Your crucial prop vanishes right before the stage change. How will you salvage the scene?
The show must go on, even when a vital prop goes missing. Pivot gracefully with these strategies:
- Use miming techniques to replicate the prop's function.
- Incorporate dialogue or actions that explain the prop's absence humorously or logically.
- Engage the audience's imagination by describing the prop in detail as if it were present.
How have you creatively solved unexpected problems during a performance?
Your crucial prop vanishes right before the stage change. How will you salvage the scene?
The show must go on, even when a vital prop goes missing. Pivot gracefully with these strategies:
- Use miming techniques to replicate the prop's function.
- Incorporate dialogue or actions that explain the prop's absence humorously or logically.
- Engage the audience's imagination by describing the prop in detail as if it were present.
How have you creatively solved unexpected problems during a performance?
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The old Carol Burnett show taught us how much audiences love participating as co-conspirators with the actors when things go wrong. So, LET THEM IN ON IT and they most likely will be glad to do their part. Example. A decorative vase integral to the action goes missing. Stop the show and tell them what's happened. Explain that the vase is vital to the action. Then use something like a waste basket, say, and ask them to “see it” as a lovely, colorful and highly artistic “vase.” One night of Brook's Midsummer smoke billowed from the wings. Puck stopped the show, checked backstage, reported a small fire would soon be out. After a brief pause they proceeded. From then on any line referencing "heat" or "hot" elicited great laughs.
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