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Anybody know about this "game" actors play onstage

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Topic: Anybody know about this "game" actors play onstage

Posted By: slicksister
Subject: Anybody know about this "game" actors play onstage
Date Posted: 6/27/09 at 3:06am

I am stage managing Seussical and at intermission when I went backstageto do my thing and call times one of the guys came up to me and said, "So and so has the penis." I said, "Huh?" He said it again. I said, "What the heck are you talking about? He said during the show someone winks at someone else and says PENIS. Then that person has to pass it on. At the end of the night whoever has it has to buy drinks for the cast. They do this onstage! DURING THESHOW!! I have no way of really stopping this except of course telling them to but we all know how that works, right? Anyone ever heard about or ...be still my heart... played this?

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The Main Thing is to Keep the Main Thing the Main Thing

Replies:

Posted By: tristanrobin
Date Posted: 6/27/09 at 4:48pm

No. Never.

... and "playing games" on stage is the most undisciplined thing I've heard of in a long time.

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http://tristanrobin.blogspot.com

Posted By: SamD
Date Posted: 6/29/09 at 9:55pm

What the...? Tell them you will personally remove all "said appendages" if it is mentioned again.

Posted By: SweeneyBob
Date Posted: 7/24/09 at 4:14pm

I've heard of "find the mole", in which actors draw a mole somewhere on their body and then the other actors search for the mole while on stage.

Posted By: MartyW
Date Posted: 7/24/09 at 7:20pm

Yup, someone would be holding a disconected REAL one if they did that on our stage.

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Marty W

"Till next we trod the boards.."

Posted By: colugino
Date Posted: 7/27/09 at 4:57pm

Our last show had a similar situation (although not as nasty) that luckily someone slipped about before the show. At a theatre group many of our kids also belong, the final show they plant items around the set such as a stuffed animal on the edge of a step or a note taped to a wall or a random item hanging from a prop. We pulled the cast together before the first show and let them know that this kind of behavior is not appropriate and ruins their show. That screwing around on stage during a live show is not just making our theatre look bad but makes them look bad as well. We told them that anyone that is found to partake in this activity would not be welcome back. They did grasp that we are trying to be a theatre group that is taken serious and that we put on as close to professional shows as we can at community theatre level. It was actually quite surprising how many of our younger members actually took it to heart and started getting on the kids goofing around. I am all for having fun when appropriate, but on stage where people paid money to see you, very serious. And if the kids in our show had played this particular game, as many said, they would be holding their real ones backstage and not allowed to go to the ER to get them sewn back on until after the show :-)

Posted By: TonyDi
Date Posted: 7/30/09 at 8:05am

Just to CLARIFY - many of you have referred to a removed appendage if they did something that disrupts a show. This largely is directed toward the male gender - and I'll grant that the majority of the screwing around that I've ever seen, comes from that segment. HOWEVER, I've worked with more than a few persons of the more gentle gender (you'd think) who were just as much a bad influence in getting someone else to screw things up or doing something themselves that was much too much game playing onstage, as any capable appendage holding gender (those with removable ones) had ever done. Just trying to point out it isn't always the games that boys play - the gals do it too - and sometimes to a much greater degree. I cannot begin to tell you how many times I've had to open a book, magazine, or newspaper only to find clip art from some females PLAYGIRL magazine!! So let's not always just blame the boys. If you want equality ladies - by all means you get it in this regard as well - at least in MY experience that's been the case. Fair is fair. It has NO PLACE AT ALL in theater - boredom or not. Zero Mostel for one was famous for that and he was a pain in the ass from all accounts because of it. But hey, he was ZERO MOSTEL. Sorry - I don't get it. And I NEVER EVER tolerate it if I'm director. Just no time for games when as a few have said, you have an audience who is paying money to see the performance.

Just my opinion (and observation).

TonyDi

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"Almost famous"

Posted By: SamD
Date Posted: 8/01/09 at 11:09pm

What TonyDi says is absolutely correct. However the posting stated, "... one of the guys ..." — just following the line given.

Posted By: TonyDi
Date Posted: 8/02/09 at 10:25pm

Ah yes, "one of the guys" - but anymore that's gender non-specific. Some of the gals I've worked with over the many years I've been involved CAN REALLY be classified as "one of the guys" in many cases. Some are more butch than I ever thought I was. But that's another subject and I am not prejudiced against anyone. Just saying that the "one of the guys" line CAN be gender blurred if not totally non-specific. And even the fairest of these gentle women can be as playful and often as crass as any testosterone motivated boy. Just sayin' - ya' know? Games!! Stage is NOT the place for those kinds of things when people are paying for quality show.

TonyDi

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"Almost famous"

Posted By: musikman1
Date Posted: 8/04/09 at 5:07pm

Yo Tony!

I agree, and if the actors have ANY respect for the theatre (obviously they have none for the director nor stage manager), they should get the George Bernard Shaw "Illusion of the First Night" speech..

Each one of those audience members paid to see the same show, and at that, the best that the actors can offer them. The actors have to create the illusion to the audience that this is the first performance, with all the nervous energy and excitement.

Passing a wordydurd across the stage is unprofessional at best and a really good reason to note those folks down for casting purposes next year! (FUTURE CHORUS AND SET CREW MEMBERS OF AMERICA!)

Wow, I can't imagine WHAT I'd do in my theatre if I ran into that.. Nothing like a sitzprobe before, during intermission and afterward to help work some of that "creative energy" off.. And of COURSE, in order to be able to be this "creative" onstage, they must know their parts PERFECTLY!! Egad.

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Rick
http://www.bway2.com/tracks

Posted By: Nyria
Date Posted: 8/06/09 at 2:32pm

Originally posted by TonyDi

Just to CLARIFY - many of you have referred to a removed appendage if they did something that disrupts a show. This largely is directed toward the male gender - and I'll grant that the majority of the screwing around that I've ever seen, comes from that segment. HOWEVER, I've worked with more than a few persons of the more gentle gender (you'd think) who were just as much a bad influence in getting someone else to screw things up or doing something themselves that was much too much game playing onstage, as any capable appendage holding gender (those with removable ones) had ever done. Just trying to point out it isn't always the games that boys play - the gals do it too - and sometimes to a much greater degree. I cannot begin to tell you how many times I've had to open a book, magazine, or newspaper only to find clip art from some females PLAYGIRL magazine!! So let's not always just blame the boys. If you want equality ladies - by all means you get it in this regard as well - at least in MY experience that's been the case. Fair is fair. It has NO PLACE AT ALL in theater - boredom or not. Zero Mostel for one was famous for that and he was a pain in the ass from all accounts because of it. But hey, he was ZERO MOSTEL. Sorry - I don't get it. And I NEVER EVER tolerate it if I'm director. Just no time for games when as a few have said, you have an audience who is paying money to see the performance.

Just my opinion (and observation).

TonyDi

I think the reason they said this was not because they assumed it was gyus doing it but because it works better with the joke - the name of the game had the word 'penis' not 'penis' or 'girl parts'.

Anyhoo - In this situation I would also talk to the cast about how they could possibly have time to do this on stage. Many young actors think that if they are nto saying a line that they are not acting - they need to be reminded that they are acting evrey second they are on that stage.

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NYRIA

Posted By: slicksister
Date Posted: 8/07/09 at 11:55pm

Just an update on this... I basically said to them almost everything that's been said here; every audience deserves the best show, unprofessionalism, not being cast in future shows etc. The ASM said she didn't notice it anymore I didn't see anyof it from the booth. Whether or not they stopped I suppose I will never know but I laid it right on the line when I spoke to the cast about it.

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The Main Thing is to Keep the Main Thing the Main Thing