Theatre folk: Share your trainwrecks

Cafe Society
41

Does an audition qualify?

Dateline: October, 1974

I was taking the train into the NYC to do research at the Lincoln Center music library. I ran into an old friend who was auditioning for a Black Rep version of Othello (since he’s now a semi-well-known choreographer, no names will be mentioned!). Anyhoo . . . he had this bright idea that since a Black is usually cast in the title role in an all-White company, I would make the perfect Othello in this production. I had about an hour to learn a speech, and, with some coaching, did it pretty well. We got to the audition, and everyone thought it was a GREAT JOKE, including the assistant director.

My turn to read. Let’s just say, that no scenery was left unchewed. It was probably the first comic performance of Othello - ever! I could hear the muffled laughter from backstage, and from one or two places in the front. At the end, the AD said, “Very nice read, is there anything else you want to say?” I looked out into the ‘audience’ and said my scripted line: “If I get this part, I want it on merit, and not because you need a token White!” This broke up the entire group backstage, and I exited, stage right, to thunderous applause.

However, unbeknownst to the AD, one of the people casting the play was none other than Geraldine Fitzgerald. She was not amused. As the AD told me later on, over some cocktails, she was heard to say,"I don’t know who that A$$h0le is, but he’ll NEVER get a part in ANY production I am involved with.

Needless to say, I didn’t get the part, but the story of the audition (and Ms Fitzgerald’s quote) was the topic of conversation for a while. In fact, my phone was ringing off the hook for a few weeks with every director who didn’t see eye to eye with Ms Fitzgerald offering me roles just to piss her off.

Too bad I really didn’t want to be an actor.

I did get my chance many years later, doing a couple of films, but that’s another story for another time.

42

Oh, so many stories.

I played the lead in a college production of a really obscure musical version of Little Red Riding Hood that we did for our annual childrens’ show. We didn’t have an actual orchestra to play the score, just some synthesized music on a cassette tape. At the beginning of the show, I was supposed to walk onstage as the tape began playing the first song. I’d walk to the center of the stage, which took about fifteen seconds, and just as I got dead center, the song’s introduction would end and I’d begin to sing. Well, one day, the lights came up, which is when the music was supposed to start. Like a doofus, I just started walking onstage without waiting for the first notes of the song to start. The song didn’t start. I stood there, dead center stage, and froze (I’m not good at improvization). After about thirty seconds, which is an eternity on stage, the song finally began. By this point, the audience, all little kids and their teachers, had become aware that something was wrong and began applading the start of the song. We always videotaped our productions and a few weeks later, the sound guy for that show (who was also a good friend) and I were watching the video. Apparently, I was so relieved that the tape had started playing that I was clapping, too! I hadn’t remembered doing that. The sound guy told me later that what had happened was that the tape player in the sound booth had somehow turned itself on, played about a minute of the tape, then turned itself off again. What he was doing during my thirty seconds of agony was trying to cue the tape up again. Likely story.

And once, when I was playing the Padre in a production of Man of La Mancha, during the “Golden Helmet of Mambrino” song, someone hit the helmet (which was actually a metal salad bowl spray-painted gold) with his sword, causing it to fly into the audience.

43

I wasn’t involved in this play, but when they did Into the Woods, which is pretty much a mix of many fairy tales, they had actual lit up magic jumping beans…which managed to catch the set on fire. Luckily, they managed to put it out.

44

We did MASH when I was in high school. Most of the show is funny, but there was one scene that was pretty serious. Ho-Jon, the Korean boy is wounded and the doctors have to operate on him.

Lights come up and we see doctors standing around looking grim like they’re supposed to. But there’s no patient on the table.

Turns out our Ho-Jon FELL ASLEEP backstage!

So the doctors hem and haw at each other and attempt to improvise. “Well… I heard it’s pretty bad.” Pause. “Yes, so… they should be bringing him in any time now…”

The stage manager finally brings down the lights, grabs the nearest actor, and throws him onto the table. “Shut up, stay on the table, and don’t move!”

Lights come up and all should be well, as Ho-Jon obviously has no lines during this scene. Trouble is, the guy who was dragged onto the table has a mischevious sense of humor. Facing away from the audience so they can only see the back of his head, he starts making faces at the doctors as they “operate”. They crack up during the only serious scene in the show.

As the scene ended, the real Ho-Jon appeared in the wings, only to be summarily pummeled by the stage manager.

45

This whole story is so perfectly apt for Beckett, though… :wink: