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Post by Deleted on Oct 11, 2017 18:20:19 GMT
I posted this earlier in the Rufus’ length thread, but another poster thought it might make an interesting new thread so here goes:
I was at the performance of Romans in Britain when a fracas broke out at the front right of the stalls. Demonstrators had barged their way in and lobbed fireworks onto the stage which had ‘straw’ all over it. The actors stopped, started stamping on the flames to put them out, and the demonstartors- who had shouted something about the IRA- were bundled out. The performance quickly resumed...
Any other stories of unwelcome visitors?
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Post by Jan on Oct 12, 2017 14:40:56 GMT
Original production of "Guys and Dolls" in the Olivier (1982). We get to the show-stopping number "Sit Down You're Rocking the Boat" and at the end there is massive applause - at that point some middle-aged guy walks downstage right from the back to the very centre of the stage and starts bowing to us as the applause goes on - he turns this way and that acknowledging the applause. The actors, in character, are sort of looking at each other and shrugging their shoulders. We don't know what's going on exactly. After a while, as the applause dies down a bit, a stagehand wearing headphones walks on and takes this guy by the arm and leads him off upstage. Then they do the encore.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 12, 2017 14:48:04 GMT
There was a pitch invasion at Us/Them when I saw it in the Dorfman. At one point during the show, a member of the audience loudly asked the cast if they wanted her to come up and lie down with them. Without waiting for a reply, she took herself up on the stage, one of the actors pointed to the side of the stage, and she lay down. It was VERY odd, you almost couldn't tell it wasn't part of the play until a stage manager came and escorted her off the stage.
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Post by profquatermass on Oct 12, 2017 18:44:06 GMT
The famous story of a heckler at the NT's Peer Gynt with Chiwetel Ejiofor, who decided to harangue the actors and tell them what they were doing wrong. Unfortunately he was the director. True story
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Post by Deleted on Oct 12, 2017 18:52:42 GMT
From a long ago work colleague, working on a Fireman Sam show. They were using a revolve and he'd just finished a set change out of the audience's view, massively mistiming his escape the revolve started to turn exposing him to a theatre full of bemused children wondering who the strange new addition to the cast was.
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Post by musicallady on Oct 12, 2017 19:02:09 GMT
Not professional but when my amateur society was doing Showboat myself and 3 others assumed there was a cloth in so we ambled across the stage. There was no cloth in and the two leads were singing You Are Love!
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Post by Jan on Oct 12, 2017 19:30:20 GMT
The famous story of a heckler at the NT's Peer Gynt with Chiwetel Ejiofor, who decided to harangue the actors and tell them what they were doing wrong. Unfortunately he was the director. True story Didn’t stop the RSC employing him subsequently and even though he’d sobered up he still wasn’t much of a director. |
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Post by Deleted on Oct 12, 2017 20:03:11 GMT
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Post by Deleted on Oct 12, 2017 20:31:47 GMT
In retrospect the Peter Hall one could have been the early stages of dementia; it's quite sad to read now if so, as that disorientation is frightening enough without the added humiliation of it being reported in the media.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 12, 2017 23:16:04 GMT
A person who wakes suddenly may say something not realising where they were and Peter would have been diagnosed with dementia when it happened.
Once during the ending of All or Nothing when the cast invite a few audience members on stage to dance - the idea being that they don't come in too far each side and often being devotees of the show who the cast may be familiar with. A couple of the punters got to centre stage and onto the mics and started belting out the song.
Afterwards whilst getting something signed by Carol Harrison who was director/star of show, she was saying to regular of the show that they may stop doing this as anyone invited up should have an ensemble member "shadowing them" to keep them away from the main action.
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Post by londonmzfitz on Oct 13, 2017 9:12:13 GMT
Not theatre, but the Proms at the Royal Albert Hall, packed to the rafters, woman in the choir seats decides - mid performance of the huge orchestra - to leave via the back of the stage. Weaved her way through the percussion section, round the drums, skirted the gong ....
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Post by partytentdown on Oct 13, 2017 11:19:18 GMT
MANY years ago I was watching the opening night of the play 'Telstar' somewhere on tour, possibly Cambridge?
At the end someone ran up the aisle to the stage and started shouting at the audience about how he had written this story first and the playwright had completely plagiarised the idea, how he would be taking them to court. Then someone in the audience (presumably the writer) started yelling back from across the auditorium - 'Nonsense! Get this deranged man out of here!' etc.
Quite an entertaining post-show scene.
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Post by Deleted on Oct 13, 2017 12:08:14 GMT
In retrospect the Peter Hall one could have been the early stages of dementia; it's quite sad to read now if so, as that disorientation is frightening enough without the added humiliation of it being reported in the media. Yes, it's very clear now this was related to his dementia. He was diagnosed in 2011 according to his obituaries, and the "heckling" incident was late 2012. Had an amusing incident when I saw a fringe production of Titus Andronicus a few years ago. It was in a very small space and the audience was seated at the far end from the main door, so the only way out to that was to walk across the stage. Suspect there was also a fire exit at the back but that wasn't obvious if you didn't come through it. Anyway, part way through the show (which I think had no interval) an audience member found it all a bit too much and decided she had to leave. She walked across the stage mid-scene but instead of going straight on to the exit she took a door to the left which the cast had used at points during the performance. Turned out a the end this was the door to a small room which the cast would have waited in between entrances when going out that way and she'd been stuck in there for the rest of the performance. |
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Post by Deleted on Oct 13, 2017 12:56:11 GMT
Similar to the above, I saw La Cage at the Menier and a woman decided to leave mid-performance, but managed to go through the glittery curtains into the dressing area, where (I like to think) she was greeted by the sight of Douglas Hodge wearing only a dance belt. An usher dived after her and she emerged giggling and looking embarrassed.
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Post by BurlyBeaR on Oct 13, 2017 13:14:39 GMT
I think it was Promises Promises at the SWP where some woman got up, decided she should cross the stage so bumbled her way backstage vie the door on the set on the left.
I assume she was desperate for the toilet but she never came back so...
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Post by Jan on Oct 13, 2017 17:47:40 GMT
I think it was Promises Promises at the SWP where some woman got up, decided she should cross the stage so bumbled her way backstage vie the door on the set on the left. I assume she was desperate for the toilet but she never came back so... Yeah I saw similar at the Jermyn Street Theatre once, a person exited via a door on the set, obviously heading for the toilets, and then had to shamefacedly come back out again and go out the real exit. |
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Post by Deleted on Oct 13, 2017 17:53:27 GMT
At a Barbican Bobby McFerrin show, he was performing a lovely acapella improv with members of his family, when rushed by a random pisshead from the audience, who gamely tried to join in, much to the confusion of everyone else present.
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19,787 posts
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Post by BurlyBeaR on Oct 13, 2017 18:00:24 GMT
I think it was Promises Promises at the SWP where some woman got up, decided she should cross the stage so bumbled her way backstage vie the door on the set on the left. I assume she was desperate for the toilet but she never came back so... Yeah I saw similar at the Jermyn Street Theatre once, a person exited via a door on the set, obviously heading for the toilets, and then had to shamefacedly come back out again and go out the real exit. It’s like when people get out of the lift on the wrong floor, then fake it as if they intended to, but you know very well that as soon as the lift doors close they’re back hitting the call button again  Or is that just me....  |
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Post by andromedadench on Oct 14, 2017 0:09:40 GMT
A person who wakes suddenly may say something not realising where they were and Peter would have been diagnosed with dementia when it happened. I don't remember ever witnessing someone wander onstage, but this reminded me that I did see someone fall asleep onstage. During a performance of La boheme at the Belgrade Opera, the curtain rose before the final act only to reveal someone tucked up and blissfully asleep in what was supposed to be Mimi's (still empty) sick-bed. Suddenly, startled by the orchestra or by the prompter who'd finally noticed her from the wings, the singer playing Musetta wakes up, sits upright with a look of total shock and disbelief, climbs out of the bed and stumbles offstage. It was quite bemusing, but I shrugged it off as a weird bit of stage directing. Only later did a friend who worked backstage tell me that what happened was that the singer was pregnant and prone to falling asleep between the calls. During the interval, she decided to take a brief nap in the bed, and the stage hands didn't notice her when they rotated the set for the final act. (In fairness, she's a diminutive woman) |
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