In my freshman and sophomore years of high school, I did theatre. My old school had a Dramatic criticism class where we acted and memorized speeches for a grade. I loved it. At first, I was skeptical about public speaking and memorizing speeches or essays that went as long as 5 pages, then saying it out loud. It sounded like it was too much. But really, some of my best lessons were in my drama class. I learned how to deal with showtime anxiety, how to analyze essays/plays/speeches to deliver lines with emotion, and I learned more about my individual memorization process. It was nice. We studied plays like Hamilton, New summer jersey and Romeo & Juliet. But my favorite play was called The Show that Goes Wrong. My drama teacher introduced it to us near the end of the semester, when we weren’t doing anything related to theatre and I still watch it sometimes.
The Show that Goes Wrong is a show that has purposeful tech problems and line complications. It includes any thinkable mistakes that can happen in a show. The main protagonists, an expecting couple, are taken on a house tour without knowing the house is haunted with ghosts. As the husband and wife notice that something strange is going on, the wife’s belly pops to reveal a red balloon. The actors all share an abrupt pause before they continue, which is my fav part. Another one of my favorite scenes is when the angry ghost comes through a hidden door to pay the couple a visit. The ghost is on a stair lift that transports it up and down the stairs because ghosts can’t walk. After the ghost scares the couple, it encounters a visible malfunction with the stair lift and literally stands up to push the stairlift up the stairs. Meanwhile, the whole cast must visibly ignore the scene and continue to the next part of the play.
What I think makes this play more entertaining and memorable than any other is the look on the actor’s face when something goes wrong. I know they probably rehearse it along with the other mistakes, but the effort of conveying shock/struggle is so funny. And it feels real in this show. If I didn’t have any background about the play, then I would’ve believed the mistakes were real. And it teaches us to embrace our mistakes and find humor in them. Theatre is kind of brutal when you approach it with such a frigid mentality.
Anyways, this is my favorite show and I’m so glad I remembered to blog about it.
oh my god I love theater. I would love to see some of your plays.
I’ve never heard of this before, but now I really want to watch this! I love shows where they do things like this but have never really looked to find any.
That show sounds super cool! I always think it’s so interesting when something malfunctions in theater. There’s been 2 times where I was watching a high school theater show and a huge prop wall fell – I think about that a lot.
it’s my DREAM to act in The Show that Goes Wrong. i always joked about my old school doing a production of it bc our tech crew was a lot of dudes who didn’t care about theater and wouldn’t pay attention so, naturally, things went wrong all the time. it’s such a hilarious concept and i love watching professional productions of it because it looks like so much fun
I think I’ve heard of this. I’ve never actually seen it in person or anything though.
This sounds so cool I’ve never been into plays, but this sounds so exciting to watch.