Hot Cranky People

Years ago I was playing Glinda and Aunt Em in a production of The Wizard of Oz. After the farmhouse/tornado scene we all exited through a trap in the stage, which served as the storm cellar. I then had to make a ridiculously fast change into my Glinda garb: huge crown, giant fluffy pink dress, etc. I was then supposed to make my dramatic and magestic entrance into the Munchkinland scene by rising slowly through the same trap door, on a lift. We’re not talking fancy hydraulics here, just me on a platform and a guy with a pulley. All through the tech rehearsals I was having problems with my dress getting caught on the way up, and early in the run of the show disaster struck. I made my change, jumped on the lift, and began to slowly emerge up into the center of the stage.

As I got about thigh high up onto the stage, the gears came to a grinding halt. I gave the skirt a few tugs, but I was really stuck. We’re talking yards and yards of tulle stuck. This was neither dramatic nor majestic. Well, I had to go ahead and start the scene with Dorothy, because it was underscored and the timing would have been off if we waited. So we did the whole are-you-a-good-witch-or-a-bad-witch thing, with me sticking out of a hole in the stage. The audience was chuckling…Dorothy was chuckling…Finally, I gave the dress a huge yank, and the lift popped up all the way.

Everyone laughed uproariously, and I thought it was over. With my pride slightly damaged, I continued on. But they didn’t stop laughing. I turned to face a different section of the audience, and all the people behind me just roared. (Did I mention that this theater was in the round?). I reached back and realized the entire back of the dress had been ripped open, revealing my tasteful Valentine panties, white with big red hearts all over them. I did my best to sort of shove it back together, and I had to do the whole Munchkinland songs and scene (it’s about 20 minutes long) holding it closed…Not my finest hour. This was summer stock in a small town in Indiana, and I obtained a small amount of celebrity as “the actress from Chicago with her ass hanging out”. Ugh.

I have lots of embarassing stories like that about stuff that has happened on stage, but sadly they don’t differ too much from my embarassing stories about being drunk. Most of them involve falling down or saying something stupid in front of a bunch of strangers.