I just saw several friends perform in a Starting Arts production of "Bye Bye Birdie", and promised I would share... AFTER their show closed.... stunts that we pulled during one summer production.
“Bye Bye Birdie” was one of the shows we did at the Drama/Music Workshop, a summer school program held at Sequoia High School in Redwood City. Our theatre is slightly larger than the Wilcox stage, and had a balcony seating 120 (since removed). All the theatre and music departments in the district participated, and the Director, Choreographer, Orchestra/Music and Tech Director jobs rotated among the faculty. We had five weeks to put the shows up, and ran for 3 weeks, with a Thursday night and Sunday matinee; 12 performances total. We had brushups on Tuesday afternoon, and during the run of “Birdie” our TD called us all together (I was deck crew chief and ASM). We planned a whole series of jokes for the brushup. In (sort of) order we:
Swapped Albert’s aspirin. I carved two Alka Seltzer tablets down to make several small round “aspirin” and carved a “B” on them. When Albert tossed them in his mouth… water made it even funnier.
During “How Lovely to be a Woman” I sabotaged Kim; we had a complete bedroom set for her, attached to the McAfee house, about 8 feet high and 12’x8’. A stub bed, dresser, vanity, and a fake closet with sliding doors. On Kim’s dresser we had a Raggedy Anne doll, and I wired it as a puppet. From the grid I made it stand up and dance behind her. She couldn’t see it at first, and the orchestra and directors were trying not to laugh. Everytime she would start to turn I would sit it down again. She turned around towards the end and saw it standing up with its arms in the air. I made it jump on her, and cut the strings.
When Birdie arrived for the Key ceremony, we had substituted a copy made of PVC pipe, painted gold (same size as the wooden dowel version). When Birdie went to take the Key, it came apart and a flag popped out that said “BOOM”.
The McAfee house was made up of 4’x8’ wagons, and we had built out a full kitchen area on one section, with an oven and stove near the end, a counter with a sink making an L, and an actual refrigerator. A stair and landing led up (like yours did) to Kim’s bedroom, the parents bedroom, and a bathroom (apparently Randolph sleeps in the bathtub…). We made fake “Budweiser” labels and put them on 7-Up for the breakfast beer bit; at the brushup we subbed a can of real beer. We also had a fake head and a stuffed dog toy in there later.
We had fake eggs, bacon etc. glued to Mr. McAfee’s plates for the breakfast shtick, and Kim would bring back a similar plate with a stack of pancakes, eggs, bacon, etc glued on. We swapped in a plate with a stack of (real) glued together donuts, fake dog poop, and a small rubber chicken for Kim to carry to Conrad.
Our Randolph (Don Stitt) pulled his own little sabotage and brought a Playboy out of the bathroom, with the “articles about Conrad” cut out.
At the start of Act Two, Rosie is tossing stuff in her suitcase; we had a bunch of folded clothes (stuff from Goodwill discards) sewn into flat “packed” piles inside and attached to the bottom half divider, so Rosie could just toss stuff in on top. We always had a small amount of 2”x4” in under the fake clothes, to add a bit of weight. At the brushup we added a 5 pound pig weight from the fly rails at each scene change when Rosie was not looking. By the time she was trying to run from Albert it was around 15 pounds; after the final confrontation with Mae, it was 20 or so. She had to drag it off.
When Mae threatens to kill herself, we had her actually walk to the McAfee kitchen and stick her head in the oven. We cut out a side panel from the “counter” and removed the side of the oven. One of the crew hid inside the entire time, and when Mae stuck her head into the oven, he was looking out at her.
During the Shriner’s scene (which you guys cut… why?) the Mayor et al are wearing Fez’s. They were supposed to do a little flourish with the hats during part of the dance, swinging them around by the tassels. Our costumer had joined in on the fun; she undid the tassels and reattached them with thin elastic; when they tried to twirl them they extended about a foot. Rosie also joined in the fun, and added a breakaway skirt; when the Shriner’s were supposed to start tugging at her skirt it came off, and she was wearing Winnie the Pooh boxers underneath.
During the Ice House scene, we had several large blocks of clear plastic chipped to look like blocks of ice on the set. We subbed in real blocks of ice. About 8 if I recall. It was COLD on the platform Kim and Conrad sit on. We put a cigarette load in Conrad’s cigarette (yes, we could actually smoke on stage…). The girls in the chorus were in on it as well. When they tackled Conrad, they actually started to take off his jacket, shirt, shoes….. it was a VERY disheveled Conrad who thanked them for arresting him. Except that I had rigged the cuffs with a spring, and defeated the latch, so every time they closed them they sprang open again and fell off.
By the time Rosie brought her suitcase on in the final scene, it weighed 25 pounds or so. We had always had some 5 pound weights in the other bags on the cart; and several of them were actually screwed down as well, as they never moved off the cart (or we had duplicates) so that when Albert is wheeling Rosie about, she had a stable seat; her suitcase would fit in between. We had planned to add about 30 pounds of pigs, but in the frenzy we added more; turned out that with Rosie’s suitcase added, we had almost 100 pounds. Albert could barely move the thing around. Albert was supposed to pull the tickets to Iowa out of his briefcase. We added eight “snakes” the little coiled spring things…. and four superballs.
We had some fairly annoyed actors by the end, and the directors called us out on stage to chew us out…. but oddly, they never stopped the rehearsal, and even the orchestra was laughing….. the chewing out was essentially “OK, that was highly amateur, and very disruptive, and funny….. ahem, and we trust you got it all out of your systems. So we don’t have to worry about that on closing night, right?”
