I thought I'd start this thread because I know we've all had the experience of things going south onstage-someone going up on lines or a prop malfunctioning-or in the case below-simply not being there when expected.
I was a production manager on a play where the prop crew were supposed to set very large candles in a sconce before one scene. The candle was an important prop-because an actor was supposed to get furious with someone and look for a weapon to beat them with. He had a line that went something like, "A weapon! A weapon! A *candle*!" Then he would grab the candle off the sconce and advance on the other charater.
I was sitting in the audience one night during that scene and my eye was wandering over the stage and I saw that the sconce was...empty. My heart froze for the actor. As I watched, he said his line, "A weapon! A weapon!" I saw him advance on the sconce, do a 360 and after a mooment he picked up this HUGE chair and said "A chair!" I went backstage after the show and told him that I had so much admiration for him at that moment for thinking on his feet.
And the prop mistress got an earful as well.
My own onstage experience had to do with an actor I had a scene with. I adore this guy-he's the best actor I've ever worked with onstage. At his insistance, we always ran our lines before we went on. One night during a scene, he was supposed to give me line A-he didn't-he went totally blank. I gave him line B which should have led him to line C-but instead he gave me line A-and then *I* went totally blank. I call this "The Theatrical Black Hole"-the silence seems to go on forever. Finally, the next thing I could remember happening in the scene was I was to pick up the phone to call a taxi, throw a line at him and walk into the other room on the set. That did the trick-he was back where he needed to be, and the rest of the scene went off as planned. When we got offstage, he was devasted-falling all over himself apologizing because we'd lost a short section that included my best comic lines. I told him I didn't care-we righted ourselves and I didn't think that the audience ever knew the difference.
As it turned out, I was right-because that performance was taped, and looking at it, even though I knew what was happening, as a performance, it didn't lose anything for the mishap.
I love these kinds of stories-join in and tell yours-you know you have a few.
