[abbiebear]

Anyone have any bye bye birdie bloopers they'd care to share?

Here is a couple of goofs from our show...

In the scene with Gloria, our Mrs. Peterson came on stage like 2 minutes late, so Gloria, Albert, and Rosie were just on stage like...
A-"so you're the new secretary"
G-"yeah"
A-"thats nice"
G-"um, i dance too"
A-"wow"
***long silence***
A-"so rosie, hows your day"
R-"fine..."
***yet another long awkward silence***
and then mrs.peterson came on finally

Some other goofs were during a black out a set piece from out previous show which was stacked backstage fell over and made a loud boom and everyone in the audience jumped......stage crew was moving a set piece and it got stuck on the curtain and ripped a huge hole in it....someone slipped on the milk hugo spilled....and those are all i can remember for now, but today is my last show and perhaps there will be more.

[atl2539]

Our Hogo missed his entrance at the Icehouse. We all tried to cover but it was a little difficult. Our Harry exited through the door and said "Oh, here comes Hugo!" He grabbed him and dragged him onstage. Not too horrible but funny in retrospect.

[Theatrewannabe06]

Our mama had a purse that had a large pink yarn ball in it. When she sat down for the scene in which albert tells her he's leaving to go to sweetapple ohio, she sat down kinda hard and the yarn rolled put of the purse! They covered it really well until it got stuck on the edge of a suitcase. When she walked off stage, our albert grabbed it and yelled: "don't forget your yarnball, mama!"

[aquamarine fishnets girl]

During our dress rehearsal our Kim was late for her Lot of Livin' entrance, so our Deborah Sue was just standing there going, "You know, there isn't actually ice in the Ice House. There used to be, but then they took it out... because it was cold..."

And our Conrad missed an entrance once, when he comes down for breakfast and all the girls watch him eat. Mrs. MacAfee just kept looking up the stairs, being all, "Where's Conrad? Where's Conrad?" Then the girls all started crying and singing the We Love You Conrad song. I believe Ursula even screamed, "My life is ruined!" Thankfully that was during a rehearsal too.

[abbiebear]

Hahahha. We had another oopsie at our sunday matinee. In one scene the phone is supposed to ring and Albert is supposed to pick it up. Well, the phone rang...but it wasn't in the cradle. Our Albert looked out into the audience and said "this is awkward". It was the most laughs we got at any of our shows!!

[bandguy]

Rosie: "What's in Pumpkin Falls, Iowa?"

Albert: (forgetting his line) "Uh, I don't know, pumpkins?!"

Thankfully, that was a rehearsal too because Rosie couldn't stop laughing.

[broadwaybound11]

We were in rehearsal, and Mr. MacAfee called me "Tim". I'm Kim. Then, all I could think about was the scene in "Monty Python and the Quest for the Holy Grail" where Tim the enchanter says, "My name is Tim. My friends call me... Tim?" There was much laughter, and someone had to explain to our confused Mr. MacAfee why we were laughing at him.

[phsdrama]

Our Sunday performance is always full of bloopers and ad-libs. This year when Conrad comes downstairs with the leopard print robe and goes to the refrigerator, he opened it and Harvey was hiding inside. Tons of laughs. Also when Mae askes Conrad if he ever concidered a "more mature woman", Conrad replied, "only after a few drinks". The kids started laughing on stage, but the crowd loved it.

[broadwaybound11]

I've got another one. Today (during rehearsal, thank God), Mrs. MacAfee fell down the stairs. She was trying to rush to me and said, "Baby, what isit?" Then her feet flew out from under her and she slid down the stairs on her butt. She almost took out a wall! When she finally bounced to a stop, she said, "What's wrong?" And then she started laughing like crazy. She's okay, and because she is, we can laugh about it.

[act4ever]

[broadwaybound11]

Great minds think alike, right?

[act4ever]

Hell yeah

[BBgal4eva]

in a recent production of birdie, hugo never came on to punch conrad after one last kiss. After about 2 minutes, some random chorus kid had to run on and be like someone told me to punch conrad, and then punched him

[broadwaybound11]

Our show closed on Saturday, and during the final performance, Conrad completely butchered the first two verses of Lot of Livin to Do. He made up lyrics which made no sense whatsoever. It was actually pretty funny...

[BroadwayRedHead]

Well, on our first nigth of the show, for alot of livin, the main curtain was closed for "A Lot of Livin" and when we went to open it up for the full chorus to come out, it fell apart (our curtain system is very old) and it was only open half way. Everyone back stage was flipping out.

Another one was on the second night, whenever the phone is supposed to ring, Albert picked up the phone and it kept on ringing. He just looked out into the audience and was like "Wow, I guess the phone company is out of order..." it was the first thing that came to his mind but it was funny.

On our last performance, I was in my Margie gear as I call it, and it was when the teen girls were supposed to run across stage saying "Oh my gosh it's Conrad Birdie!" well only myself and this girl named Melissa was on stage and it was our cue to go on so Melissa and I ran on like "OH MY GOSH!" just jumping up and down between ourselves, trying to cover it up and all of a sudden, a rush of teen girls ran on, completely removing the back curtain and ripping it...it was bad.

[I_heart_theatre]

When my school put on BBB we were short on male cast memebers so a lot doubled up on roles. We were watching the scene at Maude's (which was changed to sweetapple soda shop, were a middle school y'know) and the boy who played the mayor was also in the soda shop. My friend went up to the director and asked "why is the mayor with the teenagers in the soda shop." The director explained he was a teenage boy in this scene because so few guys tried out.

[broadwaybound11]

That is too funny! Our Mr. MacAfee had to be in the bar scene AND in the shriner's ballet. People were slightly confused.

[bandguy]

I was playing Mr. MacAfee and I had the biggest problem with Act 1 Scene 7 where the family is arguing at breakfast.

The line that hung me up the most was: "Doris, after all Kim is only fifteen and I don't want her to ..."

I can't tell you how many times Kim aged three years. "Doris, after all, Kim is only EIGHTEEN and ..." Always a character breaking error.

[ADistantMoonAgo]

Our Mrs. Peterson didn't come out on stage during rehearsals..so Albert was talking to me and then he was just like
"Conrad...go to bed..." to get him offstage and move on to the next scene

[music4me3111]

One of our main bloopers was that Conrad got punched for real one night. He apparently didn't turn his head in time, and he got nailed. He came off stage with a HUGE bump on his head. He had a bruise there for at least a week.

[broadwaybound11]

Ouch...

[WinterTears]

Biggest blooper by far, on our third show we were doing the orgy scene, and myself, the girl who plays Ursula, and the girl who played Helen were all supposed to shove Conrad down and start stripping him, and he was supposed to just put his hands behind his head and laugh like he was enjoying it... well, Usula started to straddle him and leaned over him right when he moved his arm, and he elbowed her and broke her nose!!! It was bad...

[MrsJamieWellerstein]

Hrm. The only one I can remember (right now, at least) was...bad. Not funny. Bad.

For our first performance, our Rosie couldn't remember the words to Spanish Rose. Could. Not. Do it. So she danced. She didn't sing. She just did some random, flamenco-esque steps with a pair of castanets.

She was kicked out and replaced with her understudy immediately after the show.

EDIT: I feel I should clarify something. She could not remember her lines because she spent every rehearsal telling people they were doing things wrong. It would come time for her to rehearse her parts, and she would be found several rooms away, screaming at the set designers "THAT IS NOT HOW SWEET APPLE OHIO IS SUPPOSED TO LOOK!" or at the poor kid playing Harvey Johnson "NO! THAT IS NOT THE PROPER INFLECTION! WHAT ARE YOU, STUPID?!"
So yeah. It was more the reason she forgot her lines than the actual forgetting.

[twinkleinmyeyes14]

um not really a blopper but i forgot to come on for a scene and I was Mrs. Merkle and the guy playing the father had to come up with like a 2min speech telling everyone to get out of his house. I laughed later about it but i sat in the wings crying cause i missed "my big scene" haha

[Dancer#5]

When we did bye bye birdie, our Albert could not seem to remember this one line- the pumpkin falls Iowa one, the last night it came out like this
"Iowa city high school...um pumpkin college iowa falls pumpkin, iowa!"
we all were cracking up, luckily we were able to watch it again and again on film...

[Skip2MyLiu33]

The scene in which Ursula, Deborah Sue and Margie are up all night singing the "Conrad Birdie" song takes place in front of the curtain, while the stage crew sets up the set for the Macafee residence. After that set of the girls' lines, Mrs. Merkle is supposed to come out and drag all three of the girls back home, while the curtain comes up, revealing the Macafee home.
HOwever, during our dress rehearsal, the curtain came up a minute late, so, well...this is what happened.
Mrs. Merkle: Ursula, we have to go home now. It's late.
Ursula: No, Mom. I want to sing my song.
Mrs. Merkle: No, Ursula. YOu are coming home. NOW.
Ursula: No! I am singing my song!
Margie: Yeah, Mrs. Merkle! Just leave us alone!
Deborah Sue: WE HATE YOU, MRS. MERKLE!!!!
Mrs. Merkle: It's too late, Ursula! We're going home.
Ursula: LEMME SING MY SONG!!!!

...and then the curtain came up.

OH, and just remembered... yet another one on opening night. I was Mamma Mae, and it was that scene outside Maude's after Mae's long speech, and Albert had just said, "Goodnight, Mama." What did I say? "You're just like your father.....Goodnight, Albert." Kinda odd when Albert's next line was "My name is not Sonnyboy," and Mae's next line was "GOODNIGHT ALBERTTTTTTTTTT..."A case of redundancy here...

[what_the_heck013]

In the scene where the mayor presents the key to Birdie, our key was cardboard. On one night it broke in half. Birdie gave the mayor a hilarious facial expression and the audience loved it. During "Ed Sullivan" (the song, not the show) one of the flats fell. It was pretty bad... and loud.

[musikal_geek]

I wasn't in the production, but a company close to me (who I did BATB and Honk! with) recently did BBB.....it was interesting.

They used a really light and flimsy little desk for the opening scene (English Teacher). During the blackout, Rosie had to go offstage and change her costume for her next scene. They guy doing the set change decided to change his path in which he takes the desk offstage and ran RIGHT into Rosie with it. She tumbled.....into the orchestra pit. The orchestra wasn't in the pit because the pit was too small, but it was still quite a big fall. She was unconcious. The make-up designer was there and woke her up with smelling salt. Rosie missed her next cue, but was okay. But for the rest of the run, she had a GIANT GIANT GIANT band-aid on her shin. Yikes.

[MsDivaKate]

I must say my FAVOURITE blooper from my production was one we didn't realize until later when we watched the video and all learned a valuable lesson on what NOT to discuss when there is the possibility of a live mic around.

One of our Shriners was backstage discussing God knows what was the jist of the conversation but he was standing too close to our Albert, who's mic was accidentally left on and when watching the scene right before "A Lot of Livin' To Do" we hear Andy say, very low, but clearly, "Look at the size of my shoes. They make me look like a goofy b*st*rd!" To this DAY he has never lived it down. And that was almost 6 years ago!

Also immediately after the Breakfast scene at the Macafees as they were clearing the scene the stage crew managed to break all of the dishes and there was a huge crash backstage. Also lucky enough to be caught on tape.

When I had to do one of my fainting bits during You Gotta Be Sincere, I actually banged my knee incredibly hard when I went down the wrong way, had a huge bruise for like 2 weeks afterwards and was fighting tears the entire scene. It also didn't help that the guys who caught me for one of the faints grabbed too hard under my arms either!

Lastly at the end of the Shriners ballet our Shriners are all standing in a line facing the audience and Rosie jumps into their arms and lays across them all. Well they didn't exactly catch her and their end pose ended up with half of her just dangling.


This isn't really a blooper but our Telephone Booths for the Telephone Hour were rented from some scenery place or another and dirty things were written on the insides and no one had ever bothered to paint over it. Lets just say in a production full of high school boys it was quite amusing.

[Ep-Griz-Reno]

[MsDivaKate]

[Cake_in_Song]

Our Ursula got her hair caught on the duct tape of Conrad's mic, during Honestly Sincere. She didn't want to stop the scene, so she just ripped a chunk of hair out of her head.

[ALoneWanderer]

Let's see...we had a LOT of phone problems in our show (which ended mid july).

In rehearsal the first scene where I (Albert) has the phone in the beginning and then puts it down, the cord got caught on the edge of the desk and kinda fell down. It was alright for the moment as I was supposed to be freaking out...but the phone had broken in two. Later in the scene Rose uses the phone multiple times. Luckily it was just rehearsal and we fixed that phone.

However....that phone ended up breaking again as it was also used in the Macafee house. When Mrs. Macafee called down Kim because she had a phone call and the whole "Doris" thing happens, Mrs. Macafee dropped the phone while handing it to kim. Sure enough it broke in two again. However, they covered PERFECTLY as the conversation then went:

Kim: MOTHER! That was for me!
Mrs. Macafee: I'm sorry I'm just flustered...I mean...you called me Doris! *storms off* (as she had to reenter later in the scene and they were now missing her exit cue)
then when Kim was talking on the phone which was in held together by this dangling wire between the two halves and she was kinda holding awkwardly up to her head and said "I'm sorry, it's kind of hard to heard you, can you repeat that?" and the audience burst into laughter.

In another scene the phone at that Macafee's wasn't put on for the scene and the phone ring and I had to answer it (the whole bit with talking to the reporter), but it wasn't on stage. So I said "I'll get it" (which was my line) and then walked straight off stage ignoring the 2 lines i had after. Then I reentered later in the scene (when I start talking on the phone with the reporter again) and continued.

Conrad in A Lot of Livin' ended up entering too early during one of the parts and just paused and said "blargh"...twas kinda awkward.

There are more...I'll prolly remember them later.

~The Lone Wanderer

[lizarina11]

oh man, well i was in a profesanal company of it so nothing to bad when worng, but every night our Mae changed up the lines of it a little, i don't reber it exsacly but it was somthing like, when albert leaves her finaly she would say soming thing drastic , one like she started singing "stop in the name of love before you brack my hart,...think it ooover...." and some nights shed pertend to rip her hart out and stomp on it. it was funny.

[Amber]

Well, I just got cast as Rosie in a local production. At the auditions, I was reading the scene where the whole "Conrad Birdie Kisses Kim Macafee" plot is formed.

In one of the lines, I had to refer to Conrad as a "bongo-playing car thief." Instead, I called him a "car-playing bongo thief." And then I almost started laughing, thinking of Conrad, in his gold-lame glory, running away from the cops carrying a set of bongos.

[carolinamoon]

For every single show I (Kim), mixed up the words of How Lovely to be a Woman. Sometimes it would be lovely to change from boys to men, while wearing lipstick and heels, sometimes i'd be staying out till after ten.... i just couldn't get the words straight! It was all good though, because i totally faked a dance, and our director didn't eben notice... though in retrospect, that could have had more to do with the director than my fab ad lib skills.......

[ChrisFitzpatrick]

[Amber]

[Cosima]

I haven't actually been in Bye Bye Birdie (my school's production of it will be this Spring), however, a few years ago at my previous school they put the show on. I absolutely loved it, however, there was a rather embarrassing costume malfunction. I don't remember what scene it was, but, Mr. Macafee was singing, or something, in these horrible pajamas. They were the kind that had the little flap on the front to make certain things more 'convenient' for men. Well, during the song, the flap came -open- on the pajamas. Needless to say, the audience could not stop laughing, and the guy playing Mr. Macafee had no idea what was going on. It was great xD

[disneybeauty]

Okay, this happened to me on dress/tech night (we only get 1 night to do everything before opening night). I played Rosie, and Albert and Rosie are fighting downstairs in the MacAfee house. I said the line "Get out of my way you . . . you. . . defrocked English Teacher!" and I ran for the door with my suitcase. I opened the door and went to run through, but didn't see the bottom of the door jam (there was a 1" x 2" x 20" piece of wood supporting the door frame). I hit the door jam with my heel and flipped myself over and landed on my back with my (fully loaded) suitcase landing on top of me. My dress wrapped around my legs, so I couldn't move. All the director could see was one foot sticking out of the door. I layed there for a minute, because I was disoriented. Then I said loudly into my mic "Rosie's down and she can't get up!" Then the stage manger turned on the backstage lights so they could extricate me from the doorway. It was very funny.
Thankfully, I wasn't the only person that got hung up on the door, so they took that set piece out. I know this may not sound as funny, but once I could move again, I was laughing my fool head off.

[DefyinGravity]

[Music08Man]

I was playing Mr. MacAffee in my school's production last fall and we had a few bloopers:

On the next to last dress rehearsal, I was changing my clothes really quickly between the Ice House scene and the train station scene and I missed my cue and I was pulling on my pants and the zipper completely tore off of the pants. So, I just kind of peeked out on stage and yelled "sorry I'm late, but I'm having a wardrobe malfunction!" My director just told me to cover up and come out and do my lines. That's what I get for buying costumes at Goodwill.

On our final dress rehearsal, the day parents come and tape, it was Act 1 Scene 7 and we were short a couple stage crew members due to a basketball game, so most of the time setting up went to thekitchen and the food and dishes that were supposed to be on the table and tv tray were in a box backstage. So, Mrs. MacAfee and Kim just pretended to clear away dishes and set the table for Conrad and I mad up some line like "If I even had breakfast to eat...blah blah blah...." and tried to cover it up, but it was obvious that something was wrong.

Also on our last dress rhearsal night, the girl playing Rosie and the guy playing Mr. Johnson were clearing the stage with the curtain closed while Conrad and Kim sang 'A Lot of Livin', but the curtain girl (she wasn't very bright) had the wrong cue and opened the curtain while they were still moving Kim's bedroom off of the stage and they just froze...then ran. It was so funny to see on tape.

Again....last rehearsal....The girl's quartet was singing during 'One Last Kiss' and they started to sing the last chord of the '...went off to war' part and one of my friends hears the girl next to her (in the quartet) sing the completely wrong note and she gives her this look that is PRICELESS. I definately put that part on pause a few times. lol

[DefyinGravity]

Okay, got another...
We were dark this past week, cause most of the cast went to ACTF. We had a rehearsal on Monday. The only problem was...Mae wasn't there. When she first comes on, Albert went: "Invisible Momma! What's wrong?" Then, our director read her lines so we'd know what was going on. Believe me, hearing him read the line "You're just like your father...you'd marry anything!" was hysterical.
This wasn't major, but, after the show, Mae looks at her hand and goes, "Oh, I forgot my ring." Yeah, that was...interesting.
Oh, and last night was our $2 Tuesday, and so, instead of saying "Let's have a party!" Ursula said "Let's have an orgy!" with the g pronounced like a j. During that scene, we have to dance with our partners from the first "Lotta Livin" and since I dance with a girl, after she said that line, we looked at each other like..."Huh?" or "Gross." either way, it was with a raised eyebrow.

[Psy4Potato]

[DefyinGravity]

haha. Yeah, that scene was wierd with us, though. Our teen trio was comprised of Ursula, Nancy, and Margie. But, since Deborah Sue had that line "We've been here all night," Deborah Sue had to be in the scene. It just messed things up, because Nancy didn't say anything and, even though the program said it was the teen trio in the scene, which ended up becoming the teen quartet.
You can't believe everything our program said, though. We did the show in February. The program gave the dates as January. There was another program blunder, but I can't remember it now.
Also, the newspaper for the college we performed at totally screwed up the names of the couple that played Albert and Rose. They're married in real life, but the paper said that their names were "Peter and Jane Alvaraz." Their real names are Tom and Jennifer and their last name definitely isn't Alvaraz. It really irked me.

[Alexia Dark]

Two minor things... 1 hilarious, one scary...

During the first run-through with costumes, in the breakfast scene... understand, we were on a limited budget, and Conrad's robe was white instead of animal print... he came out wearng just that and his undies. It was quite hilarious. The girl playing Ursula said in sort of a whisper, 'Is he naked?'. We had quite a laugh, and the guy playing Conrad had no idea he'd done anything wrong.

Later, during the actual performances, when we were improving while looking at Conrad sit at the table, she would often whisper, in-character, "Oh my god. He's nearly naked...' or something like that.

The scary thing happened the first night during the dance for The Telephone Hour. I was one of the 'boys', which had been changed due to lack of them, and we were dancing on a small podium-like thing in front of the stage. We had to sort of side-ways turn while still singing and manage to squeeze through the 'girls' for the end of the song. Well, one of my flat-bottomed blue ladie's shoes got stuck for a second on the front of the stage. I nearly fell. It was scary. I still don't know if anyone noticed. No one said anything.

[DefyinGravity]

ooh. That is scary. Well, our shows all over, hallelujah! (or however you spell it.) I'm about to change my banner to a picture from "Birdie"

[*BroadwayLights*]

During our Saturday night production, Rosie was making an exit and she banged into one of the set pieces that was hanging and it went swaying back and forth, sending the audience into an uproar. During our Friday night show, during "The Telephone Hour", the girl playing Helen came in too early with her "Hi Nancy" line, causing the orchestra to be completely messed up. Also that same night, they put the spotlight on way too soon for the scene leading up to "Honestly Sincere." We also badly rushed "A Lot of Livin' To Do." There's tons more, I will report them when I think of them.

[centerstage08]

We didn't have very many bloopers. During dress rehersal one of huge box units for telephone hour got caught in the mid-stage curtain. Everyone had been directed to stop for nothing so our Conrad and Police Officer who were moving the piece just yanked really hard and ripped a HUUUGE whole in the curtain. Okay so huge means like 1.5 feet long but still. Also this was in practice but our Mayor kept trying to give Conrad the key to the County Fair instead of our fair city. But then again that kid is just an idiot who thinks he's amazingly talented but is honestly not. This is also in practice but the macafee family is on stage along with Albert and Mr Macafee was played but my very funny friend Shaughn who just happens to be blind. I was playing Kim and I had to sit him in this chair well when it got moved onto the stage somehow the block that kept it from reclining fell out and Shaughn sat down and the chair flipped over but Shaughn didn't want to wreck the scene so he did some whitty ad-libbing while we got him up and got the kid who played Randolph to stop giggling. Oh and our key also resembled a portion of the male anatomy and our Rosie made the mistake of holding it just right. Our director who is rather immature but a pretty great director started laughing to hard and then I noticed and pointed it out to the other girls in the fan club and well we had to stop preactice to explain to the bewildered Rose why we were laughing.

[jackissensational]

Opening night: I was playing Randolph. In the scene in which Kim gets the call from Birdie's people, Mr. Macafee was reading a paper. In the breakfast scene, in which Randolph brings Mr. Macafee his paper which is in shreds, since he cut out every Birdie aritcle. Well, I picked up the wrong paper, the un-shredded one; I had no idea until he opened it up on stage. He just flicked through the pages so I said, "Mornin' Pa, here's your paper. I hope you don't mind but I cut out a few ariticles about Conrad..." and I realized it was the wrong paper. Uh-oh. So I ad-libbed, "But those are all on the front page, 'cause I mean... he's CONRAD BIRDIE!, so I'm glad you like your sports section first." And... a big cheesy grin.

[rcs]

Our Conrad didn't get his note one time for "Honestly Sincere" (problem with an amp in the pit). So he just came in on his own... and nailed the note PERFECTLY!

[rcs]

This one happened during tech week, at the end of one of our (long) dress rehearsals. Our director had just finished giving notes on "Happy Face" and wanted to give some for "Telephone Hour" as well, but somehow the two merged in her mind, and what she ended up saying was "Happy Hour"! Needless to say, the entire cast burst into uncontrollable laughter.

[SingingRoseofEmily]

At the end of Rosie's Reprise of "One Boy", she gets upset and throws the briefcase off the stage, where a surprised Albert catches it.
In one of our rehearsals, Rosie threw it so hard and so low that Albert had to dive onto the ground to miss being hit. The entire cast laughed, and it's now part of the show.

[kaplonski]

Lesse...in rehearsal at the end of One Boy reprise Rosie chucked the briefcase at me and I tried to catch it, like I had done several times before...well, the corner of it slammed into the part of the palm right below my thumb and I don't know what happened but I couldn't close my hand for almost an hour. Hurt like crazy too Rosie was so upset that she never threw it to me again, it always landed on the ground and slid to me... Not my choice, I'd've broken my hand if I had to, lol.

We also kept having problems with our oven door. It wouldn't stay closed, and one night it fell open during one of Mae's lines. She covered it though, something like "These new-fangled contraptions never work"

A couple of nights of performance during "Put on a Happy Face" my mic fell off of my shirt and ended up dangling down at my knees.

Right before the scene at City hall one of the pillars fell backwards and ripped our scrim, luckily this was the last night.

Also on the last night, the scrim decided it wasn't going to go up all the way, so for the Ursula/Kim scene and "How Lovely to Be a Woman" the actresses had to lay on their bedroom floors.

There were more, but I can't think of them right now.