Story: The Worst Show I Have Ever Been In

Cast Shirt

Being in theatre, you have many interesting experiences. Believe me, I have seen quite a bit. And there are some of us who will say that this show or that show is the worst show we have ever been in. Well, I think I have a story that is quite literally the worst and here it goes.

I do want to make a disclaimer first because I want to make one thing very clear. I am in no way, shape, or form, discrediting the company I did the production with, the script, or the director. This is just what happened when everything went wrong. I have done many productions with this company before this and none of them were this bad. I hold my director in the highest regard because she is the reason I am even apart of the theatre community. I also wholeheartedly support this community theatre and everything they do.

So this all started in November of 2014, where I was a mere 16 years old and a sophomore in high
school. At this point, I had been working with this director for about 3 years. I was a part of the tech crew for this show. There were a total of five techies building the set and managing backstage.

Techs on a day where we had
nothing to do

The name of the show was Christmas on the Gangplank. It was about a group of pirates (or buccaneers as they liked to be called) who kidnapped Santa. Our director's husband wrote the show and I have to admit, the script was quite funny.

The rehearsal schedule was twice a week for about 6 weeks with some Saturday rehearsals. Now you may be wondering how that would all work out. Trust me when I say that I have done shows with her that were twice a week for 4 weeks before and they have turned out much better than this.

The first thing that went wrong with this show, which we didn't really realize until afterward, was that we were performing during finals week. This means that not everyone is learning their lines because of studying. We were even studying during tech week any chance we got. The only good part about this is that we performed the day finals ended, but we probably should have stopped rehearsals once our second problem arose.

We had about three weeks to go before opening night. I came into rehearsal ready to build, but also having the recent sadness of not receiving a callback for Wizard of Oz at my high school. I walked into the back where the stage manager, director, and the rest of the techs were. They are in the middle of a conversation, and I had no clue what it was about. I was kind of able to pick up that we had lost our actor for Grimm (a pirate with a long beard that can store practically anything). Then all of a sudden, our director looked up at me and said, "Unless you want to be a bearded pirate." I, having a need to perform after not doing well at my previous audition, said sure. She was half joking when she asked me, but when I said yes, she immediately took me up on it. And so, I became Grimm, the bearded pirate.

When I was practicing my
pirate makeup

This leads me on to the week of the show. It was still rough and we were still working out all of the kinks, but a cast and directors worst nightmare happened. Someone quit the week of the show and another techie (who is also an actor, thank god) had to fill in. She had even less time than I did to learn everything. Also, our director almost had to play a role because one of the girls was sick that week and didn't come to rehearsals without telling anyone. I completely get it if you are sick, but during tech week or anytime during the show, you should either come anyways (I've had to do that before) or at the very least, text or call your director if you are unable to make it. We didn't see her until the night of the show. And when I saw her, I jokingly said, "Yay, you're not dead!" That was when she told me that she had been sick.

So now we come to the day of the show. Everyone is freaking out because we have never had a successful run, and the girl who was sick didn't know any of the final touches we had made. I was getting my wig and vest finished up and we were probably all thinking, "Thank god we only have to perform this once." 

Then the show started. Let the fun (or disaster depending on where you stand) begin.

Just before the show started

The first thing that happened (which happened a lot with her productions so I wasn't surprised) was that not everyone had their lines memorized and my director was prompting said people. Quite a few did have their lines memorized, but the ones who didn't have their lines memorized knew practically nothing. I have never been in a production where some people had to have every other line prompted to them.

But this is where everything went to crap. The first big disaster that happened caused us to stop the show for a couple minutes. One of the girls fell off the platform onto the stage floor. Our director, who was in the front row, runs over to her as the house lights flew on to make sure she's okay. Also, I almost fell a few seconds later, but I caught myself.

Once we knew she was alright, we continued from where we left off, when I quickly realized I forgot the fake sandwich that I was supposed to "pull out of my beard". So last minute, I had to improvise. Now, I actually suck at improv, but this was one of the rare occasions where I was able to pull something out of my hat, or beard in this case. I pretended to pick crumbs out of my beard instead of having the sandwich. That was probably one of the very few times we were able to save the show from being an absolute disaster.

Well, we finished Act One, and when we were backstage, we were saying how the show wasn't as horrible as we thought it would be. Now, if you believe in jinxing as much as I do, you might be able to imagine why Act Two was probably the worst act EVER.

I remember that there was a scene in Act Two that none of us (including myself) knew extremely well, apart from lines. This scene was so bad that we ended up repeating it twice due to so many lines being skipped. I was late for a quick dance number and the whole thing was just disorganized and a mess. Plus, I had to jump "overboard" at one point and the jump they had me do was the most unrealistic thing ever. But, it wasn't the worst thing since they wanted me to land safely and not injure myself

On stage, after I jumped off
stage

This next part, I was not on stage for because my character had jumped overboard, but I was watching the silhouette on the wall behind us (we didn't perform on a real stage I need to add quickly) with the other girl who jumped overboard and the techs. This scene was a sad montage after we decided to jump. One of the characters had to swing a fake sword and then get really mad. As he was bringing it up to his left shoulder to swing it, he accidentally hit one of the girls in our cast, who was probably around 10 at the time, right in the nose. The audience gasps, as did I, and then he went over to hug her. Next thing I know, the lights go on. Our second stop of the show. I tell her sister (who was working as a tech) what had happened and she was about ready to kill the guy. I had to help her calm down by letting her vent to me about her frustrations with this show. Pretty soon. The entire cast is coming backstage and they are telling us that the girl who got hit started crying and her nose was bleeding so they had to stop to take care of the situation. Once that happened, they started the scene over again, but this time, when the boy was swinging his sword, the little girl took three steps to the left and everyone started chuckling. To be fair, so did I.

Now we are on to the final fight scene. That whole thing was a mess. Now I can't talk for everyone in that scene, but I can tell you how my fight with the guy who was swinging the sword (yes, funny isn't it) went terribly wrong. So I go on stage with my twin cutlasses and he has two swordfish. Now we have this whole fighting routine we are supposed to do. In fact, we were practicing that fight just before we started the show. Well, all of that choreography went out the window. he just started swinging his swordfish towards me and I had to keep blocking him as best as I could. That whole thing resulted in my knuckles getting grazed a couple of times and us being way past where we were supposed to be. Then he "stabs" me, actually grazing my side, which he didn't realize. I end up having to stumble all the way over to the platforms we had so I could fall on it, and say my line.

And then we had the end song that Santa had to sing. You know when I said that quite a lot of the cast didn't have their lines memorized. Well, Santa had barely any of them memorize and you could tell. Our director was in the front of the audience feeding him his lines as he was doing the song and he didn't even finish the song before the music was at its end and the lights were supposed to go out.

And then to end the show-off. We had technical difficulties with the ending slideshow that was apart of it so the guy doing the monologue had to ad lib a bit (like he doesn't do that already).

Then we took our bows, which we surprisingly didn't screw up, and the horror that was Christmas on the Gangplank was officially over.

After the show, our director told me that she had done this show three times and each time it went horribly wrong. And so she said that even though her husband wrote it and she loved the script, she was never performing this show ever again, which she hasn't. And I don't blame her

Now you see what I mean by worst show ever. I was in only one other production with her after that show but left that company due to the need to branch out and go learn from other directors.

Now that you know my story, I would be curious to know a stage experience that is classified as the worst show you guys have been in. I always find it fascinating hearing other people experienced, especially when it comes to what went wrong. So if you have any of those, please share them with me via Twitter, Instagram, or just the comments on this post. I think this is something that we can all bond over in one way or another



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