What
to Do When the Unexpected Happens on Stage
by Rene Gutteridge
Article Listing:
How to Take it From the Page to the Stage
What to do When the Unexpected Happens on Stage
Do You Know Where You're Coming From?
What Your Kids Get From Drama Ministry
What to do When Your Drama Team Doesn't Care Anymore!10 Things to do Before Your Performance
Extraordinary Lessons from Peculiar People
Tech Talk: Costumes
Jeni Fabian's costume book recommendations
We were doing a
fabulous sketch one Sunday morning about accepting all kinds of people
in church when suddenly a 250-pound man, dressed in leather and chains
with his body pierced in more places than I could count, stands up from
the congregation and saunters up on stage.
Everyone starts chuckling, because the actor was talking about appearances
and this guy just walks up
on stage like he belongs there and sits down in an empty chair. I, however,
know that this guy doesn't belong up there. I wrote the drama! The guy
begins conversing with one of the actors—my husband. The dialogue is so
funny that everyone is roaring with laughter...as I'm trying to alert
the security team.
One of the pastors' wives leans over to me and says, “This is a good one!”
To which I whisper back, “That guy's not supposed to be up there!” She
glances at me. “What?” I repeat myself.
Her face turns white and she looks like I feel.
I tune back into the conversation up on stage just in time to hear the
man quote something from Genesis and tell my husband that this scripture
is God saying it's okay to use marijuana. Though I can see the strain
in my husband's face, he plays it cool on stage and simply says, “Well,
I tell you what, dude.
Let me finish up here. I'll meet you out in the lobby, and we'll talk
about it then.” He smiles and guides the man off stage. Then he walks
back up there and starts exactly where he'd left off. (His fellow actor
on stage amazingly followed along. It was his first time doing a church
drama! That's breakin' 'em in!)
My husband is a theater major and has had his share of unexpected things
happen on stage. But without a doubt, he says, this was the most memorable.
So, what do we do when the unexpected happens? I mean, is there a handbook
for this sort of thing? Hardly. In fact, it's one of the hardest things
to cope with on stage. Yet it makes true theater.
The possibilities of the unexpected are endless. Mics can go out. Props
can go missing. Actors can freak out. Audience members can freak out.
Scenery can come crashing down. That's just to name a few!
There are two things that play key roles in being able to handle the unexpected
on stage. On the practical side, the greatest defense against the unexpected
is to be prepared. If an actor knows his or her lines, then when the tree
on stage right suddenly goes toppling over, the distraction may cause
profuse sweating, but the lines are stuck to the brain like glue. If another
actor suddenly jumps fifteen pages in a script, fellow actors may be able
to work their way back to where they should be because they are prepared.
Unfortunately, the second way to combat the unforeseen is instinct, and
there isn't a way to teach that. But it can be learned. The more one is
on stage, the more instinct will play a pivotal role in this regard. With
instinct comes a practical question that should be asked in every unexpected
situation, and that is: How can I incorporate this into the scene?
After the episode with the biker dude, I asked my husband what exactly
was going through his head when he saw this gigantic beast of a man approaching
the stage. He told me his mind was running with two parallel thoughts.
First he was thinking, I'm going to die. But right along with this thought
was another: How can I make this work? How can I keep the scene going?
And so, praying this man wasn't up there to kill him, Sean worked the
dialogue in favor of the scene.
After church was over that day, a lady came up to us, nearly in tears,
apologizing profusely for what
had happened on stage. “That's Crazy Cousin Jimmy, as we call him,” she
explained. “He's from New York. And sometimes he just does crazy things
like that.”
We assured her it was okay.
To this day, however, there are still people in our church who never knew
there was anything strange going on in that sketch. In show business,
there's the famous saying, The show must go on. With that in mind, not
much can keep you from going on! Even Crazy Cousin Jimmy.
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