Hi, I'm brand new to The Green Room and glad to be here.

I have two short stories. First one was at St. Louis Ren Faire two years ago. During a dance performance, three of us dancers were supposed to back up together out of our straight line and move in a circular direction for one rotation and then fan back out into a straight line again. Two of us ended up getting our belts hooked together back-to-back. The musicians were trying really hard not to bust up and stop playing in the middle of the song and the two of us that were stuck together were trying frantically to unhook ourselves. The third dancer was by that time out in front of us and couldn't see what was going on and wondered where the heck we went to. It ended up being okay becuase the audience was laughing hysterically by this time and by the time we finally got disconnected, everyone on stage was rolling. It was pretty funny and was a great way to get the audience loosened up and in a good mood.

The second relates to a candle dance that we did at a goth club several years ago. After the dance we were supposed to quickly exit the stage, blow out the candles and even more quickly do a costume change for the next dance. (All this in the dark.) After the candle dance, I left the stage and blew out my candles. I must have gotten the wrong angle on the wax because it flew up out of my candle holder and a spatter of hot wax landed and stuck to my right contact lens. Now, I don't know about you, but when I get something stuck on or under my contact lens, it feels like boulder is in my eye and makes my eyes tear up and flow like a river. I spent the rest of the performance with tears streaming down my face because I couldn't spare the time to take out my contact lens and clean it. (I couldn't just take it out because I am blind as a bat without them.) Needless to say, I looked a fright with makeup running down my face the whole time, but I guess it did add to the goth look! :)

Back in my teens I was playing my drum kit at a gig on a stage that was pretty high. I have a tendency to sit on the front of the drum throne. The top of the throne broke off sending me tumbling backwards off of the stage. The band kept playing. This might have something to do with the fact that I like to joke around and they probably thought I was kidding. I don't remember if it hurt so I probably landed on my head.

Before I began to work at the museum 14 years ago I was in the film & theater industry here in Pittsburgh. Nothing grand, just another grunt in the production, but I saw some wacky things happen.

Reading this thread I recalled an incident that happened a LONG time ago when film making was a big industry here before the unions more or less killed it.

While I don’t recall the film being made I do recall the stunt that was being shot on one particular day. A stunt man was to run along a 2nd story hallway, crash through a fake window and land on an airbag far below while the cameras rolled from outside.

The first take went smoothly but the director wanted to do a few takes so the scenic guys quickly replaced the candied glass and everything was made ready for the second take.

As the time grew close for the action to begin the stunt man was upstairs pacing the hallway psyching himself to crash through the window again. I imagine he was pretty focused as well as stressed, after all even with all the safety measures in place, a leap out a 2nd story window is still a leap out a 2nd story window.

A production manager, one of the best I’ve ever known, was talking to one of the scenic painters nearby, not really paying attention. The painter asked for a smoke, back in those days it seemed EVERYONE smoked on the job.

The PM pulled out his back and said, “Take two.”

The stuntman, hearing that thought he’d missed HIS queue for the second take and went barreling down the hall to crash through the window to the stunned surprise of everyone!

Needless to say there was a take three and everyone was quite beforehand… LOL

Well I've seen dancers lose their tops by various strap malfunctions. There's just no saving the number when that happens, you've got to get off stage.

My turban "unwound" itself on stage when I was doing a cane duet. I needed the turban in order to balance the cane. Luckly, during my partner's solo, I put the cane down and re-tied my turban in time for the big ending.
Neefa

It wasn't a performance, but rather a scientific conference, where I later the day would be honored with the best paper award, which is a very rare and special event. I gave my talk on a podium, and walked towards the projection screen to point out a particular detail on my slides - what I didn't realize was that there was a gap between the podium and the screen. And, yes - I fell off the podium. I have no recollection of that at all - but everybody still tells me they were deeply impressed how I got back up on the podium and just continued as if nothing had happened.

Once When i was the Bass player for the house band at Pitt's friday night improves, i started playing the theme song for the event a whole step higher than the rest of the band. realizing this two bars into it I tried to rectify the mistake and went a half step lower than I should have been. it wasn't until the words started that i found the right place and did the rest of the song with my head held low. The best thing to do in those situations is to just make a silly face and let everyone know your well aware of your screw up and try to make a joke out of it.
Another fun little event was when i worked on the Cheap Ass Zombie Film Flesheater. An actor who was playing one of the Main zombies decided that he wasn't going to show up anymore. So the director decided to kill him off in the next scene. They then dressed me up to look like him as a zombie and I'm supposed to bust through a door and get my head blown off. Well the time comes and the director yells action from inside the room i'm supposed to burst into and I slam myslef aganst the door and..... nothing happens. I try 5 more times and the door dosen't budge. They them reralize that one of the actor, while filming an earlier scene, had firmly nailed the door shut. So we removed a few nailes and weakend the cros bracing and then i got my 15 minutes of film Fame. By the way, I can do six degeers of Kevein Bacon with myself.

While I was still in college and working as a flyman on the rail (the guy who pulls the ropes that makes things like scenery go up and down for those who don't know) we had a little mishap. Our main curtain was designed to open an close like a normal curtain, you know from left to right and meeting in the middle. Well the show called for a guillitine curtain (the whole thing goes up and down instead of opening). This doesn't sound like a big deal but the problem was that since it never went up and down the counterweights on the line were not really perfect so it wasn't properly counterbalanced to begin with. To compound things right behind this monstrosity was the movie screen that we would lower for professors to show movies for the humanities classes from time to time. Well, when we rasied the curtain we snagged the screen halfway up...which needless to say added an extra 400 pounds to the already out of trim line. In the meantime the guy is screeming "HIGHER, HIGHER!!" in our headsets and the cue light is flashing like a strobe. Thankfully I had talked them into letting me have a helper (normally I would have been up there by myself) and he was able to grab a pipe and we twisted the lines to essentially lock them in place, which is the last resort solution but it was the best we could do. We spent the whole first part of the concert literally hanging on the line to add our weight and finally during the intermission we got the whole thing free and clear. It was an intersting night.
My worst memory involves "West Side Story" coming to town. We were the first stop on this companies first Off Broadway tour. Their entire set was built of structural steel fire escapes...Four stories worth of the damn things. We heard they scrapped them and reaplced the set with something else later in the tour after they had to lift and assemble them a few more times.