Theater – davidbruceblog #2

David Bruce: The Funniest People in Theater: 250 Anecdotes — Work, Writing

Work

• When Jerome Robbins decided to devote himself to dance, his parents opposed him. They strongly preferred that he choose a different occupation — even shoe making — and they sent him to talk to various relatives in an attempt to bring him to his senses. However, he declined to give up his ambition, and he even scrubbed floors at times to pay his dance tuition. Later, he became world famous as the choreographer of On the Town, The King and I, Peter Pan, West Side Story, Gypsy, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, and Fiddler on the Roof.

• English entertainer Joyce Grenfell had a problem with amateurs stealing her material. Frequently, she received letters from people asking for copies of her sketches so that they could perform them before other people. Of course, as an entertainer, she made her living by performing that material, and so she used to write back, suggesting as kindly as possible that the amateur ought to write her own original material.

• Frederic Norton wrote the music for the successful British production Chu Chin Chow. After the show had ended, Mr. Norton went to the income tax office and asked how much he owed. The income tax man told him, Mr. Norton wrote a check, and as he handed the check over, he said, “It’s the last you will get because I am never going to work again.” True to his word, Mr. Norton never worked again.

• Choreographer Michael Bennett used to say, “Go with the talent,” although Tommy Tune worried that this advice could lead to “a chorus of misfits.” Nevertheless, Mr. Tune was grateful to Mr. Bennett for hiring him to be a member of a chorus. At one end of the chorus line was six-foot-six-and-a-half-inch Tommy Tune; at the other end was four-foot-eleven-inch Baayork Lee.

• Playwright Ferenc Molnar customarily slept late in the morning. One day, he was forced to rise early so he could serve as a witness at a court case. Standing outside his door, he was astonished at the hustle and bustle of people going about their business. “Great heavens!” he said. “Are all these people witnesses in this fool case?”

• Actor Hans Conried, a very talented actor with a very long resume, once went to a meeting with a young producer who didn’t even take his feet off his desk when Mr. Conried entered his office. The young producer said, “Well, Mr. Conried, tell me what you’ve done.” Mr. Conried looked at him and said, “You first.”

• Whenever playwright Eugene O’Neill wished not to be disturbed, he used to hang this sign on his door: “Go to h*ll.”

Writing

• Irish playwright Brendan Behan once collapsed on the street and was taken to a doctor, who gave him a cardiograph. As the needle of the cardiograph traced out on paper Mr. Behan’s faint heartbeat, the doctor joked that this was very likely the most important writing that the famous playwright had ever done. Mr. Behan replied, “Aye, and it’s straight from the heart, too.”

• Richard Brinsley Sheridan took a long time to write the final scene of his play The Critic. In fact, he still had not written it two days before the play was to open. Finally, friends locked him in a room with a supply of food and drink and refused to let him out until he had finished writing the scene.

• Following a stint as a playwright, Wilson Mizner became a Hollywood scriptwriter. One day, he told a plot to a producer, who said it had no audience appeal. Mr. Mizner replied, “The tale I just told you was The Deep Purple. It ran for two years on Broadway, and I wrote it.”

• After becoming famous for his G-rated stories about growing up, Sam Levenson was the victim of a bon mot by George S. Kaufman. Three little old ladies were walking down the street. Mr. Kaufman saw them and said, “Here come Sam Levenson’s writers.”

***

The Funniest People in Theater: 250 Anecdotes — Buy

The Funniest People in Theater: 250 Anecdotes — Buy The Paperback

The Funniest People in Theater: 250 Anecdotes — Buy Kindle

The Funniest People in Theater: 250 Anecdotes — Buy Apple

The Funniest People in Theater: 250 Anecdotes — Buy Barnes and Noble

The Funniest People in Theater: 250 Anecdotes — Buy Kobo

The Funniest People in Theater: 250 Anecdotes — Buy Smashwords: Many Formats, Including PDF

David Bruce: The Funniest People in Theater: 250 Anecdotes — Telegrams, Tickets, Travel

Telegrams

• Theatrical producer Florenz “Flo” Ziegfeld sent many long, expensive telegrams to the people who worked for him, people he wanted to work for him, and people in general. Sometimes, a telegram would be five pages long! Despite the excessive length of many of his telegrams, Mr. Ziegfeld often ended them with this note: “DETAILS WILL FOLLOW LATER.”

• Comedian Beatrice Lillie became good friends with a young woman named Ellen Graham. One day, the two said a very long goodbye on the telephone. Two hours later as Ms. Graham boarded her plane, the stewardess gave her a telegram from Ms. Lillie. It said: “WHY HAVEN’T YOU WRITTEN?”

• An accident on stage resulted in the amputation of one of Sarah Bernhardt’s legs. Shortly after the amputation, she received a telegram offering her $100,000 if she would allow her leg to be put on display at the Pan-American Exhibition in San Francisco. She sent back this telegram: “WHICH LEG?”

• Playwright Rachel Crothers once received this telegram from a producer: “SEND SCRIPT AND IF GOOD WILL SEND CHECK.” She telegraphed this message in reply: “SEND CHECK AND IF GOOD WILL SEND SCRIPT.

Tickets

• One day, Hungarian playwright Ferenc Molnár and a friend attended a play as a guest of the management. Unfortunately, the play was very bad, and so Mr. Molnár stood up to leave. But his friend stopped him, reminding him that as guests, they were obligated to stay until the end of the performance. Mr. Molnár sat down for a little while, then stood up again. His friend asked, “Where are you going?” Mr. Molnár replied, “I’m going to the box office to buy two tickets so we can leave.”

• Playwright John Mortimer once stopped for gasoline at a station near Covent Garden. The attendant pumping his gas recognized him, saying that he had sat near Mr. Mortimer at a performance of the opera Aida. This surprised Mr. Mortimer, as those seats were very expensive, so he asked the gas station attendant how he could afford the tickets. The attendant explained that he hadn’t spent any more for the tickets than any other pump man would spend getting drunk Friday night.

Travel

• Declan Donnellan, co-director of Cheek by Jowl, has directed Shakespeare around the world. In Uruguay, he directed the balcony scene of Romeo and Juliet in a real orange grove with a real balcony. In Sri Lanka, Romeo and Juliet came from different backgrounds: he spoke Sinhalese and she spoke Tamil. In Katmandu, he held a workshop on the deus ex machina in Pericles and realized that the king’s son — who was himself regarded as a god — was present. In Warsaw, he wasn’t able to do a workshop on Shakespeare because the photocopier was confiscated on the basis of its being an illegal press.

• Fanny Brice showed she could take care of herself in her early attempts at show business. Many vaudeville comedians used to tell stories of traveling with shows whose managers skipped with the funds, leaving the comedians stranded far from home. Fanny’s story is somewhat different. When her show’s manager tried to skip with the funds, Fanny followed the manager to the train station and forced the manager to buy her a ticket home. Fanny’s response to this unfortunate closing of her show? “Now — I’ll find another show.”

• While traveling in the Soviet Union in 1939, Noël Coward stayed at a Leningrad hotel where he turned on the tap and was shocked to discover tadpoles coming out along with the water. He complained to the hotel’s management, saying, “In England, when we want hot water, we turn on the tap marked ‘Hot.’ When we want cold water, we turn on the tap marked ‘Cold.’ And when we want tadpoles, we turn on the tap marked ‘Tadpoles.’”

***

The Funniest People in Theater: 250 Anecdotes — Buy

The Funniest People in Theater: 250 Anecdotes — Buy The Paperback

The Funniest People in Theater: 250 Anecdotes — Buy Kindle

The Funniest People in Theater: 250 Anecdotes — Buy Apple

The Funniest People in Theater: 250 Anecdotes — Buy Barnes and Noble

The Funniest People in Theater: 250 Anecdotes — Buy Kobo

The Funniest People in Theater: 250 Anecdotes — Buy Smashwords: Many Formats, Including PDF

David Bruce: The Funniest People in Theater: 250 Anecdotes — Shakespeare, Stages, Telegrams

Shakespeare

• Lesbian comedian Sara Cytron was a class clown. To get her to be quiet during class, her English teacher used to give her five minutes at the beginning of class to recite any Shakespeare monologue in any accent she chose. Her favorite was a monologue featuring Lady Macbeth speaking with a Brooklyn accent.

• Vaudeville comedian Bobby Clark did not believe in the classics. For example, he thought that Lady Macbeth’s sleep-walking scene could be considerably enlivened if the director would put a carnival air blower under her skirts so that they would rise up as do Marilyn Monroe’s in the movie The Seven Year Itch

• The 19^th-century actor Edwin Booth once gave a performance of King Lear in a mosquito-infested theater. On stage as King Lear, he asked the character Edgar, “What is your study?” Edgar replied, “How to prevent the fiend, and to kill vermin.” Mr. Booth then interpolated, “Skeeters an’ sich?”

• While in high school, African-American actor/singer Paul Robeson played Mark Antony in Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar. The play was much talked about by the students — because the student playing Caesar used lots of ketchup to represent blood in the assassination scene.

• Barbara Feldon, the beautiful Agent 99 on the 1960s TV series Get Smart, is very intelligent. After graduating from Carnegie Tech Drama School, she appeared on the quiz show The $64,000 Question, where she won the top prize by answering a question about King Lear.

• Diana Rigg once played Cordelia to Paul Scofield’s King Lear. After she recited, “Had you not been their father, these white flakes did challenge pity of them,” Mr. Scofield murmured, “Are you suggesting I’ve got dandruff?”

Stages

• Comedian Joey Adams was once part of a troupe that was presenting Tobacco Road at a hotel in the Catskills. For hours, the troupe worked on the stage, getting it just right and carrying in mounds of dirt, small trees, vines and bushes, and everything else it took to make a completely naturalistic stage setting. Finally, everything was perfect, and the troupe went off to relax before the show. When they returned to the stage, every tree, every bush, every vine, and every lump of dirt was gone. The owner of the hotel had walked in, seen the stage setting, figured that one of his rivals was trying to sabotage the new show, and ordered everything cleaned up.

• Dancing can be strenuous. At the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, dance critic Walter Terry practiced dance with Marion Tatum, who frequently tore the soles of her feet practicing fouettés. Twenty years after leaving UNC, Mr. Terry returned to the stage where he and Ms. Tatum used to practice — and her bloodstains were still on the floor.

Telegrams

• Eddie Cantor says that Fanny Brice loved to play cards, but that she took an extraordinarily long time to decide which card to discard. Anyone who played cards with her had to wait and wait and wait for her turn to end. (Occasionally, they would break the monotony of waiting by saying to Ms. Brice, “Well?”) One day Mr. Cantor was playing cards with her when he excused himself, left her hotel, went to the train station, took one train to Chicago, then another train to New York City. In New York City, he sent her a telegram: “WELL?”

• After The Mary Tyler Moore Show ended, Ms. Moore performed on Broadway in Whose Life is It, Anyway?Although Ms. Moore had trained herself as a dancer, her role was that of a quadriplegic, meaning that she had to hold her body still and act with only her face and voice. Ed Asner (who played the character Lou Grant in The Mary Tyler Moore Show) sent her this telegram: “NICE TO KNOW ALL THOSE DANCING LESSONS HAVE PAID OFF AT LAST.”

***

The Funniest People in Theater: 250 Anecdotes — Buy

The Funniest People in Theater: 250 Anecdotes — Buy The Paperback

The Funniest People in Theater: 250 Anecdotes — Buy Kindle

The Funniest People in Theater: 250 Anecdotes — Buy Apple

The Funniest People in Theater: 250 Anecdotes — Buy Barnes and Noble

The Funniest People in Theater: 250 Anecdotes — Buy Kobo

The Funniest People in Theater: 250 Anecdotes — Buy Smashwords: Many Formats, Including PDF

David Bruce: The Funniest People in Theater: 250 Anecdotes — Sex, Shakespeare

Sex

• During the “Popish terror” of 1681, English citizens were very angry at Catholics. Thinking that actress Nell Gwyn was King Charles II’s Catholic mistress, they surrounded her carriage, but she was able to save herself by pointing out, correctly, “Good people, let me pass. I am the Protestant whore.”

• British actor Pitt Wilkinson once walked into the kitchen of his boarding house, only to discover his landlady on top of the kitchen table having sex with the milkman. She looked at him and calmly said, “I bet you think I’m a right flirt, don’t you?”

• Comte Robert de Montesquiou, a cultured homosexual, fell so deeply in love with actress Sarah Bernhardt that he had sex with her. Big mistake. The only heterosexual sex that he had in his life made him feel ill for an entire day.

Shakespeare

• As a student at Eton, Patrick Macnee was cast as Macduff in a performance of Macbeth. Playing Lady Macbeth was a young boy named Simon Phipps. Unfortunately, the wardrobe woman made a mistake when she designed young Simon’s costume — she used a couple of pieces of metal to give Lady Macbeth a 38-inch bust. Young Simon’s appearance as Lady Macbeth was punctuated with wolf whistles from the all-male audience. Reviews of the play stated that Mr. Macnee didn’t seem to know what to do with his hands, so a friend suggested that he should have grabbed Lady Macbeth.

• H. Chance Newton used to tell a story about a cousin of his who was suddenly called on to play the part of Osric in Hamlet. Being unfamiliar with the part, he put a copy of the play in Osric’s hat, planning to look up his dialogue as needed. Unfortunately, he came across a word he was unfamiliar with and hesitated during a speech. An audience member in the balcony, who had been observing the actor reading the copy of the play hidden in his hat, called out, “SPELL IT, OLD PAL! WE’LL TELL YOU WHAT IT IS!”

• In Macbeth, the character of Lady Macbeth disappears between the banquet scene in the middle of Act 3 and the sleepwalking scene at the beginning of act 5. Because of this long absence from the stage, some very good actresses have declined to play Lady Macbeth. For example, Edith Evans would not play Lady Macbeth because, she explained, the play has “a page missing.”

• Drama critic Sheridan Morley remembers overhearing an interesting conversation at a performance of Shakespeare’s Antony and Cleopatra. At the end of the play, the stage was strewn with dead characters. As the curtain slowly dropped, hiding the corpses, Mr. Morley heard a woman telling her friend, “The very same thing, dear, happened to Maureen.”

• Sinead Cusack prepares physically for her roles in Shakespeare. Because she feels that Beatrice in Much Ado About Nothing is graceful with “fluid” movements, she learned to dance before playing the role. And because she thinks Katherine in The Taming of the Shrew has “jagged” movements, she pumped iron before playing that role.

• After playing King Lear, Sir Henry Irving made his bows and spoke a few words to the audience. A member of the audience shouted, “Why didn’t you speak like that before?” Mystified, Sir Henry turned to actress Ellen Terry, who told him that all during the play she had not been able to understand anything he had said.

• While preparing a wall for his stage production of Romeo and Juliet, realist director Franco Zeffirelli flicked a brush soaked with dirty and watery paint about 18 inches from the bottom of the wall, explaining, “This is where the dogs pee.” He then flicked the brush higher on the wall, adding, “and this is where the men pee.”

***

The Funniest People in Theater: 250 Anecdotes — Buy

The Funniest People in Theater: 250 Anecdotes — Buy The Paperback

The Funniest People in Theater: 250 Anecdotes — Buy Kindle

The Funniest People in Theater: 250 Anecdotes — Buy Apple

The Funniest People in Theater: 250 Anecdotes — Buy Barnes and Noble

The Funniest People in Theater: 250 Anecdotes — Buy Kobo

The Funniest People in Theater: 250 Anecdotes — Buy Smashwords: Many Formats, Including PDF

David Bruce: The Funniest People in Theater: 250 Anecdotes — Royalty, Sex,

Royalty

• James M. Barrie once attended a birthday party for three-year-old Princess Margaret Rose, the daughter of King George VI and Queen Elizabeth of England. About her favorite present, Mr. Barrie asked, “Is that your very own?” Princess Margaret immediately placed it between Mr. Barrie and herself, and said, “It is yours — and mine.” Later, the princess said about Mr. Barrie, “I know that man. He is my greatest friend — and I am his greatest friend.” At the princess’ birthday party, she spoke some words that Mr. Barrie liked so much that he told her that they would appear in his next play. In addition, he told her that he would pay her a royalty of a penny each time the character spoke her words on stage. Later, King George VI wrote Mr. Barrie and joked that unless he paid the princess her royalties, he would have his lawyers contact him. Mr. Barrie immediately set about acquiring a bag of bright new pennies to present to the princess.

• The British have the reputation of NOT being a passionate people, unlike the French and Spanish. Once while Tallulah Bankhead was shown her suite at a hotel, she was told that the Duke and Duchess of Windsor had spent their honeymoon there. Ms. Bankhead felt the bed, then said, “Ah yes, it’s still cold.”

Sex

• At the very beginning of her career, opera singer/actress Grace Moore made the rounds of booking offices, hoping for a job on Broadway. One of the men in charge of casting looked her over, then said, “The voice may be okay, but lift your skirt, girlie, so I can see your legs.” She slapped him, then made her exit as she told him, “I don’t sing with my legs.” In her autobiography, You’re Only Human Once, Ms. Moore later wrote, “Managers seemed never to consider the voice as a separate entity from what went on below.”

• In England, a vicar was on a train with a bunch of actresses who were going to perform in the pantomime Dick Whittington. He gave them pieces of the lemon-flavored hard candy known as acid drops, then began to ask them about the parts they would perform. He asked one actress, “Which part do you take?” She answered, “The cat.” Eventually, he asked, “And which of you takes Dick?” One actress, annoyed by the persistent questioning, replied, “We all do, dear, but not for acid drops.”

• Lesbian playwright Holly Hughes had a very good reason for writing plays — to get girls. She would write a play that starred the girl she was pursuing. Of course, Ms. Hughes would play the love interest of the star. In her introduction to Dress Suits for Hire, Ms. Hughes writes about the difficulty of writing a commissioned play for some people she knew she would not sleep with: “It was hard for me to imagine why someone would go to all the work to write a play if there was absolutely no chance she would get laid as a result. What was the point?”

• Edna Ferber and George Kaufman did much of their writing in Ms. Ferber’s room at the Hotel Algonquin while they collaborated on the play Dinner at Eight. The owner and manager of the hotel was Frank Case, who permitted as little hanky-panky as possible at the hotel. Once, very early in the morning, he telephoned Ms. Ferber and asked, “Do you have a gentleman in your room?” She replied, “I don’t know. Wait a minute, and I’ll ask him.”

• When the future Mrs. Zero Mostel was touring as a chorus girl in vaudeville, she noticed that one particular girl in the chorus — seventh girl from the left — dated trombone players. Never any other kind of musician — just trombone players. Eventually, she discovered why. The vaudeville show traveled with its own music, and on the music for the trombone was handwritten this note: “Seventh from the left f**ks.”

***

The Funniest People in Theater: 250 Anecdotes — Buy

The Funniest People in Theater: 250 Anecdotes — Buy The Paperback

The Funniest People in Theater: 250 Anecdotes — Buy Kindle

The Funniest People in Theater: 250 Anecdotes — Buy Apple

The Funniest People in Theater: 250 Anecdotes — Buy Barnes and Noble

The Funniest People in Theater: 250 Anecdotes — Buy Kobo

The Funniest People in Theater: 250 Anecdotes — Buy Smashwords: Many Formats, Including PDF

David Bruce: The Funniest People in Theater: 250 Anecdotes — Quakers, Rehearsals, Religion, Revenge

Quakers

• Alan W. Corson of Plymouth Meeting in Pennsylvania was once told by a shocked fellow Quaker that one of the followers of their religion had gone to the theater, adding, “I have never been within the doors of a playhouse.” Mr. Corson replied, “Neither have I; but, I doubt not, many better have.”

• At Bootham School, a school for Quakers, the students put on a production of Shakespeare’s Macbeth. One of the witches fell off the stage, but fortunately the witch was caught and then returned to the stage, where the witch was immediately asked, “Where hast thou been, sister?”

Rehearsals

• In the early 1980s, a gay teenager named Aaron Fricke once showed up for a high-school play dress rehearsal wearing fishnet stockings, an Afro wig, a corset, high heels, and a black cape, even though he was playing the role of a straight cabdriver. His outfit bothered no one — including his drama teacher.

• Peter Ustinov was habitually late for rehearsals. By accident, he once arrived 10 minutes early for a rehearsal. Sir Peter immediately apologized to the director, Denis Carey, “I’m sorry, Denis. Utterly unforgivable. I assure you such a careless mistake will never happen again.” Mr. Carey said later, “It didn’t.”

• At Michigan State University, a rehearsal of Eve Ensler’s Vagina Monologues took place in a room next to a history conference. Participants in the conference heard an actress shouting her lines: “C*NT! C*NT! SAY IT! SAY IT!”

Religion

• Humorist Robert Benchley, who was also a theater critic, once heard that no horses had ever been in Venice, which is renowned for its canals. Therefore, when he went on a trip to Europe, including a stop in Venice, he carried a suitcase of horse droppings. Very early in the morning, he went to the Piazza of St. Mark and placed the horse droppings at intervals chosen to be extremely natural. According to Mr. Benchley’s friend, Charles MacArthur, “The Venetians consider the horse droppings the only miracle of the 20^th century.”

• Rabbi Abraham Isaac Kook was once asked why he had not opposed the building of theaters in Israel. After all, according to the Talmud, “He who frequents circuses and theaters has no share in the world to come.” Rabbi Kook replied, “There is another passage in the Talmud that says that in the world to come, all the theaters will be converted into synagogues. The more theaters now, the more synagogues then.”

Revenge

• Satirist Stan Freberg had major difficulties with producer David Merrick while trying to turn his record album Stan Freberg Presents the United States of America into a Broadway musical. In the end, it never did make it to Broadway. One of the works of art in Mr. Freberg’s house is a bird cage in which sits a papier-mâché bird (created by Kim Stussy) bearing a marked resemblance to Mr. Merrick. Underneath the bird is not a newspaper, but a photograph of Mr. Merrick.

• A young actor grew tired of having just one line to speak in Shakespeare’s Macbeth — he played the messenger who tells Macbeth, “My Lord, the queen is dead,” and then walks offstage. Therefore, he asked his boss, Sir Donald Wolfit, for a bigger part. However, Sir Donald declined to give him a better part, so the actor decided to get revenge. At the next performance of Macbeth, he walked on stage and said, “My Lord, the queen is much better and is even now at dinner.”

***

The Funniest People in Theater: 250 Anecdotes — Buy

The Funniest People in Theater: 250 Anecdotes — Buy The Paperback

The Funniest People in Theater: 250 Anecdotes — Buy Kindle

The Funniest People in Theater: 250 Anecdotes — Buy Apple

The Funniest People in Theater: 250 Anecdotes — Buy Barnes and Noble

The Funniest People in Theater: 250 Anecdotes — Buy Kobo

The Funniest People in Theater: 250 Anecdotes — Buy Smashwords: Many Formats, Including PDF

David Bruce: The Funniest People in Theater: 250 Anecdotes — Problem-Solving

Problem-Solving

• Early Shakespearean actress George Anne (not Georgiana) Bellamy knew how to correct an injustice. She had won the role of Cordelia, but suddenly the theatrical management changed its mind and gave another, younger actress the role and substituted her name over Ms. Bellamy’s on the playbills. Therefore, Ms. Bellamy secretly ordered some flyers printed up that pointed out that the role had been promised to her. Her servant gave a copy of the flyer to each person who bought a ticket for King Lear. When the younger actress walked on stage, the audience called out, “OFF! OFF! WE WANT BELLAMY.” Ms. Bellamy, of course, was dressed in the costume of Ophelia and waiting offstage. The audience got the actress it desired, and Ms. Bellamy got the role she desired.

• In 16^th-century England, before the establishment of theaters such as the Globe, professional actors sometimes performed plays in such venues as the yard of an inn. However, getting the audience to pay for the performance was sometimes difficult, as people could quickly slip away without paying after the play was finished. Therefore, actors used to perform a play until an exciting point was reached, then stop. After collecting a fee from the members of the audience, the actors continued the performance until its conclusion. Later, after the Globe Theatre had been built, playgoers entered through narrow passageways, which ensured that they entered in single file so they could not avoid paying the entrance fee.

• Dramatic critic Alexander Woollcott owned an island. One day, a group of schoolteachers took a boat to the island and started to have a picnic. This annoyed Mr. Woollcott, so he went to the schoolteachers and denounced them, but they ignored him. Fortunately, one of Mr. Woollcott’s invited guests was Harpo Marx, who volunteered to get rid of the schoolteachers. Harpo sneaked down close to the schoolteachers, then suddenly appeared out of the bushes. He was completely naked except for a ribbon in his hair and a fife in his hand. Harpo pretended to be Pan (a god known for his randiness), and very quickly the schoolteachers jumped into their boat and went away.

• Even late in his career, Rudolf Nureyev demanded respect. At the end of a performance of The King and I in Cleveland, Ohio, Mr. Nureyev took a curtain call and bowed first to the audience, then to his fellow cast members. Not all of the cast members bowed back. Mr. Nureyev immediately brought his hand down to the level of his crotch — since his back was to the audience, they couldn’t see what he was doing — and darted a finger out like a penis for a moment. At the next curtain call, all of the cast members bowed back to him.

• American scoundrel and playwright Wilson Mizner once married a rich society lady; unfortunately, they were incompatible — Mr. Mizner enjoyed spending money, but his wife kept a tight hold on her money. Therefore, Mr. Mizner employed many stratagems to get money from his wife. Once, he convinced his wife that it was a custom to give diamond cuff links to ambassadors who dined at the homes of members of society, then he convinced a bartender-friend to dress up and pretend to be the ambassador from Spain.

• Police make a distinction between high art and low entertainment. In 1922, the New York Vice Police attempted to shut down the Ziegfeld Follies because the women in the entertainment didn’t wear enough clothing. Therefore, the Follies playbills were immediately altered to include a few blank pages — and small pencils — so that patrons could draw the models the same way that an artist would sketch a model in a studio. The Follies continued to be performed.

• While touring, Anna Pavlova danced on many stages that had broken boards and gaping holes. Her husband, Victor Dandré, began stretching a heavy carpet across such stages and nailing it down, then stagehands drew circles in chalk on the carpet to indicate holes in the stage. This carpet helped prevent many broken bones. A floorboard once broke under Ms. Pavlova as she danced — only the carpet kept her from falling through the stage floor.

***

The Funniest People in Theater: 250 Anecdotes — Buy

The Funniest People in Theater: 250 Anecdotes — Buy The Paperback

The Funniest People in Theater: 250 Anecdotes — Buy Kindle

The Funniest People in Theater: 250 Anecdotes — Buy Apple

The Funniest People in Theater: 250 Anecdotes — Buy Barnes and Noble

The Funniest People in Theater: 250 Anecdotes — Buy Kobo

The Funniest People in Theater: 250 Anecdotes — Buy Smashwords: Many Formats, Including PDF

David Bruce: The Funniest People in Theater: 250 Anecdotes — Prejudice, Problem-Solving

Prejudice

• Tennessee Williams had a “mammy” (a black nanny) named Ozzie in his house when he was a small boy. He once called Ozzie a “n*gger,” and she walked out of the house, never to return. Although his family tried to track her down, they were unable to. Years later, when Mr. Williams became an international-class playwright, he made sure that his contracts stated that his plays could not be performed in segregated theaters.

• George M. Cohan, despite his name, was not Jewish. He once wired for reservations at a fancy hotel in Miami, but the management wired back that they catered to an exclusive clientele — meaning, no Jews allowed. Mr. Cohan wired the management, “APPARENTLY THERE HAS BEEN A MISTAKE ON BOTH SIDES. YOU THOUGHT I WAS JEWISH, AND I THOUGHT YOU WERE GENTLEMEN.”

• In the Jim Crow days, the great black comic actor Bert Williams was allowed to stay in a hotel only on condition that he use the service elevator — despite his being one of the most popular comic actors of the day. This saddened Mr. Williams a great deal. He once told Jewish comedian Eddie Cantor, “It wouldn’t be so bad, Eddie, if I didn’t still hear the applause ringing in my ears.”

• Someone once made a remark that George S. Kaufman felt insulted Jews, so Mr. Kaufman rose from his chair and — after speaking sharply to the man — said, “I am now walking away from this table, this room, and this hotel.” He then noticed Dorothy Parker, one of whose parents was Jewish, so he added, “And I hope that Mrs. Parker will walk with me — halfway.”

• African-American actor/singer Paul Robeson created a critical and popular sensation in his role as the title character in Shakespeare’s Othello, but he was sometimes forced to cancel his theatrical and musical performances — during the Jim Crow era, because of the color of his skin, he was unable to find in some cities a hotel room to stay in.

Problem-Solving

• In Miami, Florida, during a production of a murder mystery play that was set in London, England, an emergency arose that required the presence of Police Captain Ron Finkiewicz, who was in the audience. No one knew what Police Captain Ron Finkiewicz looked like, but rather than interrupt the play to make an announcement from the stage, the female lead put the news into the play. On stage, she asked, “Has Inspector Thorpe left?” Hearing from the other actor that he had left, she then said, “That’s a pity. I have a message for him from Police Captain Ron Finkiewicz. His mother-in-law’s home was broken into, and she needs to get in touch with him right away.” A moment later, Police Captain Ron Finkiewicz jumped up and left to take care of the emergency. Later, he said, “It was so smooth that it took a moment to sink in. All of a sudden it dawned on me. The play was about a murder in London, not Poland. Why would there be someone with a Polish name like mine in it?”

• Tim Hurst was an umpire who enjoyed Broadway theater. Whenever he umpired in Philadelphia, he wanted the game to end quickly so he could take a train to New York and see a Broadway show. Near the end of one game, it looked like he would make his train with time to spare because Philadelphia was leading St. Louis by 11 runs. However, since Jack Powell, the St. Louis pitcher, knew that the game was hopelessly lost, he decided to delay the game so Umpire Hurst would miss his train. Therefore, he deliberately started throwing wild pitches and walking runners. However, once Umpire Hurst realized what Mr. Powell was up to, he allowed Mr. Powell to throw only nine more pitches. No matter where Mr. Powell threw the ball — inside, outside, high, low — Umpire Hurst called the pitch a strike. After quickly completing the game, Umpire Hurst got on the train and went to New York.

***

The Funniest People in Theater: 250 Anecdotes — Buy

The Funniest People in Theater: 250 Anecdotes — Buy The Paperback

The Funniest People in Theater: 250 Anecdotes — Buy Kindle

The Funniest People in Theater: 250 Anecdotes — Buy Apple

The Funniest People in Theater: 250 Anecdotes — Buy Barnes and Noble

The Funniest People in Theater: 250 Anecdotes — Buy Kobo

The Funniest People in Theater: 250 Anecdotes — Buy Smashwords: Many Formats, Including PDF

David Bruce: The Funniest People in Theater: 250 Anecdotes — Practical Jokes, Prejudice

Practical Jokes

• Impressionist George Kirby, an African American, put his impressive talents to use in 1956 when he and several other black entertainers performed in Miami Beach at the Beachcomber. This was during the Jim Crow era, and the Miami Sun printed an article with the headline “We Don’t Want N*ggers on the Beach!” As the black entertainers were in their dressing rooms nervously preparing for their performance that evening, they heard a mob, including voices that shouted, “Let’s get dem n*ggers!” Everyone opened their doors and looked outside, and then they heard the laughter of Mr. Kirby, who had put his talents to use in a practical joke that broke the tension before the performance.

• Some friends played a practical joke on actor Edmund Gurney, who always carried a rolled-up umbrella, even during good weather. The friends filled the umbrella with several small green apples, then waited for rainy weather. The joke played out better than the friends had thought it would. One day, as Mr. Gurney was talking to a lady, it started to rain, and so Mr. Gurney offered her the protection of his umbrella. He opened it over her head, and as Mr. Gurney tells the story, “out fell a ruddy orchard!”

• Theatrical actress Beatrice Lillie enjoyed playing practical jokes. In the 1936 play The Show is On, she stood behind a box-office window and co-star Bert Lahr, famous for playing the Cowardly Lion in the movie The Wizard of Oz, was supposed to go to her and exchange one-liners. One night, Mr. Lahr approached the box-office window, but she said, “So sorry, box office closed” — and then she slammed the window in his face.

• While attending UCLA, Nancy Cartwright — the voice of TV’s Bart Simpson — worked on theater sets, painting many flats with a thick brown paint that looked like chocolate pudding. One day, she and a fellow student bought some paint brushes, a new bucket, and several packages of chocolate pudding. When their supervisor came in, they were licking the brushes and saying, “Mmmm, pudding!”

• Marc Connelly and Robert Benchley once bought an old horse that was on its way to the glue factory and had it delivered at the house of Charles Butterworth. They took the horse through the front door and into the library, where Mr. Butterworth was reading. Mr. Butterworth looked up and saw his friends and the horse, and said, “Gee, fellows, you’ve been reading my mind.”

• Beatrice Kaufman once asked Alexander Woollcott to write a reference letter so her daughter could attend a certain school. As a practical joke, Mr. Woollcott sent to Mrs. Kaufman what she took to be a carbon copy of his reference letter, which began in this way: “I implore you to accept this unfortunate child and remove her from her shocking environment.”

Prejudice

• Quentin Crisp, an effeminate homosexual who performed one-man shows in theater, grew up in England, but felt at home in New York, where his eccentricities were accepted. One day, he stood on a corner in New York, waiting for a bus, dressed and made up in his usual manner with scarf, too-tight shoes, fedora, lipstick, rouge, dyed hair — in short, he was definitely an out homosexual. A black man looked at him and said, “Well, my! You’ve got it all on today!” The black man laughed, but without even a hint of terrorism. When Mr. Crisp had lived in London, people had felt justified in coming up to him, getting close and personal, and hissing, “Who do you think you are?”

• Lorraine Hansberry, author of A Raisin in the Sun, experienced racism at first hand when her family moved into an all-white Chicago neighborhood in the late 1930s. Although her family was middle-class — her father was a physician and an uncle was a professor — mobs surrounded her family’s house. At night, her mother stayed awake, patrolling the house with a loaded gun in her hands, and during the day, her father pursued a lawsuit that would give his family their rights. In 1940, he won the lawsuit, Hansberry v. Lee.

***

The Funniest People in Theater: 250 Anecdotes — Buy

The Funniest People in Theater: 250 Anecdotes — Buy The Paperback

The Funniest People in Theater: 250 Anecdotes — Buy Kindle

The Funniest People in Theater: 250 Anecdotes — Buy Apple

The Funniest People in Theater: 250 Anecdotes — Buy Barnes and Noble

The Funniest People in Theater: 250 Anecdotes — Buy Kobo

The Funniest People in Theater: 250 Anecdotes — Buy Smashwords: Many Formats, Including PDF

David Bruce: The Funniest People in Theater: 250 Anecdotes — Money, Nudity, Politics, Practical Jokes

Money

• A man once tried to borrow £5 from Irish playwright Brendan Behan, but Mr. Behan declined to give him the money. The man angrily said that he remembered a time when Mr. Behan had not had even a farthing to his name. Mr. Behan replied, “That may be, but you don’t remember it half as well as me.”

• Brendan Behan, a notorious Irish playwright and alcoholic, once asked the Bishop of Knaresborough, “What’s your f**king business, Mac?” The Bishop replied, “Not as profitable as yours, I’m afraid.” Mr. Behan appreciated the reply, and he shook the Bishop’s hand.

Nudity

• A production of Bohème in Hamburg involved nudity. A young woman playing Euphémie, Schaunard’s girlfriend, appeared completely nude to model for a picture and donned clothing only when Rodolfo worried that she might catch cold. At a dress rehearsal, things went fine until the nude actress appeared and the members of the orchestra tried to play their instruments in strange positions so they could turn around and look at the nude actress. Of course, this caused havoc with the music. The conductor, Nello Santi, solved this problem by asking the nude actress if she would walk to the end of the stage for a few moments so the members of the orchestra could look at her. She didn’t mind, the members of the orchestra got a good look, and then the rest of the rehearsal proceeded smoothly.

• In 2001, actor Anthony Flanagan revealed his naughty bits in a scene in the Royal Shakespeare Company’s A Russian in the Woods. He says, “It happened right at the end of the play. My character was centre stage, and he was made to drop his trousers so the soldiers could see if he was circumcised. So I spent what felt like three hours — although it was probably about two or three minutes — with my trousers down.” The other actors were professionals about it — during rehearsals. However, when the play was acted in front of a real audience, they sometimes made the scene drag on much longer than it should have — especially when the audience included Mr. Flanagan’s mother.

Politics

• While serving in Parliament at a time when a man named John Robinson was Secretary of the Treasury, playwright Richard Brinsley Sheridan once said that a certain man was corrupting politicians so he could buy their votes. When asked to name the man, Mr. Sheridan replied, “Sir, I shall not name the person. It is an unpleasant and invidious thing to do. But don’t suppose that I abstain because there is any difficulty in naming him. I could do that, sir, as easily as you could say ‘Jack Robinson.’”

• The famous English actor David Garrick was asked to run for election to Parliament, but he replied, “I prefer to play the part of a great man on the stage than the part of a fool in Parliament.”

Practical Jokes

• When he was a young man acting in England, Jerome K. Jerome played a practical joke on his friends when they came to see him in a play in which his role was very brief and unremarkable. First, he informed his friends that since he was now a master of makeup and of changing his voice, they would find it difficult to tell who he was on stage. He also told his friends that he had taken a stage name — but the name he gave them was that of an old actor in his troupe who specialized in playing old men. He then hinted to his friends that in the play his character would be concerned about long-lost children. Finally, he bought a cane similar to that used by the old-man character in the play, and he made sure that his friends saw it. The joke worked. Mr. Jerome’s friends thought that the old actor was he, and they applauded the old actor’s every move.

***

The Funniest People in Theater: 250 Anecdotes — Buy

The Funniest People in Theater: 250 Anecdotes — Buy The Paperback

The Funniest People in Theater: 250 Anecdotes — Buy Kindle

The Funniest People in Theater: 250 Anecdotes — Buy Apple

The Funniest People in Theater: 250 Anecdotes — Buy Barnes and Noble

The Funniest People in Theater: 250 Anecdotes — Buy Kobo

The Funniest People in Theater: 250 Anecdotes — Buy Smashwords: Many Formats, Including PDF