I've just had to cancel a performance of a touring children's theatre production due to an actor turning up for a 10:00 a.m. performance so drunk that I still don't know how he managed to walk to the theatre without falling into a gutter!
The actor in question is a ridiculously talented, though agentless 21-year old whose career is just starting, and unfortunately may be just ending as well.
He turned up in the morning for a 10:00 a.m. matinee still stinking drunk from the night before, with eyes like pissholes in the snow, staggering around the stage roaring, "Pint of Bud! Pint of Bud!" whilst the others were doing their "Cup of tea" vocal warm-up. He actually even fell off the stage twice. The first time, the venue technician caught him, but the second time he was on his own because the venue technician was back with me, saying that he had a problem with someone that drunk being backstage. It's a pretty physical show, and one of the other actors came up and said to me that she had a serious problem going onstage with someone that drunk, and that she was worried that he might injure her in one of the lifts and that he might indeed injure himself.
I had pretty much decided that I would have to cancel the show at this point, but thank God I didn't have to make the decision on my own, as the company administrator and the general manager were on their way to the venue already, unbeknownst to any of the cast. After confronting him myself to no avail, I assembled the full company in the dressing room, and said that it was my opinion that we should not go ahead with this performance, but would like to hear everyone else's opinion if they had one. At this point, two of the other actors said that they did not feel comfortable going onstage with someone so drunk, and the others nodded. Well, the drunken one absolutely exploded with rage. He was that kind of drunk where one feels totally and irrationally confident that one is capable of doing anything, such as drive a car... He made the extremely foolish mistake of telling the general manager, "I'm fine, I'm fine. I jusht had a few beers lasht night is all. I've done the show much drunker than this before!" before turning on us all, getting extremely defensive, and telling us all to go f**k ourselves and that the "whole thing is being blown compleel... compleel... torally awa perpor... perpor... proporshn," before storming out and falling down the stairs.
We have another two and a half months of this tour to go... HELP.