On the stageToo shy to ever appear on stage myself, I still hung around theatres like a bad smell when I was younger - lighting and set design were what I was good at.
Backstage we'd attempt to sabotage every production - us lighting geeks would wind up the sound man by putting the remote "pause" button for his reel-to-reel tape machine on his chair, so when he sat down it'd start running, ruining his cues. Actors would do scenes out of order to make our lives hell. It was great and I don't know why I don't still do it.
Tell us your stories of life on the stage.
(
chthonic, Fri 2 Dec 2005, 11:02)
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When I was in my school playI ran on stage, couldn't see the audience because of the lights, I was so nervous I shouted my lines then pissed myself with fright in front of the whole school, parents and teachers included and ran off crying.
Oh the shame!
[edit]Fucksocks, the QotW has finally changed![/edit]
When I was in primary school, the nativity play was very inclusive – you were involved onstage, whether you wished to be or not.
Needless to say, all parents wanted their children to be one of the principles – Mary, Joseph, a Magus or failing that a shepherd.
My friends and I, on the other hand, wished to have absolutely no involvement at all. Unfortunately, when one was cast as a shepherd thanks to particularly pushy parents, the rest of us were also.
Our disappointment at being on stage, however, was short-lived when we discovered during rehearsals how much fun it was!
Following the star to Bethlehem was a slapstick procession of tripping each other with our crooks.
Gazing in speechless adoration at the baby Christ became plucking him from the crib, against all instructions to the contrary, and
Yes, it was childish but then we were, after all, children.
Finally, only two nights before the main event, the director had had enough and we were hastily recast in roles that were restricted to a brief jog across the stage.
We were to be Herod’s soldiers during the massacre of the innocents.
To this day, I really can’t understand how our director could have been so naïve, so optimistic. We were, after all, children.
So, come the big night, the stage is set, our moment has come and, dressed in legionnaires uniforms and clutching our plastic swords, we formed up and, accompanied by a soundtrack of wailing, we trotted across the stage.
Half way across, we stopped to enact our revised and more realistic scene. We whipped out the dolls that we had secreted about ourselves and ripped them to pieces, tossing limbs, torsos and heads into the audience and spraying stage blood in every direction.
Needless to say, despite being in the best traditions of the theatre, our improvisation was appreciated not by our head teacher, nor the director nor even the audience members who were struck with bloodied bits of baby.
The following year, the scene had been cut and we weren’t even allowed in the auditorium.
(, Fri 2 Dec 2005, 11:55, Reply)
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