By Playbill Staff
01 Feb 2013

	Christopher J. Hanke

Christopher J. Hanke
That would be my Saturday matinee performance as Mark in the 2007 production of Rent, when my mother was in the audience. I jumped up onto the steel table to begin "La Vie Boheme," and my boot clipped the table, which threw my mindset and I could not for the life of me remember the lyrics of that section of the song ("To days of inspiration...")! Well, that song is such a patter-filled, quick-worded story-telling "toast," if you will, that once I derailed, I could not get back on. So, I decided to do a retrospective dance from the 50s to the 90s while ad-libbing lines like, "Hey Benny, it's your restaurant, and we're taking it over!" LAME, Hanke, LAME! And the worst part, I had the entire cast behind me sitting at the table and NOT A SINGLE PERSON could remember the lyrics either. Fired. All of them. But mostly me!

Norm Lewis
During The Little Mermaid, after the scene where King Triton tells off Ariel, a child shouted, "I hate you!" from the audience, and I was completely thrown off. The next two minutes were spent with the actor playing the crab and me desperately trying to remember our lines. It was awful!

Chester Gregory
One time I was suffering from insomnia while doing a show. I fell asleep in the dressing room and missed my entrance! When I woke up they were paging me over the intercom to rush to the stage! I couldn't believe it actually happened because it was something I had nightmares about! I ran to the stage in time to say my character's name but it was CLEARLY a mishap. Needless to say that moment cured my insomnia! LOL!