Live dog as Toto.

[Erwin]

We are about to produce Wizard of Oz. Our Director wants a life Toto. I have never had to work with a live animal on stage before. Any advice? I'm not to sure how/where to house the dog, or how it will react to an audience. I've seen many photos that have toto in a basket that Dorothy carries. That seems wise.

Any input is much appreciated.

 

[Les]

Ideally, the dog would be owned by someone in or close to the show, and would go home with them every night. Before a show, Toto could show up whenever the rest of the cast is expected.

As for how he will respond to the lights, sounds and energies of a live show will highly vary. There's no way to know for sure, but rehearsing the dog on stage is a very good idea. Get him used to the lights, applause and all that. Maybe you could rehearse things like an audience applause by having Dorothy walk with Toto on stage (in full lighting) and have the rest of the cast sit out in the house. Play some music, have them ooh and ahh, clap, etc. How Toto reacts to this will be a pretty good indication of his conduct during the show.

When Toto is not on stage, keeping him nearby might be a good idea (like having him in a carrier in the wings, with someone there to keep him company). I say this, because having him secluded in a dark dressing room might get him too excited when the time comes for one of his big scenes. Keeping him around the stage and other people will allow him to get warmed up, and stay warmed up.

 

[lieperjp]

I've done Oz twice, once at a high school level and once at a college level. Both times we used a live dog. We kept the dog on a leash both times and kept an adequate supply of treats available to help get the dog to do what we wanted it to do. Obviously, the actors need to be comfortable working with it (not all people are dog lovers) and be sure that if the dog does not belong to one of the cast or crew members, the dog's owner present at all times. It has a calming effect on the dog. Dogs that belong to old ladies are the best, because they're used to being picked up, cuddled, etc. like Dorothy does to Toto.

Make sure you don't get a dog that likes to bark, either. Crying kids during a show are one thing, but a dog that barks whenever on stage gets old quickly.

 

[DuckJordan]

+1 to all said before. We've done it once with a dog and once without the audience reaction to the dog was amazing. Also get the dog into rehearsals asap, another thing to keep it good and calm during a show is have a handler off stage ready to take it outside for a walk. it will be easier to handle a dog if its less stressed and the more it gets used to stage lights and the sounds of a live theater the better. even if you don't have it on stage its best to keep it in the house during rehearsals to get it accustomed to the noise.

Another thing make sure the actor on stage who has to work with the dog is very good at improving while still in character nothings worse than an actor who can't move on after something doesn't go quite right.

Also make note to the director that it doesn't have to be on every time Dorthy is on. most audiences will accept just a basket if they see her carry off toto in the basket off stage at some point.

 

[BDS0111]

From a lighting perspective I like to schedule a minimum of 20-30 minutes for the animal to grow accustomed to the stage lights. I start out with work lights and then bring everything up to full. Sometimes I try to go back and forth between a few looks if there is a little more time. After that, I try to have something on as close to show conditions as possible whenever the animal enters the stage house which would include the work lights in running conditions.

 

[jwl868]

For what it's worth, you may consider hiring a professional handler and animal. A local high here did Wizard of Oz last year and hired an individual out of Connecticut. I think the animal was only present for a couple weeks and prior to that, the actress practiced with a bowling ball in lieu of a dog, just to get used to carrying the weight.

Joe

 

[JCarroll]

Make sure its nails are trimmed if your using floor mics... I did a midsummer nights dream and there was a live dog. The ticking of the nails forced me to cut the floor mics out of the mix.

 

[HSSBO94]

I did it two years ago.

Aside from what's already been said our biggest issue was the scene where one of the wicked witch's monkeys had to take the dog away. The dog (who was owned by the actress play dorothy) ran away from the monkey, which looked great, but then right back to Dorothy who then awkwardly handed it back to the monkey while yelling "no don't take it!"

 

[GreyWyvern]

If you think dogs can be hard to handle, try cats! Yes, I have had a live cat on stage for The Diary of Anne Frank. Really, it wasn't all that bad. He was kept on a leash at all times, even on stage, and had someone dedicated to caring for him. He was a really mellow cat which helped. The only issue we had was during one performance when he decided he was finished with that scene and walked off stage through the implied wall and straight into his carrier! The actor was instructed to let go of the leash if he headed that direction. He seemed to have no interest in going out into the house.

Live animals can be done as long as they are well trained and properly cared for. I would recommend having someone BS dedicated to the animal. No one else aside from that person and the actors that are supposed to deal with the animal should ever be near it. Be sure everyone knows that.

Dave

 

[fredthe]

/OT/
As long as it's not a camel (Long story, let's just say the camel deposited his editorial comment on the entire affair on stage during the performance... and the reviewer agreed.)

 

[Oremtigertech]

the time we had a dog we made sure only the cast members who held the animal or pulled their leash were the only ones who paid attention to the dog during rehersals that way the dog wont go for one of the other cast members

 

[Les]

the time we had a dog we made sure only the cast members who held the animal or pulled their leash were the only ones who paid attention to the dog during rehersals that way the dog wont go for one of the other cast members

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[rochem]

(Long story, let's just say the camel deposited his editorial comment on the entire affair on stage during the performance... and the reviewer agreed.)

I nominate this for quote of the year!

 

[Dionysus]

Dogs, cats.... The Blyth Festival Theatre (in Blyth, Ontario Canada) has had live goats, sheep, cows, dogs and apparently more on their stage for shows. One of the former TDs there started out as a "bovine Wrangler" there. They actually have rings still mounted backstage intended for tying the animals up.

It is best to have someone the animal is familiar with present to keep it calm, even best if it happens to be the pet of someone on stage for the scene.
Some animals need special care, but you can't ignore the basics...
Keep them fed and watered, make sure they have "rid themselves of excess fluid and waste" before working, remember that they are animals and they will not necessarily do what you want all the time, and always make sure they don't have waaayyyyy tooo much energy while backstage before they go on..

Seriously, can you imagine the mess a full sized bovine would create backstage? Hah, there is always hay/straw to sweep up there YEARS after the last time there were prop hay/straw bails or farm animals on stage.

I remember once for The Farm Show, a SEARS Drama Festival production, they used some real hay bails and for the rest of the festival there was hay to be swept up.

 

[Teber]

One of the directors I work with told me a horror story of this show with a live dog. The show was going along great, it was opening night and Toto was out trotting around as Toto does. Dorothy was going to sing "We're off to see the Wizard" -- she sings that line and shifts her arms as to skip and she snaps the dog's neck and kills it. She was blocked to skip around the audience and she did, dragging a dead dog behind her. She didnt realize until she got on stage and the children and parents in the audience were horrified.
Sorry for such a morbid story, but the moral of the story is, dont skip with dogs

 

[Les]

...she sings that line and shifts her arms as to skip and she snaps the dog's neck and kills it. She was blocked to skip around the audience and she did, dragging a dead dog behind her. She didnt realize until she got on stage and the children and parents in the audience were horrified.

Wow, totally not how I thought this story was gonna go! You might consider putting a 'Warning: Graphic Nature" disclaimer at the top of your post, though that wouldn't have stopped me. Haha. I would say this is a useful post of what not to do (to the extreme), I just wasn't quite mentally prepared for it!

 

[tyler.martin]

I just got through a production of Oz at the end of April. The toto in question belonged to dorothy, who was an animal trainer/actor. Toto was good, We generally gave toto about twenty minutes to walk the stage with lights and sfx playing. One issue I had was one of their sound Fx came from a dad who recorded some thunder, was there was a really high tone, probably around 17 khz cause i could hear it, so could most of the kids in the dress rehersal preview, but none of the adults could, and Toto definetly could hear it...

 

[chris325]

We did a production of Annie a while back with a live dog as Sandy. During one of the shows, someone in the audience decided it would be funny to use a dog whistle during one of the scenes... Sandy went nuts. The actress playing Annie could barely drag her off stage, and we were really lucky that the dog's owner happened to be the house manager that night.

Never did catch the kid who did it. The only way we knew about it was that one of the actors on stage at the time saw someone in the audience near the stage blowing a whistle.

 

[WestlakeTech]

This happens very little, but I can actually speak from experience here....

BAD IDEA!!!

We did this at my high school during my sophomore year. Toto had MASSIVE stage-fright (and during rehearsal even ended up peeing on the stage... and for some reason a tech had to clean it up, instead of the dog's owner). He always wanted to run off into the wings. And whenever he had to come on from the wings, he had to be dragged on. If he hadn't had a leash, we pretty much wouldn't have had a Toto.

Not being a major character, I really don't think it's totally worth it. But this is just my opinion. The purpose of theatre is for people to get totally lost in the show they're watching to the point that they forget it's not real life. When Toto is frightened, trying to escape Dorothy and running off stage, it kinda ruins the effect. Not to say that using a stuffed dog is much better, to be honest...

If you do use a real dog, I would suggest one that is well-trained in stage performances. I once saw a story on the news about this woman who trained Totos specifically for the musical, teaching them commands they would use on stage. I even think getting into the basket was one.

I guess my point is, don't use just any dog for Toto. Get one that has stage experience and won't freak out when it sees a big audience on opening night that wasn't there during final dress.

 

[kiwitechgirl]

I did Wizard of Oz a few years ago and we had a live Toto. Provided the dog is placid enough you shouldn't have too many issues - we had no problems at all and there were pyros going off a metre from the dog! The trick is just to get a dog with a really good temperament. I also did a 12-week run of Anything Goes last summer and there's a dog (necessary to the script!) in that as well. We had four bichon frises (finding one dog to do the whole 12 weeks was just not plausible) and again, we had very few issues. Three of the four dogs were perfectly behaved - we swear that one of them actually understood what was going on, as she began to look at actors on cue! The fourth one was a bit nervy and used to wriggle a bit, but if you held onto her firmly she'd calm down and stop struggling. What we did is had a decent-sized cage in a quiet corner, and the owners would bring in their dog's bed and favourite toys; we'd put them back in the cage between on-stage appearances and it was somewhere they felt safe and at home. These dogs were not stage-trained - but they were carried the whole time they were on stage (except the curtain call, when we'd put them on the lead).