Oliver! funnies!

I have been thinking about how the run of Oliver! here is almost over, and wanted to save the memory of some of the amusing things that have happened over the last 2 and 1/2 months. If you don't want to read all of them, at least read the ending one because it is worth it.

On Opening night (The end of may) Nathan (Faggin) was singing the song "Reviewing the Situation." Part way through he forgets the words, but knows that they are important to the storyline. So, he stays completely in character and shouts "Wait! Let me see!" and walks up to the piano looks over Sarah's (the pianists) shoulder reads the words and continues singing. This was a brilliant acting moment.

At the end of the play Bill Sykes is killed via gunshot. So Conrad (Bow Street Runner) goes to shoot the gun and nothing happens. Normally we have a pistol that shoots a blank and it works great. However on this particular day both Conrad and Karl (Bill Sykes) were left standing there looking dumb. The solution? Sykes just withered to the ground suddenly. The audience laughed at this one. I don't blame them. Ha.

At the end of the show we wait off stage in the wings to go onstage for the bows. It's dark back there so Karl decided to try and freak me out getting as close to me as possible. However, wondering what he was doing, I looked over and she shared a few nose nuzzles. He was embarrassed and now makes a point to not get to close to me back there.

It's been been a very rainy summer and therefore very humid as well. The floor on the stage it made up of wooden panels. One day after a particularly wet day we came in to find that the wood on the floor had expanded. The stage was COVERED in bubbles. Imagine trying to do a show while walking and tripping over a bubbling floor? Ha.

Last Sunday's show was an interesting one. Paul (Mr. Brownlow) gets to take a walk outside the theatre to get to the other side of the the stage. (We have a crawl space but some people prefer the walk outside. However on this day the door is locked. This has never happened before. So Paul runs all the way around the theatre again and tries to make his entrance on time. I was in the dressing room at that time and the curtains around the area literally moved from the blur that Paul was. Despite his rush Mr. Bumble was left on stage for a few moments staring at a locket. Oops.

Here's another one with Conrad and Karl. This afternoon Conrad got trigger happy. Karl is supposed to have the line "Stand back! Or I'll kill the boy" instead all he got out was "St.." I'm pretty sure Oliver should have died instead of Bill, but they made it work.

Okay...now here is the doosey that inspired this post. I'm actually not sure I should post this one - but I will anyways. The patrons that come toe show are often...well quite frankly, old. Some of them aren't all there. In the play one of my roles is the Milkmaid. For this role I carry a metal buckets. Now one of the patrons someone managed to wander backstage during the first act - and PEED in my milk bucket. Um yeah. You read that right. Then he got confused about which way to go to leave the room, so he wandered onto the wings of the stage. Luckily dear Kelsey was there to help him back to his seat. She realized what had happened and kindly told our Stage Managers. Needless to say I did not use the same prop that night. Instead Brad pulled the paper off of a paint can and put some fabric on top of it. It was full of paint and somewhat heavy. The man didn't even realize something had happened we don't think, which I suppose is a good thing. I am assuming that he has Alzheimer's and believed that this was a chamber pot or something. Poor man...but its rather amusing.

That's all folks!