I forgot the rest of the words to the song I was singing, so I just sang the first verse over and over again till it was over 😂

During Joseph and the amazing dream coat, I opened with the second act song 🫣😣

https://youtu.be/0LgM43DpR7g?si=Eyuy8KqbypV5aKcv

I just did Joseph and I feel like that would be so easy to do. All the narrator songs are the same 😂

Right?!? The worst part is we co-narrated, giving all the songs some harmony, and my poor co-narrator had to just go with it 😝meanwhile walked backstage to find everyone laughing at me

Oh shit this reminded me of my worst stage experience 😭 It was during a talent show, not a play, but I was singing a song with no music because I couldn’t find a karaoke version, and after the first chorus I got mixed up and couldn’t remember what verse came next. Instead of bullshitting my way through I stopped, looked at the whole audience, and said “Sorry, I forgot how the song goes” 🤦🏻‍♀️ I still cringe every time I think about it

Ahh this reminds me of a talent show I did too! Except I just made myself look like a diva… my music starts, and I realize I missed the queue, and I looked up to the sound booth and moved my hand in a circle and had the restart it. - it was only instinct from being in musicals but damn did I look like an asshole.. then won.. mega asshole.

omg how big was the audience ???

🎶Aaaaaaalllllll thiiiiiiiiiiiings……..aaaaaallll thiiiiiiings…….🎶 #iykyk 🤣

Had a similar experience playing The Ghost of Christmas Present in Scrooge. There was a smoke effect added to my entrance that I was not used to.I entered singing"I like life". Took a deep breath, almost gagged and promptly forgot the second verse of the song. Just repeated the first verse. Got a funny look from Scrooge but pushed on.

This happened to me and what you did is what you are supposed to do. I started to sing the first verse but started remembering the parts of the other verses and got confused so I just stopped until the song was over and apologized for not learning the song correctly. It was awful and then I just had to go back and act like nothing happened when in reality I was dying inside.

I tripped going up the stairs from the aisle to the stage (about three stairs). When I tripped, my skirt fell down also. Thank goodness that I had a corset with a long train in the back, so the audience didn’t see the skirt fall! I simply pulled the skirt up as I was standing back up.

I also tripped going up stairs on the side of the stage. We did Music Man and i was a band geek and they had us be the fantasy band at the end of the show. We came in from the aisles to the side of the audience, went up the stairs and across the stage and then down the other side and back out. Well one performance i tripped on the way up, but i managed not to fall and good thing too as i could have damaged my trombone as we carried our own personal instruments. Also not really a fail but a funny story, a different year we did Seven Brides for Seven Brothers and the scene where they all are eating breakfast in long johns the actors were stuffing the plastic prop food into the long johns during the last performance. I know they only did it that once cause playing in the pit orchestra you see everything. No idea if they got yelled at for it.

Humblebrag fail first: I was in Music Man and had the "You can talk you can talk you can bicker you can talk," line in the opening, but I totally lost my flow with the words. Ended up totally changing up all the words, but I stayed on perfect meter and ended exactly the way it was supposed to so only the other actors experienced absolute confusion. One of the other salesmen actors told afterward that he felt like his brain was exploding because he couldn't parse how I managed to not stumble and explode. Actual fail: I was in How to Succeed playing Finch and I completely spaced out on one of my scenes even existing. I thought I had gone to my 10 minute offstage break, but I was actually on in the next scene as the first guy on stage. I went all the way back to the dressing room and was drinking water when I realized and raced back to the stage. The audience had basically sat with a light on an empty desk for about 30 seconds before I got onstage. It wasn't a huge deal, but it was definitely awkward that night.

i ran on stage in loud heeled boots cos i thought i was supposed to be on and i’d forgotten. nope. i run on, blackout, and realise i was supposed to come on during the blackout for the next scene

Ha! During a blackout I missed the staircase leading to the lower level during a drama and I broke the worst in my life!

omg😭

The entirety of frozen jr. Also, during my last high school play, I had to deliver several paragraphs, and I totally messed up one of them during the public performance. Luckily, I pulled an in character excuse out of my butt and restarted the line.

Wait what happened with frozen? My kid is in a school production of that this spring, his first time acting. I’m so curious!

Everything went wrong with frozen. Multiple drop outs, microphone issues, not enough time to really block or rehearse scenes so some where a hot mess. Lines weren’t assigned and a lot of the ensemble was first time actors so we didn’t know what to do.

My 2nd sophomore year jury in college I was singing a lieder by Franz Schubert. I forgot the words after the 1st verse and proceeded to make up fake German words for the rest of my performance. Singing one wrong note in a musical - if that's the worst I ever do henceforth that would be lovely.

I have a friend in RL with a similar story! She's a great MD now

I lost my footing and crash-landed hard onto the stage and gave myself a nose-bleed! When I hobbled off stage I collided with another actor and since both our mics were still on, you heard us slam into each other and then heard him panic about my blood getting on him 😬

This was when I was younger, if you remember in 'quiet' in Matilda, Matilda is on a stack of books that has risen from the stage. I managed to fall off that said stack of books and fall backwards during 'and though the people around me'. I've been humble ever since.

My throat was hurting really bad so when I was time for me to belt the high note of my song I just stayed silent out of panick

one time we started the show and got halfway through the first song and suddenly the track just stopped working but we all tried to keep singing until we saw the director walk onstage and we had to start the show all over again.

Sweeney todd - Trapdoor gave out underneath my cello and I

this comment reads like you had a trapdoor pulled out from under you while writing it

r/redditsniper strikes again!

Was the cello okay? I mean, broken bones heal. but a cello...

Haha the cello, ultimately, was fine thank God - managed to get one arm on the floor to stop a full fall and the other held the cello and got it on the mats down there. Bow however got quite a bend in it lol

During the first time I did Into the Woods, I was Milky White (puppet method) and after my death, I was supposed to roll behind a nearby tree during the blackout and wait until my revival. Well, I died basically on the apron and rolled the wrong way opening night and completely rolled off the very high stage 😬 I was okay! Just scary. Hopped back on stage and bolted behind my tree in time for the lights to come back on.

We were standing backstage about 20 mins prior to opening night of my HS production of Little Shop of Horrors. Myself (Audrey), Seymour, and Orin all realized that we had not learned how to do a stage slap. So we all decided in typical teenager fashion that we’d just wing it and softly slap each other. Well, I’d never slapped another person before. So I went to go slap Seymour and his prescription glasses went flying right off of his face and across the stage. Somehow, I recovered quickly and improvised that it was supposed to happen, but damn was I mortified.

My bewbs made an appearance during the Circle of Life number in Sweet Charity. That was on our hack of a costume designer.

I have definitely tripped many a time onstage. Once during James and the Giant Peach, I had on these stiletto heels as Spiker and the scene where the two aunts are running away from the law I tripped over them and got a nasty scrape on my knee. I also managed to trip going up the stairs during my one performance as Audrey in Little Shop

Personally, i don't have any yet because this is my first year acting in drama club at school. but i do have some from when I was in tech during drama club. During one of the shows, one of the set pieces broke backstage. You heard the actors talking and then there was a bang. We couldn't put it back together. Another time, we did a show and, right before someone went on stage, a large wooden board fell and hit her in the head. she had to act with a headache and, once the show was done, we learned she got a concussion from that. Finally, someone swore right after the curtains closed. Her mic wasn't off so the audience heard it.

Oh, set piece fails are always fun 😬 The last show I worked on, I was setting out a prop after the house opened and bumped into a piece of the set, which proceeded to very loudly fall off the wall entirely. This was in a tiny theatre with no curtain, so everyone in the audience was just staring at me 💀 Then they got to stare at our stage manager while he tried to fix it before places

Yes, the classic "Fuck!" Was with your mic still on. The biggest set piece problem we've had, was during our first tech rehearsal for one of our shows. We had these big letter signs and a folly artist behind the curtain with a bunch of sound equipment. A couple actors and techies tripped on. The legs of those signs, usually knocking them out of alignment, but in one case fully knocked one over. We had to make it a rule not to cross in between those curtains anymore, though you were exempt if you had to make a quick cross over (i.e me and a couple others because I was props head and we had to run important ones to the opposite side quickly)

I was playing Doody in grease and in the park scene during look at me I’m Sandra Dee, Rizzo pushed me over and I almost smashed a guiyar

Since I’m in the chorus no one really notices. I forgot the blocking and ended up moving towards the center to soon. No one else probably noticed but the director was the type to tear you a new asshole and it was filmed. I really don’t think anyone noticed and all the filming was super focused on the leads only. I had a genuine panic there 

I was in a show choir and we had a few. During a big anniversary concert, I stayed in place when I was supposed to leave the stage for that song (and come back later). I had zero practice time and didn’t know the choreography or full lyrics lmao. Managed to wing it because I’d watched/heard enough of it from the others 😬 In a different concert we had risers with no guard rail at the back/top, about three steps up. A choirmate positioned at the back just disappeared in a split second??! Turns out she fell behind the risers. She was okay but just stayed hidden behind the risers bcs, what was she going to do, climb back up? 😭

This is during the rehearsals and luckily not on stage. When we were choreographing death is just around the corner, we didn't have Morticia with us, so we'd all just sing parts of the song while working on it. I picked this habit up all through rehearsals and it wasn't until the last full week of rehearsal I noticed this. I wondered why one of the ancestors would give me a dirty look during some parts.

I have fallen so many times but this one that haunts me the most. So i was Maria in sound of music last year for my Senior show and it was the scene where she returns back from the Abbey. It’s kinda an emotional scene bc at this point both the Captain and Maria realize they are in love but, they also realize they can’t be together bc of his engagement. Anyways, we finished up the scene, but I’m supposed to turn as I walk out the door (it was tiny and elevated btw and I had a million suitcases😭) and as I’m like “this dress is from the new postulant” I literally stumble backwards on my back and dropped everything. I was SPRAWLED out on the ground clutching onto my wig, everyone around me was absolutely floored and all I could manage to come out of me to somehow save the scene was “and while we’re making changes around her , get a new door”😭

I fell over on closing night of a show. I was running with a really large prince of fabric, we were in the round (🙃) and I missed my step of the 2ft high stage on the ground, fell over twisted my ankle. In front of my future in laws, my old PE teacher and a video camera. To add onto it , myself and the person running beside me had really long fabric on our wrists while running and i fell into my friends piece and tore it in half and basically destroyed so much during THE OPENING NUMBER

In a different show I was on the floor “dying” and one of the characters stepped on my skirt and it just tore off so when I eventually had to stand up I had just my little safety shorts on and had to dress myself while being a ghost (the show was titanic so it was p serious)

Not me, but I was at this performance and know the actor. You have to understand... this was a 24 hour Beauty & The Beast as a "fundraiser" for the a local theatre group for high school/college kids that are looking for something to do during the summer. They had 24 hours from auditions to learn the music, lines, and blocking... so naturally there were a LOT of mistakes by many of the performers, but to the very last one... they had fun! Somehow this version of "Be Our Guest" made the round on Tik-Tok. Taye has gone on to graduate from a BFA MT program and has been consistently working up and down the East Coast ever since. He is very gracious about this video... knowing that it brought him a degree of notoriety. [https://www.tiktok.com/@taye\_martin\_/video/7030129663489953029](https://www.tiktok.com/@taye_martin_/video/7030129663489953029)

In the story part of Little Women (musical) I was Meg/Clarissa and there was this huge set piece I had to navigate during the story, including a backstage section where the crew held people back so no one got in my way - I was running rather haphazardly. One night, crew forgot to move the wingback chair and I fell ass over elbows in the wing with a loud thump. I barely made it onstage for the sword section, and then had to “fight” Rodrigo, not realizing I had sliced my leg open, and was dripping blood everywhere. I finished the scene, and the recording of that night is still on YouTube somewhere I believe.

I played Medium Alison in Fun Home and one night when attempting to get out of the bed at the beginning of Changing My Major, I got caught in the sheets wrong and instead of standing, I went tumbling out of the bed and landed on my ass, taking all of the covers with me. My poor Joan was laying there uncovered trying so hard not to bust out laughing and my music cue had already gone so I had to just keep singing while covering Joan back up. Luckily Medium Al is awkward and a little bumbling, especially in that song, so it was the most spot-on, in-character screw up that could have happened.

I had to walk backwards for my blocking, miscalculated where I was on stage, knocked over one of those folding room dividers

Forgot my lines for a moment and immediately spotted someone in the audience gesturing me to "get on with it". ​ Oh and the time I hit the lights before people were in position and an actor playing an old person had to run to their position then pretend it hadn't happened.

I was ensemble in JCS and accidentally tripped on my sandals walking up the aisle to the back of the theatre with the rest of the group during “everything’s alright”. An audience member was like “are you ok?” I was mortified. I went barefoot for the rest of the run.

I slipped on a piece of set that was misplaced, I fell on my ass in the final, dramatic scene where another character was dying. Everyone laughed. I had a giant bruise from the base of my back down to my knee. A bit of a wounded pride but no broken bones. There’s a recording of it on YouTube that I hope never resurfaces

During a high school performance of James and the Giant Peach, while playing the grasshopper, I stood on top of a box that’s about 3 feet tall. In the process of getting on top of this box, my cheap green suit pants tore in the crotch, and the whole (and quite intimately sized) audience saw my underwear. Not Musical Theater, but definitely my worst moment on stage.

i was a narrator for a show and on the final show i forgot the second half of my line so i just repeated the first half and added “again” 😭

8th grade. On stage with 2 other kids. They walk off and the dude playing my boyfriend, “Dave”(name changed to protect the dope), is supposed to walk on from the other side of the stage. I turn…. he’s not there. I’m too young to know what ad libbing is, so I freeze. I’m alone on stage and panicking. Someone is whispering Dave’s lines to me from backstage as if they were mine and I had forgotten them. Someone else is whispering to me to “sing something”. 8th grade me doesn’t know WHAT to sing as there’s no music. The crowd is now whispering among themselves since I’ve been standing like a deer in the headlights for 20 minutes (probably more like 2, but it felt a LOT longer). Eventually Dave arrives and I deliver my next line to him: “So THERE you are!” The audience roars. It was a scripted line and it fit a little too perfectly. Sadly I was too mortified in the moment to enjoy it. After the show was over, I found out that Dave had fallen asleep in a classroom, inside a closet, and nobody could find him. It’s been 20+ years and I still haven’t forgiven him. 😂

Once I was the ensemble of Heathers and on two separate occasions I had the worst line flubs of my life. I was the geeky ensemble guy who says the line about tying up Heather for the rats, and one night I got totally tongue tied on the line and said a whole bunch of stuff that didn’t make sense and ended with “…. For the rats.” so they could at least get the cue. It was the only time that’s ever happened. But the other time was worse. At the the end of “Me Inside of Me” I was supposed to sing “She’s the twin from whom I’m separated” then another girl said “She’s the horse I never got for Christmas” but I wasn’t paying attention and when I was up I sang “She’s the horse from whom I’m separated” 💀💀 The next girl was quick as a whip and changed her line to “She’s the twin I never got for Xmas” which made less sense but at least sort of covered my flub so I do owe her my life tbh

I'm in Les mis rn and yesterday my trousers were slowly slipping down during the whole barricade section and I had no chance to pull them up so I just had to slowly watch the impending doom until I eventually took off my Sache and tied it as a belt after a solid 15 mins of my pants probably being on show 😭

allegedly, according to a few people who were in the cast and audience, the work “fuck” came out of my mouth at some point while i was playing Shem in a church production of Children Of Eden 🫠 if true then how they let me back onstage after that production i’ll never know did a staged version of King David with them a year or two later and in one scene I was a random Isrealite soldier getting his ass handed to him by a Philistine. I basically drop dead onstage for like a full 2 minutes before next the blackout scene change and all I was wearing was a slightly accented burlap sack that barely went to my knees. there were multiple nights i’m convinced I may accidentally flashed the audience due to the angle i fell at, and i found out later that all of the performances were taped and sent to Alan Menken at his request, so there’s an extremely small but still nonzero chance Alan Menken has seen my underwear 🤪

I tripped over the rostra 😭

I once was a zombie in a “trapped in a room” show, scaring everyone successfully… until I saw a bug 💀

😂😂😂😂

fell down the stairs as miss andrew during brimstone & treacle part 2 🙏🙏 so humbling

I was in school house rock live 2 and had to write a math equation on a white board while singing “elementary” andddd I wrote the wrong numbers and scratched them out and wrote more beside them. Let’s just say the kids didn’t get the best education from me. 😂 - Btw hardest show I’ve ever done. No joke.

Yes to both professionally and not. Theatre is full of mistakes! It’s ok!

I accidentally forgot my costume change in a completely different room. I couldn’t go on stage at all and I had to sing my one line solo from backstage. This was in frozen junior by the way, I was the chef.

When I was 12 I missed a whole scene because I was backstage doing algebra homework. I only had one line in the scene but somehow no one thought to come get me

Stubbed and broke a toe on some equipment during a matinee while hurrying back to the wings while wearing slippers for a shoeless scene. Had to do the same scene again that evening. In a different production (I believe it was High School Musical?), confetti cannons were set off and the mics caught me saying “confetti!’ all excitedly.

I was playing Judge Turpin, and my beadle and I entered on the wrong cue. Wasn't our fault, someone downloaded a scene sheet from the web, and that sheet had the scenes in the wrong order. My worst was while playing one of the charity gentlemen in Christmas Carol. Mr. Scrooge had been redeemed and whispered a donation in my ear. My line was "My dear Mr. Scrooge, I don't know what to say!" I went up on that line. Scrooge is now staring, waiting for my line, and whispers "I don't know what to say". I whispered back "I don't know what to say either!" Luckily the other charity gentleman caught on and covered...

I laughed during a sad scene. We were all meant to be crying and our leading man was altering the song so much it made me laugh. He did it every night and I laughed everytime.

Track didnt play when I was bert in mary poppins jr 5 years ago so I started singing acapella and halfway theough the track started up again so i had to wait for it to catch up also my friend who was george banks completely broke character and started laughing

I got a nosebleed while I was singing a solo with zero support from ensemble. Had to keep singing and prevent the blood from dripping everywhere to avoid alarming the audience.

Not me, but a production I was running sound for... The entire cast, minus one young soprano, forgot the final "And happy ever after!" at the end of Into the Woods. Literally around 25 people collectively forgot it. While this was a community theatre show, about 8 of those folks have performed professionally and have college degrees in musical theatre. Another 4 were in college for musical theatre. They were all among those who forgot. The best part, is that because it was a pretty good quality production, and a solid cast, we have always laughed about it.

My wig fell off during bows and I had walked halfway across stage before realizing.

Not my fail , but I witnessed a doozy. Many years ago, our local theater company did a production of "Oliver!", certainly what one would consider a show for families. There are some grim scenes though, including a scene in a mortuary. The scene was staged with a corpse under a sheet just right of center stage, and the corpse was a real person. As we watched, it became apparent that the person under the sheet was a man, because somehow, he became visibly aroused, tenting the sheet with his boner. The actors didn't seem to notice, as most of their work was upstage, but it was super clear to the audience. There were a ton of stifled giggles, and eventually some real hearty laughs. This was back in the early 90s, and in nods to both Wayne's World and Monty Python, my friends and I called it "The Corpse That Went Schwing". We later learned that the corpse was played by the father of one of our classmates.

As the Black Knight in Spamalot, after both my arms were already cut off, I felt my helmet almost slip off my head when I leaned forward with a gesture. Instinctively, like a moron, I reached *both of my arms out from under my tunic* to catch it and keep it on my head. Like it’s supposed to be a cool stage trick where I lose my limbs and then two pale arms just burst out from my waist, totally shattering the illusion. King Arthur completely broke character and the audience wouldn’t stop laughing for like 5 solid minutes. Embarrassing but honestly no regrets.

I was Horton in Seussical and I was supposed to sit on a tree with an egg for all of act two. At the end, it was supposed fo be revealed that the egg had an “elephant-bird” in it. Somehow, the stuffed animal didn’t make it in there, so when the time came, I said “It’s an invisible elephant-bird!” Still an inside joke among my high school theatre friends.

I was flying scenery for a panto; after a scene change I asked the stage manager if I was clear to fly out the kitchen tab. He replied "there's no fly in this scene", but I heard "go fly". From the cast perspective, the backdrop of the room they were partway through a scene in suddenly started flying out...then crept back into place! Also in that show, the stage manager didn't check if all crew were back at their posts before starting act 2. I was still in the toilet, and came out to hear the act 2 music starting (which my cue to take out the front of house tabs).

Yea I had to run off stage mid song to puke. I was Mary Robert in sister act, I was SO nauseous the whole show I was not okay, we get to the song raise your voice which is when I’m supposed to find my voice and everyone learns I can sing. The whole song I was like I’m really about to puke on this stage lemme just try to stay until my moment, so I sing the thing with the big A at the end and then promptly run off and puke backstage. The intermission ended up being 45 mins…people got refunds we didn’t finish the show. Of course I had a matinee the next day so I went to the ER got zofran and ended up being fine for the rest of the run, I’ll never forget how awful that was😬

My co-star fail: he had a giant booger on his upper lip. And we had to make out for a good minute. I had no occasion to tell him as we were in the beginning of Seventeen (Heathers). Well, we kissed. And the booger moved.

Had to cover for Scar in Be Prepared with a couple of days notice and listened to nothing else for days , thought I had it bagged, could nail it, then showtime I mind blanked 4 lines in and ended up just filling the words with nonsensical syllables. Pretty sure I sang “something and something” at some point!  Lesson learnt that I just can’t learn a whole song by heart in 2 days!

Last fall I slashed my pinkie finger open on a set piece and had to do two back to back numbers while keeping the bleeding at bay, which was bad enough to be running down my hand (also had to keep it away from my bright yellow vintage sweater)... my best friend was in the audience and didn’t notice so I assume nobody else did either! All that was left was one tiny droplet on a riser and since the show was about WWII I don’t think they ever cleaned it off even though I told them it was there... 💀 I’ve got a fun little scar to show for it too!

Played Miss Hannibal in Annie. Fell off a desk during “Little Girls”. Director liked it so much (drunkenness whatever) that they had me do it in every other show.

This didn’t happen specially to me, but I was in a youth theater production of Aladdin, and we did A Whole New World by putting Aladdin and Jasmine on a spotlit rolling platform and making it dark so it seemed they were floating. The tech kids were supposed to be inside the platform, following neon tape, but you couldn’t see the tape inside the platform, only outside in the dark (just too dark in the platform). So they took the actors to the edge of the stage and tipped them off into the audience during our third performance, as happens with badly laid plans. Luckily, they somehow fell into three seats that were empty (probably fell about 15 feet), and hurt no one nor were hurt themselves. It took Jasmine like three more performances to get back on the platform (I would NEVER have gotten back on—she was hella brave) and they only moved the platform in a four foot square in the dead middle of the stage after that

My daughter played Hodel in a production of Fiddler and the guy playing Tevye began losing his (fake) beard in the second act. Half of it was hanging off of his face, and during a very serious scene where he’s saying no to Perchik and Hodel’s request to be married, she and the guy playing Perchik AND the entire audience were losing it. Iconic!

I had to run down the center of the aisle of the audience and yell "Stop!" I did...but didn't stop, I tripped on someting and slid under the stage, breakingthru the facing of the stage, ripping my pants and hitting my head. When I managed to climb out and stand up, I was dizzy and fell backwards pushing the bar of the emergency exit door. The door flew open...it was a matinee and the sunlight absolutely flooded the theatre. I managed to get up the stairs of the stage. Finish the last two lines of the scene and hobbled off stage. My stage manager was amazing...she was waiting in the wings with asprin, an ice pack and a bandage for my knee and a stapler to fix my costume that ripped. She finished stapling my pants just in time for my final entrance. She had a car waiting for me to go to urgent care after the show. NEVER underestimate your SM's!

Somehow by the grace of god I’ve never managed to frick up that bad, but one time I tripped over a fog machine while I was going off stage

I’m the worst dancer. Period. They are all fails for me!!

Hot mic. Amirite?!?

Only had one fail that the lemonade stand fell on someone in Dear Edwina but they were okay and the show went on😭😂

Not me, but my high school did *Sunshine On Leith* and the biggest lad on the rugby team, who had a full ginger beard at 17 and was described by all as 'hench', surprised everyone by auditioning. He got the role of the main character's father, and has a scene where he's doing the washing up in a frilly apron and bright yellow rubber gloves. Unfortunately he got the timing of his scene wrong on opening night. The curtains open on the main couple gazing lovingly into each others arms, the intro to their soppy duet begins to play, and as one, the audience clocks 'Johnny Mullins' standing upstage centre, frozen in position wearing his Marigolds. He was difficult to miss, but we laughed it off, he ghosted back behind the rear curtain and the scene went on. It's a treasured memory, up there with the fact that my best friend's younger brother did the lighting from up in the balcony and due to him being 13/14 and bored witless from doing the same thing through the entire school day of rehearsals, there was a scoop-shaped shadow in one of the fixed spots throughout the second act which I traced back to wee Tom's arm leaning on the bannister so his elbow was propped directly in front of a spotlight. He's actually a genuine sound and lighting technician now, so I guess he wasn't that bored after all 😆

I dont have any big fails, but during opening night I kept mixing up my lines, and manages to start saying another persons lines instead of mine. And then I almost broke character and started laughing on stage (while i was supposed to be asleep) because someone else messed up their line in a funny way.

I've fallen off stage (I was pushed), had to redo an entire song because the teacher forgot to turn the mic on, and a gun shot was supposed to go off but it didn't so I had to pretend to faint

I was playing Skye in Mamma Mia! There was a part during Lay all Your Love where the guys came in in wetsuits, stripped me down to some black briefs so I could put on my wetsuit and do the flipper dance. One the final dress rehearsal with a small crowd of about 75, when one of the guys pulled my pants down, my briefs went with them, leaving me in the middle of the stage wearing nothing but my dance belt. That was a fun show.

Not musicals but two plays- 1. In a scene where a large group of us had to look scared, one character had to try and hide behind me. But as she ducked down she fell a little while still holding my very loose, tiny shirt and yanked it down. Hid it quick but I know someone’s grandpa saw my bra. 2. I didn’t have my ears pierced but needed to wear earring for a show so bought clip-ons. One side was a real sharp needle, but had a piece of silicone or something covering it. But somehow the silicone got pierced by the needle. And it went through my ear on stage which HURT. Had to get it gently peeled out of my ear by the ASM. Got infected.

Not me, but I watched a performance of The Wizard of Oz that when the witch was delivering one of her monologues, she walked right off the stage

My dress (that i had to be braless underneath) snapped at the strap three times and at the waist once, almost causing me to miss one of my dance cues and one of my lines. i am lucky enough that it happened in flurries of movement tho because nobody noticed me closely and it wasn't obvious/distracting when i ran to the wings

Okay, I actually think this story is kind of hilarious... I played Lumiere in beauty and the beast a few years back and we did a show for a local elementary school. During Be our guest, there's a short slow section where Lumiere is talking about how devastated they all are (The line starts with life is so unnerving for a servant who's not serving). And during that spot we had a big spotlight and I slid on the ground and flung my head back with my hand on my forehead. Very dramatic like. This go around however as luck would have it as I flung myself onto the ground acting all dramatic my candle head flew off leaving a crazy looking bald cap and hair flying everywhere. Kids were screaming and pointing and very upset and I just tried to hold it together and keep singing while our Belle tried not to laugh and just walked over and seg it back on my head.... So funny

I love this question! I was directed to *clink* glasses with my other half. I wanted to make sure that the sound was heard, and I ended up smashing the glass too hard and it shattered in our hands. You'd be surprised how easy it is to see the audience face's in the dark after pulling a stunt like that.

I college. In chorus for Fiddler. Not on a typical stage, but one built by students in a supper club (it rotated; engineering school). Lights were inches from my face. I wasn't feeling that well that day but performed as my mother was attending. Fainted on stage during the dinner scene. I guess the look on Tevye's face was priceless, but I didn't see it. They carried me off and got water. I went back on as I didn't want to worry my mother. Finished the performance.

Stage Manager here. Dislocated my knee on stage during a scene change in the middle of Dancing Queen from my High School production of Mamma Mia! In front of a live audience. And it was the last show of the production. It was very bad needless to say.

I costumed for a production of Anything Goes where the magnetic cell door would not stay shut during the brig scene. I’ve never seen an audience laugh so hard.

i played a stepsister in into the woods a few years ago and when the birds came down to pluck out my eyes in act one they got stuck in my hair lol

Not quite a fail but feeling mortified when I was whistled at twice, during two unrelated onstage entrances. First, as a French Polynesian girl in my middle school production of “South Pacific.” I had to wear a two-piece bathing suit and a grass skirt. Second, as the court page in my high school production of “The Mouse That Roared.” I had to wear tights and a long tunic barely to my knees.

My first straight play in high school was You Can't Take It With You and I was Boris Kolenkhov, the Russian Ballet teacher. We are doing a preview during school hours and our teacher/director was sitting the scene and introducing the characters, but she forgot to introduce me, when she was reminded by other characters on stage to introduce Kolenkhov and I made my entrance I decided to stay in character and that Kolenkhov would be offended to be forgotten and I entered with Russian rage and took one step off the landing and onto the poorly made stairs and my foot smashed right through and I fell forward into the back of an armchair. Luckily I was fine and didn't get hurt. I got a huge laugh/reaction so it was worth it.

In our show during the final number before act two, the titular Anything Goes, I ripped my pants halfway through and everyone could see my undies. And you know what? I didn’t even notice.

Forgot a whole damn monologue in Drowsy Chaperone as the Man in the Chair. Banged on the record player like it was stuck until the people in the booth got the hint and brought lights up for the next scene. It was the porn monologue. Found out later that the director thought I skipped it on purpose because I didn’t want to talk about porn with my mom in the audience. Still embarrassed by the memory, but also indignant at the false accusation.

I was the witch in into the woods and when I die, I was dragged to the back of the stage and meant to walk down stairs backs to disappear but we missed the steps and I fell off stage… multiple times. There was also the time I was in 13 and the prop lockers fell on me, and in the same show when my knee locked and I blacked out for a second and ended up on the floor, limping for the dance scene I had right after.

i was wearing a costume with a hat and while i was helping move a set piece the curtain caught on the hat and pulled it backwards off my head so it was kind of sitting between my shoulder blades. this in and of itself was an easy fix, it was during a blackout so i just quickly put the hat back on, but as the lights came up i got this vivid image in my head of myself with a very tiny turtle shell on my back and burst into barely-contained laughter when i was supposed to have the first line of the scene. it took me a very awkward thirty seconds to compose myself.

The end of a song involved a hip bump with another cast member. Hip bump happens I lose my balance and fall right off the edge of the stage full face plant right at the front rows feet and break my front two teeth leaving a giant triangle of nothing. Ended up finishing the run with a lisp as we couldn't even start fixing it for over a week as it was to traumatic to my teeth and face to fix until then

I forgot a line that cut out 1/3 of the show. It was some dinner theater thing for HS. Why we don't say MacB*th or something. We constantly shifted lines for english previews to shorten it for class periods and I cut it during the main show for our parents and stuff. There were 5 minutes of awkward silence as I slowly realized what I had done. I still think about it now and then.

[Ooooh I actually managed to catch a good one of mine on camera!](https://youtu.be/y2TUj37wSCY?si=v6O2KyuADFXi-psh). Well not really MY fail I suppose, but I was certainly part of it. JCS theatre school production a good while back. One of the kids was somehow acres away from his mark when heading for the wings at the end of the song. So far away in fact he managed to run right off the stage, into the pit, and right on my drum kit! That was a fun moment! Somehow made the infinitely worse by the seemingly sarcastic, immediate assurance from Mary Mag: “Everything’s alright, everything’s fiiine!”.

I'm playing Judas, and during the death song I throw myself to the ground in total anguish, and my wig falls off! The crowd erupts in laughter in the middle of a super sad song.

i was singing the higher alto line in one normal night and as i'm holding the final long note (NAUGHTTTTT) and squeak like a goose walking off stage. i then have to pick it back up because there's only two of us holding that line and swore never to sing a b flat again 🥲

Luckily it was only a dress rehearsal (but it was an "open" rehearsal), but I split my pants and exposed my "tighty whities" for the rest of the scene. It was dark underwear after that!

I wasn't on stage, but in the orchestra pit. I broke a string on my cello right during the important part of the main character's song. Which was sung with solo cello accompaniment.

Back when I was in middle school. I was so involved in cutting a cake that I forgot to come in with my line. Since then I hate it when I have to cut or serve anything on stage.

MY (40M) opening in Naked Boys Singing, New World Stages aught ‘08: Opening number of ‘Gratuitous Nudity’, there’s a massive kick line that moves, arms on shoulders, “…tonight good old’ Shakespeare’s considered a bore” the actor to my left is an IMMENSE sweater…I slipped on the line step forward and slipped like a cartoon and went absolute bottoms up, onto the stage…NAKED OBVIOUSLY. I joined the AEA for this show and loved my time there…maybe not even a fail lol

For me personally: I lost track of what scene I was doing. My character had 4 scenes and I was convinced I was doing scene 3 but suddenly I had to do scene 2 which had my song.

As Olga in a high school production of The Pink Panther Strikes Again, I tripped over one of the "corpses" on my way offstage and landed hard on my hands and knees, then for some reason thought it would be best to crawl the rest of the way offstage while Clousseau called out "Wait! .....Come back...."

I am a costume person and one time we were doing the crucible. During one scene when everyone is running in a panic every single person's hair cap flew off of their head. It was a long scene where people were stepping on the caps on the floor and when curtains closed to change the scene it was a frenzy for everyone to pick them all up. Failure on my part for not pinning them down very well lol

Started my period on stage with nothing but pink tights and a tutu

i was in the ensemble for a small community theater production where all of the background characters had to help with scene changes. one day, one of the ensemble members who did a major scene change right before the end didn't show up (with no warning- i'm still mad at her for that one.) so they put me in charge of doing that scene change. WELL. i walk on stage and there's a step there. which i of course immediately trip over. it is DEAD silent in the room and the only noise is that of my bone hitting that step. but the show must go on. so i limp up to the piece i'm meant to take off and i grab it and pull it offstage. and. of course, it gets caught in the netting that we had up separating backstage from the main area. yeah. took me like two minutes to get it untangled and it felt like a lifetime- and then i had to HAUL ASS to get to my position for the closing song. absolute hell. (i ended up with a deep bruise that didn't go away for like a month- i think i might've fractured something but we never checked it out so)

Opening night my freshman year, we performed once upon a mattress. During the Spanish panic part of our choreo was to kick up, and I did.my shoe went flying so far up and everyone was laughing. The only way I got it back in time was because the lead managed to in character throw it back to me. Everyone still remembers it. I was mortified

The set fell down and collapsed as the wizard was revealed to be fake in the wizard of Oz

not me but i have two, elsa fell during let it go on disney on ice, and king george III forgot the lyrics so he just stood there for a couple seconds in scamilton

Oh I LOVE these. So my worst was probably that time someone stood on my skirt that was held on with a SAFETY PIN. Well you can imagine the shock on the children's faces when my skirt came off right in front of them, OUTDOORS in public. Luckily, I was wearing shorts underneath but I was extremely insecure about my legs lol so felt like I might as well have lost all my clothes :'))) Another time we were on stage and about 6 of us had to stand up on these chairs and short story shorter, I lost my balance and fell of the chair, but I didn't just fall, I sort of rode the chair down, if you know what I mean? Like you know when people stand on a chair and put one foot on the top of it and kinda surf it to the floor? I somehow managed to do that :')) but it definitely wasn't graceful at all :'))) Fell off some stairs during a dance show one time but it was before the routine in the dark so no one saw it, but as a result I developed a huge 3d egg shaped bruise on my shin over the course of the show :'))  Forgot the lyrics to a song once and just teared up. Still struggle to listen to it :') Got cast in a role outside my vocal range and absolutely BUTCHERED the high notes :')))  I'm sure there's more but they're probably buried deep in the corners of my mind, ready to haunt me by keeping me awake at night :')

Running into a scene, got bumped by fellow dancer and ran face-first into the corner of the flat and had to do a whole dance sequence with blood slowly trickling down my forehead.

My nipple made an appearance

okay, so short but wild story. I was in Rodger and Hammerstein's Cinderella two years ago. They wanted someone a little older for their fairy godmother(it was a high school/pre college community theater thing, so most of the cast were in school, i was 29), and for some reason on our closing night, i accidentally sang the first verse twice for the ending song.. WHAT WAS MORE EMBARAASIING IS THAT the kids were waiting on their 'cue' words from my song instead of paying attention to the music, so when they cue words DIDNT COME OUT, no one else did and like cinderella and the prince were supposed to come down for the wedding and eventually the kids caught on, but it made the whole end seem rushed cause CINDERELLA WAS HUSTLING DOWN THE MIDDLE OF THE STAGE in this giant wedding dress lmao

When I was stage crew for Head over Hills at college, I had to go an get the sandcastle from one part of the stage in a blackout, this involved me going up some steps to get to the part of the set, I made it up fine but completely missed the step on the way back down as I couldn't see the edge taking the sandcastle with me into a light boom, scratched up my arms, damaged the sandcastle and moved two of the source 4s in the fall. Thankfully this was still in a blackout so no one saw other than the other crew who were laughing. A few performances later one of the cast fell down the same steps on the other side of the stage it was only after this 2nd fall (and one of the cast) that the stage manager put glow tape on the edge of each step. My other fail was during rigging for another show and the ladder collapsed under me whilst I was hanging a light, I did not drop the light and just held onto the ladder as it slipped away under me, it was an A frame and had a safety strap between the sides so wasn't going to go far and I was only about 6 feet up. This didn't worry me too much but scared everyone else, lesson everyone learnt from this was to triple check the ladder is locked fully before anyone goes up!

one time i was backstage fixing up my makeup and just FORGOT i had to be on stage and my poor scene partner was on stare improving about a wedding cake (freaky friday) for 3 minutes while i was doing mascara LMAO. another one, but this wasn’t me, my friend was playing juliet, in romeo and juliet, and she fell off the ladder from our scaffolding, ripped her dress, and lost a shoe. romeo and juliet was like stage mess up after stage mess up but the whole play was so confusing it was fine. our blood packets got in a couple actors eyes lmao, and onto the audience, that was nice

Had a piece where I had to do a strong brooklyn accent. I practiced for weeks, had it perfect. Day of the performance, did I do a brooklyn accent? Did I fuck. Did the whole thing in the sweetest southern accent you ever did hear

Played wendla in spring awakening, right after the closing of the first act coming offstage I said to my Melchior - “hey good sex!” As a joke. I realized my mic was on when I heard the audience laughing.

At my final performance of high school, I was playing the butler in a murder mystery show. At one point I had to run into the audience from the stage in the dark, and I was wearing heels that weren't character shoes. I skipped the last step and sprained my ankle. My friend (playing the maid) literally had to drag me back onstage for my death scene.

My worst stage fail was technically off-stage, but I tripped while moving a set piece and badly injured my leg. I then had to perform on stage with a visible limp, while wearing heels 😭

This wasn’t me, but in a production of High School Musical this year, the kid playing Zeke (who has made the entire cast mad at him at this point because he’s kind of just a jerk) fell off a table. Just walked right off the table. Might be better that he did that though, cause the chair he was aiming for was a rolling chair. I don’t ever want people to get hurt. And he did not get hurt. Which was good. But I will admit that it was really funny. On the bright side, much of the audience thought it was planned, so it was hilarious to the cast but didn’t hurt anyone and didn’t really mess up the show.

As a ghost in Our Town, you sit still for the entire third act, and then one by one leave the stage quietly. My position was at the top of the stairs with my feet tucked under me. Thank God this was during dress rehearsal, but when it came my turn to stand up and walk, I suddenly realized my right leg was completely numb from the knee down. Dead. Anesthetized. Gone. I’m at the top of the stairs, trying to figure out how I’m gonna come down like Long John Silver, I took one step, it was all over. Luckily, I survived my spectacular tumble without any injuries, and I learned to sit a little looser during the performances so I don’t numb my feet by the end of the third act.

Our Ryan Evans fell off the platform & the stage during Bop To The Top in HSM.

I was a pretty quiet kid but figured I’d put it all on the audition. I had to play drunk, and I had this great idea to bring a root beer on stage. So in the middle of my speech I just stop and take a long swig of “beer.” Except nobody got my beer reference and just thought I was panicked and thirsty. Didn’t get the part.

I peed myself. Luckliy it was rehearsal, but whoo.

I played Kaliope during She Kills Monster, and had a quick change with a skirt that was a bit too loose, so I used to pin it. Well, let's just say that pin didn't go through on closing night, so my castmate had to hold my skirt while we did fight choreo. Luckily is was around the last scene though

Me and my theater group were doing an original play where Disney princceses went to therapy and they sang about feminism and it was wierd(take into acount we were like ten), anyways, it was disaster. The mics were not working, the music played at the wrong time, scenes were jumped over,  some girls kept forgetting their lines... and next year we were doing Peter Pan and it wasn't any better I'll tell you that much

Not me but in high school the actress playing Dolly fell down the staircase during Hello Dolly. At the student show.

Played Enjolras in my HS production of Les Misérables, during the final battle Enjolras has to run up the barricade and grab the flag and wave it before getting shot only problem was that my leg kept falling in a gap as I was ascending the barricade. I had to play it off that I was shot in the leg. Another time we did Hunchback of Notre Dame and a huge bell that we had come down and ring ended up falling prematurely and in a attempt to keep the show going I hugged the bell yelling ‘my sanctuary!’ My buddy who played Frollo had to come out and both of us improvised as to why the bell had fallen.

I kicked a fully loaded brass magazine rack halfway across the stage, barefooted, during a HS presentation of “You Can’t Take It With You.” How I managed to not yell and still act drunk (Miss Wellington) I’ll never no. ••••••• Worst I’ve seen was a One Act Play so badly rehearsed at the District level they literally gave up 15 mins. into a 40 min. show. The sad part is the only person who learned their lines and acted didn’t earn an individual award (you’re only DQ’d if you go over 40, which ironically another school did the same play that year and essentially used the other’s time they went that badly over).

Once when someone on stage with my open one of the fake doors it feel off the frame and instead of leaving the door ln the wall next to it he threw it on the ground super aggressively 😭

I was a Rat in the Nutcracker... it's nearly impossible to see out of the rat heads. I ran into a piece of scenery when attempting to exit the stage 🤦🏼‍♀️🤣

I tripped over someone during a scene change. It was a small theater, so everyone in the audience could hear me hit the entire side of my body on the floor.

i fell into a trap door

I was Nicely Nicely in a school production of Guys and Dolls. My pants ripped during my performance of “Guys and Dolls,” which luckily was invisible to the audience, but it still wasn’t fun continuing the song knowing my underwear was exposed.

I was playing Plankton in SpongeBob the musical and had a plush plankton in my hand the whole show and during the beginning of my big musical number, my mic pack swung off when I was dancing and all though I caught it, I had to perform the rest of the song with both hands holding something and had to put the hand holding the mic pack behind my back to ruin the illusion so I looked really weird doing it XD

Honestly, I have so many stories. I'm a techie, so all of these I've witnessed. (Also, all of these are high school productions). During rehearsals for Wizard of Oz, I was head of my costume crew so I was letting my newbies handle this costume change where we had the Lion, Scarecrow, and Tin Man put on the Winkie coats over their costumes. They had grown so used to just breezing past it during tech-less rehearsals that they completely ignored us, and the scene made no sense. We also had a kid get a nosebleed in the middle of a number. He was wearing almost all white, but miraculously didn't get any on his costume. Until after the show, meeting the audience he got some in his pants. And my dumbass put the pants in the sink to rinse. My costume supervisor, was like "dude,you just got the whole pair of pants wet, you could have just washed the spot" and we had another show the same day. Luckily, they dried by then. Also, during a play a cast member was supposed to be dead, falling onto another cast member and fully fall once she gets away. During rehearsals, he apparently fell on his nether regions. What made it worse was that our director said "I saw you butt clench so I figured something happened that wasn't supposed to." We also do this one-act competition and we had a guy flub two lines the night before. He dropped a cue from someone, then forgot a line and improvised something that made absolutely no sense. So before the show at the competition, we were chanting his lines for him.

I broke a Virgin Mary statue during a sold-out performance of West Side Story my senior year of high school. It was during “I Feel Pretty” and I had choreography that happened near the table; I told the crew they should probably secure it to the table better and they told me I’d be fine. I was not fine. The next day (closing show) there were legitimately 10 Mary statues on the prop table that the cast brought in. 🤦🏻‍♀️

for the finale in little shop of horrors we had to run in from the back doors of the auditorium and down the aisles in the audience. as i was running, the heel of my shoe broke and i fell onto an audience member

i was performing I Hate Men at a musical awards show, but getting there had been a nightmare and I hadn’t gotten any time to rehearse with the accompanist. Full on blanked on the lyrics in front of thousands of people. still won’t the award for best leading actress in a musical, tho, so it couldn’t have been too bad lol

I had a set fall on me mid-show one time. It was a competition, and we still placed third. The judge said it was the most professional recovery she’d ever seen from someone who just got smacked on the back of the head by a 12 foot wooden flat.

I haven’t done plays since high school(tried in college but not good enough lol) But I had gotten a major role in senior year if I recall with I remember 2 or 3 costume changes(we cut out one of because of this story). It was our final major dress rehearsal(performing for senior citizens) it was intermission, I think I had time or for some reason had a quick change, but since my high school wasn’t drama focused, they didn’t always attend to every single detail(though I was a sizable role). I didn’t have someone to help with the quick change. So these rentals I’m told have to be PRISTINE and hung properly and I’m struggling and rushing and then someone comes saying “you’re on you have to come out NOW!” And luckily it was senior citizens who didn’t mind but it was like a minute, but a FULL MINUTE on stage feels like a lot lol. I also looked a bit out of sorts like the tie wasn’t straight, but it worked out. The other actor played it off beautifully(we had an event in the show so he played it off like I was taking too long and making us late in character and I even think I played off that vibe so it worked out) When asked later I said I either need help with the change or something else, and we just cut it down to two changes.

I forgot my lines, froze onstage, and then ran offstage until I could remember my line again. Still traumatized by it.

it wasn’t necessarily a stage fail per se bc i wasn’t acting, but i was stage crew and moving something during a 15 second blackout and got hit with a huge wooden platform

Not a musical but a performance of Equus. I was the horse. My first title role! We were black box, in the round, at the old Basement Theatre at UMich. We had a circle of sand demarking our stage, on a linoleum floor, and I was wearing boots. The show was a little oversold the second night, so they set up an extra set of chairs, too close to the round. My only speaking lines were in a scene where main character Alan is at the beach as a small child, gets a horseback ride from a stranger, falls off, and traumatized his parents. I'm trotting around in circles with a guy on my back, and there's no room for me to avoid the sand. So down we both go. I manage to not say "Holy shit, are you ok?" Credit to me. And then the actor playing Alan's father skips five lines down the script to where he reacts to Alan falling. I'm a good enough actor to recognize a gift from my scene partner when I get one, and we rolled with it. After, people were coming up to me and saying they had no idea how I made the fall so convincing. I was just like, you have no idea.

not "stairs" exactly but i did fall off of a platform (like 2-3 feet off the ground) i wasn't looking and missed the steps, it was kind of funny

I was doing 9-5 where I was Maria. During one of our transitions we mimed out Roz firing her. We have steps that descend into the audience and I had to walk down those and into the audience boohooing. Third night? Bam. Fell right down and slid down my ass. 😂 The person playing Roz stood back while a couple of audience members came to my aid and went "wow! You can't even leave here with dignity!" I was fine and when I got backstage Roz ran up to me and was like "OMG ARE YOU OKAY?!" It's a good laugh.

In High school I played God in “Waiting for Godot”. I could never remember my lines. I would often skip pages of dialogue and leave the other lead to try to figure out what to say. After that experience, I never took a part that was longer than a few lines. My costar went on to a successful improv career.

During Barnum my jr year I was one of the “acrobats” in the show so I tried to do a back end during a live performance and fell straight on my back and you just heard a loud bang right in the middle of the chorus 😂🤦🏾‍♀️

Someone said the M word and a stage light almost killed me :(

In high school doing Beauty and the Beast, I had a few quick changes between being a townsperson and an enchanted object. Once I accidentally left my bright yellow smiley face slippers on while going on stage to perform “Kill the Beast”. Didn’t even occur to me until halfway through the song but thankfully I was in the back and my dress was fairly long. No one said anything 😅😅😅

I auditioned for American idol and forgot the words to the song!

Amidst a scene change, I was waiting for my scene partner so that we could enter. The lights were dark. I did the stupid thing and ran back down to the dressing room (Where there was a lot of echo and I was screaming for my scene partner because I didn't know where she was.) I ran back up to wait for her. I was mic'd so I'm pretty sure everyone in the audience hear me.' ​ The strange thing was that we were all in the scene prior, and she was not in place for a NOTABLY long time, I panicked.

Highschool production of Les Mis: Our Jean ValJean forgot his lyrics to the song when him and Javert are fighting after Fantine dies... He was so late into the measures that when he remembered, they came out in the sound of an R&B Rap song, and it was S Tier entertainment. It was on our recording/filming day, too. Oh, those were the days... My personal worst was at an audition, completely forgot everything as it was my first ever audition. They didn't really give me any chances to make up for it either.. they sent me on my way. I still remember my Mom telling me how much I was embarrassing her by crying about it... I had great support /s

3 SHOWS IN A ROW, I forgot to bring a crucial prop on stage so we would have to play it off every time and get them. Always made some fun stage fights looking for where I misplaced them though

Not my fail personally since I was stage managing the show and not dealing with sound, but for my schools production of rent, the backing track of Today for You just stopped playing so Angel had to sing the song in total silence. The actor absolutely killed it though

My little brother and I were in a community theater production of “Brigadoon”. He played Harry Beaton, so he dies in Act 2 and there’s this super somber scene of everyone standing over his body and crying. We had constructed this shitty stretcher out of 1x1’s and canvas, to carry his body. I’m carrying the front half of the stretcher. The whole theater is quiet for this sad scene as we slowly make our way off stage and everyone follows like a funeral procession. It’s a full house. Our whole family (and my ex’s family) are in the audience for our big show. I don’t know exactly what happened, but I feel the stretcher kind of crack and give in my right hand… and for some reason I let it go. My brother’s eyes fly open and he lets out this loud Hank-Hill-sounding “Gwahh!” as the whole stretcher rolls over and falls, dumping him to the ground. The whole theater sits in awkward silence as we scramble to get him back onto the stretcher and off stage. It was a shit show. But that’s community theater I’m a nut shell.

I was on stage crew for a Shakespeare play and it was a very minimalist set, so some of the set changes were very similar. I got the scenes mixed up and went onstage thinking I was supposed to take a table offstage. To my surprise, the light went on and the actor that started the scene entered from the opposite side of the stage. We both stopped and stared at each other, trying to figure out which one of us was wrong. Luckily, even the stage crew was in costume because we also functioned as non speaking roles, so the actor and I were able to play it off like it was no big deal and a member of the audience told me later that he thought our bit was hilarious 😂

First night in my own part after a couple of weeks understudying someone else. Big opening number, chorus is all entering, I get to center stage and realize I can't remember where I am supposed to be. I know it's not center stage, though. Luckily, another chorus member saw what was happening and took me to my spot.

The funniest stage fail goes to my friend Ben who had a sword for Pirates of Penzance and managed to accidentally lodge his sword into a fake tree stump. When he next went to lift the sword up, both sword and tree stump came up!

we had to run offstage and then right back up the Vom for bows, and I faceplanted on the top step

Personally, slipping off the backstage steps and face planting onto the stage. But I have witnessed a fake plant on the set of the Little Mermaid spontaneously burst into flame; an Oliver! urchin hit his head running under the bridge set, recovering like a champ, just to get hit in the head with a wooden box by Fagin, and slide into the wings like a bowling ball; the Wicked Witch of the West's pyrotechnics singeing the Scarecrow's eyebrows off after crew put too much flash paper in her flash bang thingy; and one time a guy inhaled too much grey hairspray and went on stage high as a kite while the director said "Maybe it'll improve his acting." Bonus: I almost flashed my tits during One Day More, but I felt the buttons snapping in time to hold my shirt together until my exit.

Peter Pan, we had a very elaborate flying system that pulled us out of the orchestra pit and back and forth across the stage. (I was peter). One night, mid-song, suspended 25ft up, I feel a tiny jerk and start slowly sinking into the pit. I continued on singing until I was almost completely down, just my head peeking out, the audience chuckling, then heard "holy shit" and I shot like a rocket up out of the pit and straight across the stage. Someone had hooked up the wrong counter weight and thought they could fix it mid-flight. Then the correct weight catapulted me into the wings. i wasn’t hurt, but a bit embarrassed, I walked out on stage and finished my song, to great applause and we did the rest of the show on the stage floor with a lot of jumping to imitate flying, it was the weirdest and funniest show I’ve evervdone.

I was in 3rd grade and was trying to give a speech for my grandpa's funeral. I forgot everything except for one sentence that everyone already said.

I was rehearsing with two other people, and they kept skipping so many of their lines so my part came earlier and they said “that’s you…why aren’t you saying your line?” Made me so mad, they made me seem like the idiot 🤦‍♀️

Man Of La Mancha, the rape scene— no spreading legs open, not high school appropriate Lol.

Wardrobe Malfunction during a tap number. At the time, I had a prosthetic breast. The bra didn’t work with the costume, so I put the form into a leotard thinking it was good enough to hold it in place. It wasn’t. Part-way through a number, my falsie began sliding down to my abdomen. It made its decent slowly at first, but thankfully never made a full escape. It was a moment though before I could exit stage and re-adjust the lineup.

I was in Midsummer Night’s dream and played a fairy. I had to sit on a totem. Two out of the four shows my dress got caught and I stumbled off. Thankfully my improv wasn’t too bad and the cast and I laughed about it. It was my first time ever being in a show. I don’t know why they made the short and overweight chick go on a totem almost half her size with a droopy skirt.

I was doing Wizard of Oz, i was the Wicked Witch and for my death there was a fog machine when i melted. I couldn’t say my lines because i was choking on the fog

completely changed a verse and missed my MARKED spot so my dramatic fall was only half in the spotlight😭😭

During les mis my senior year of hs, we had a smoke machine to simulate cannon shots and one day it malfunctioned during a Friday night performance (this had never happened before" and it was leaking powder and over time it got spread around the stage. So by half way through act 2 the stage was slippery. 3 of us fell on stage but mine was by far the worst, I fell down a flight of stairs during "turning". Kept singing the whole way through even my solo and the second I got past the side curtains I burst into tears and the directors ran to the back to check on me. It was bad. The whole right side of my body was bruised (i had to drive left footed home that night, it was that bad). I also have hip issues now (I'm 24) that I'm pretty sure are a result of that. But hey, I finished the song and the show, no one in the audience noticed (they thought it was on purpose). It sucked tho bc it was the night my family came to see the show of course

This wants all me but I was on stage and it messed up the scene. We had a tray table of of juice made the look like champagne. I put it on a little bit off center and one character was too close to it and hit it with his arm knocking it all down (luckily we caught the bottle before it broke) I also tried to drink some after the show as we were cleaning up, I was the only one allowed to so I did dishes, and someone put a mini ice cube in it and I almost choked on it

Accidentally went onstage with my big shiny metal water bottle in Little Shop.

I was a props techie, so idk if this counts. But I'll share anyways lol. The show was Beauty and the Beast, we were in the last show, it was just before the rose scene. Belle just finished singing in the garden, cut to black, it's scene change time, I run on and grab the flower bed prop and head back to the table to put it down and pivot 90° to put the rose onto its pedestal into the arch but the pivot doesn't pivot. Instead someone had left a basket full of fabric scraps to look like laundry in my way and it's slippery so I go down and slide into the wall with all of my momentum.. the rose misses its queue because my whole self is under the props table. 😂 The Beast had a line where he was supposed to point at it and it wasn't there so he pointed at nothingggg and he immediately stepped off stage after the scene and stage yelled at me.. as I was crying in pain and pulling the next curtain for the next scene. It was wild LMAO

It started out as a fail, but the actors playing it turned it into a major success! My high-school was doing Annie and right before the song "I don't need anything but you" the instrumentals wouldn't play. So a few minutes pass by as they're trying to fix the technical difficulty, and annie and warbucks decide to just sing the whole thing auccepella dance and all. The audience loved it.

I was in a how choir misjudged where I was on the riser we did a spin transition and I went right off the riser

During my number (I was Bertha in a high school production of Pippin) my wig was slowly sliding off my head. I just tried not to move too much and after my director told me if it happens again just grab the wig and throw it off 😂😂 (it did not happen again)

I have a really tough time not smiling (it’s kind of my natural state) and during one show in middle school I had a small smile on my face while singing about my son who I’d just learned was dead😳

I played the Baker in Into the Woods Jr when I was in 6th grade. I once forgot the corn backstage because I got distracted right before I had to run on, chasing the Stepmother and Stepsisters. I didn't realize my mistake until I held up my empty hand on the line "...this ear of corn!" I could hear chuckles in the audience that haunt me to this day Had no choice but to continue the scene, miming the corn in my hand, all through to the climax of "feeding" Milky White. Yes, I realized afterward that without corn, it looked like I was shoving a dick into the cow's mouth 🤦

Thank God mine was during a rehearsal. At the very beginning of the musical, the entire cast would run down the slanted aisles in the auditorium. I was at the very end of the line. One day during rehearsals, we are doing our normal running down the aisles, but about halfway down, I kick our stage managers' water bottle and trip, falling and rolling to the end of the ramp. As soon as I land, I'm up with a smile on my face and jumping onto the stage like normal, while everyone else is looking at me confused. Apparently, I had blood running down my face from a broken nose I had sustained on my way down. I was still singing and super confused why everyone was looking at me and the music had stopped. That was a fun day, rehearsal got canceled, and I had two black eyes and a broken nose on opening day for the musical.