame also very much did declare his candidacy. wocka flocka fucking flame
and then, amongst this political farce, banksy is building a theme park. a real, actual theme park. a man who became famous originally due to his street art. is building a theme park. can you think of a single thing less street art than a fucking theme park??? how many people have signed off on this?????? how much money??? fucking
also there is a website where people can vote on the names for planets outside our solar system and some are legit sounding and some are like?? “descending fish” or whatever??? actual planets in actual space what the fuck
oh, right, and then in the only political news that seems like a genuinely good idea i’ve heard in months, there was that whole thing where, due to how dismally bad their economy has been for so long, they have started a kickstarter for the country of greece. that sounds so fake! that doesn’t sound like a real thing none of these do they sound like onion articles but when i heard about it i was like that’s a great idea i hope it works bc i’ve got a friend in greece and i know how bad it is there and it’s not getting the attention it needs
at this point i feel like no news item could surprise me, you could be like “florida has literally broken off of the continent due to popular vote and is now chillin with the bahamas and it is messing up the american economy which secretly is heavily reliant on citrus export and the daytona 500″ and i’d be like sure that sounds reasonable! absolutely!
i’d believe if if scientists were like “new study proves that birds control the weather” at this point and it would probably not be the weirdest shit i heard that week
when the fuck did our universe start being a performance art piece co-written by monty python and the firesign theatre
