kiwitechgirl
Well-Known Member
Penultimate dress rehearsal for our Christmas show - Anything Goes. We have an old wheelchair which was perfect for the Old Lady wheelchair and although it's a little tricky to steer if you're driving it yourself while sitting in it, our Billy Crocker was coping really well with it. In the little scene just prior to De-Lovely when Billy appears dressed as the old lady, the director had two sailors running across and crashing into Billy in the wheelchair, which had worked perfectly in rehearsal. In this particular dress rehearsal, they somehow managed to pop the (solid rubber) tyre off the wheel rim, jamming the wheel completely. This of course meant that Billy could only go round and round in circles, completely stuffing up the choreography of the song. We were all in absolute fits of laughter in the wings - I had actors literally rolling around on the floor crying with laughter - but somehow both Billy and Hope managed to keep straight faces and get through the song, even when Billy eventually got out of the wheelchair and wheeled it across the stage on two wheels, lifting the jammed wheel off the stage....my wonderful operator fixed the wheel at interval, and we didn't have any more trouble with it - until the same scene on opening night, last night, when exactly the same thing happened. We'll be glueing the tyres to the wheels on Monday....
Gotta love live 
