The Following Events Are True.
These are shortened and much more condensed descriptions of what were, at times, heart-stopping theatrical nightmares! Each one of these situations was eventually overcome and - thank goodness - solved without the audience suspecting a thing. But for those of us backstage, on stage, or out front, we all gained a few more grey hairs.
I am 100% sure there is no ‘good way’ to give this kind of news to anyone involved in the theatre. There never seems to be time to even fully digest what you have just been told because as soon as the news is delivered a plan has to be made (usually extremely quickly) as to how to combat the issue. The time to fall apart is post-show in the bar! But maybe the blow would be softened by some of these gorgeous baby animals delivering the news. What do you think?
Our 'theatrical nightmares' pale into insignificance compared to one of the National Theatre's biggest theatrical disasters ... they were preparing for a production of Alan Ayckbourn's play Way Upstream, ambitiously set aboard a floating cabin cruiser. It had transferred down from Scarborough where there had been just six actors on the boat; at the National it was weighed down by a dozen people, half of them stage crew. Scarborough kept the ship afloat in a plastic enclosure; at the National, it was held in a 6,000-gallon tank that eventually split and deluged all the stage machinery. Previews were cancelled, water jokes abounded, and the critic Jack Tinker turned up on the first night in wellies. A Scarborough success turned into a National tragedy!
We could have a whole nativity of animals standing by for our December production of Breeders by Ben Ockrent. Now that would be a sight to see backstage, let's just hope we won't need them!