[The Duchess of Mint]

Dear Once Upon A Mattress Fans,

If you have any disaster/ mitake/ prank stories which relate to your production of OUAM, feel free to share those stories here.

Thanks in advance for your replies.

[Beagle On Stage]

You had better actually be checking all of these and reading the responses.

[wicked_diva]

Our biggest prank was pulled by our director. We had a man playing Princess #12, and one day, the director decided to go on, instead.

The director also forgot to bring in the weight for Song of Love on one performance (I think it had been taken to get fixed) and no one noticed until my partner, who was responsible for bringing it onstage during the song, went off to get it and it wasn't there. So I told him to bring on the broom that we had used sometimes in rehearsals, and he did. Fred hammed it up, and it was fine.

And then on purpose, for the bed scene at the end, they always pulled out all sorts of recognizeable props and signs from past productions at the theatre.

[Cricket81]

We always had a rubber chicken hidden in our shows in high school. This show was particularly fabulous for it. We had the chicken in the wizard's cauldron, in Larken's bag when she's running away, and of course pulled out of the bed at the end... always got lots of laughs from the people who noticed it.

[Tenalto]

You want disaster? How's this for disaster: Our Minstrel lost his voice completely about two weeks into rehearsals and could only barely sing by performance week. Our Aggravain was losing her voice and was almost completely without it by performance time. We discovered the week before show that our choreographer had used the revival arrangement of the Spanish Panic, so the band director had to cobble something together so that we could still use the choreography. We had three snow days during Hell Week (in March!), one being opening night; we had to push our performances from Friday and Saturday to Saturday and Monday. And somehow, our show turned out amazingly well.

As far as mistakes go, the main one I can think of occurred during our final show. During the Mamalogue, our Wizard "conjured" a banana, ate it on stage, and left the peel there. It was supposed to be removed, but wasn't. Guess where all of my dancing in "Shy" happened? Right where the banana peel was. Apparently, there is truth in the cliche of slipping on a banana peel. Mercifully, I didn't fall; maybe it would have worked, though!

[dcrowley]

I think our performance is cursed... Last night was dreadful... the fire alarm went off last night during "Many Moons Ago" because of the fog machine.

The worst disaster ever occurred last night... The part where Winnifred falls back into the moat is done on a ten foot high platform. Fred jumps off the back of the platform onto the "20 soft mattresses" back stage. The 20 soft mattresses is actually a rollable platform made out of wood. The Stage manager is suppose to put a real mattress on top of the platform so she will land on something soft... whoops... they didn't do it... When Fred jumped, she landed on the hard wood platform ON HER CHIN..... She was practically unable to open her mouth for the big belt notes... I don't know how she is doing today (the opening night)... Hopefully she can open her mouth.

I am terrified to open this show tonight.

[rcs]

I once saw an amateur production where right at the end of one of the comic numbers (I think it was "The Minstrel, the Jester, and I") a little piece of the set actually fell down on top of one of the actors. But since the staging of the number had included a lot of slapstick humor, everyone (or at least everyone in my family) thought that the set piece falling had been deliberate. Only after the show did we learn that it wasn't supposed to have happened. Talk about a funny coincidence of timing.