Best reason from an actor for being late

[centaura]

I had one where me and the entire cast was late for an evening children's theatre tour performance.  I was driving the truck, with the actors in the van behind me - they knew how to get to the theatre so I turned at the corner when I had a break in traffic, not worrying about them.  Got a call a few minutes later - the van had died.  So I went back to them, we as a group pushed the van into a nearby parking lot, the cast all loaded into the back of the truck and we went to the venue.  I didn't have the venue's phone number (it was in my book which was at theatre), so they were mighty worried when I finally appeared with the truck and backed up to the loading dock.  They asked where my cast was, at which point I opened up the back of the truck and the whole cast jumps out and runs into the theatre.

-Centaura

[BenTheStageMan]

I was late to rehearsal the other day because I was in a very long traffic jam.  I tried three ways to get around it, but to no avail.  When I finally got to the accident that caused the stand-still traffic, I was shocked to discover it was my music director.  He had rear-ended the guy in front of him.  So I parked and got out to make sure he was OK.  He was, thank goodness, so I went on my way.  He never made it to rehearsal, so we went on without him.  But of all the people to be involved in the accident...
Crazy

[JECSM]

These are direct quotes of texts I've gotten from three different actors on my show this week:

1. "Finding shoes" He had actually come to rehearsal barefoot the day before.

2. "I will be 3 mins 12 seconds late" He was 10 minutes late.

3. The best one, sent 40 minutes before rehearsal: "Might be 15 or 20 late. My pants arent dry...and i cant rehearse pantless"

I love theatre.

[dallas10086]

Actor: Hey Dallas.
Me: Hey, what's up?
Actor: Um, I might be a little late for tech rehearsal today.
Me: Why?
Actor: I'm not in town.
Me: Where are you?
Actor: Um, Houston.
Me: There's a Houston, North Carolina?
Actor: Nooo...there's one in Texas though.
Me: (long pause) Okay. (longer pause) We'll talk about that when you get back.

I read his parts and he made it back in time for his last speech at the very end of the play. We had our talk afterwards.

[Wolf]

Me: Hey, are you okay? Rehearsal started several minutes ago and I haven't seen you yet.
Actor: Yeah, I'm fine. I should be there in like 10 minutes.
Me: Is everything okay? (Note: This actor was usually on time. I was concerned.)
Actor: Yeah, I just need to wait to take the nair off my legs.
Me: ...?  Uh, okay. Well, in the future maybe it would be better to do this sort of thing earlier before rehearsal.
Actor: Oh, yeah, I just lost track of time.  I'll be there as soon as I get this washed off.
Me: ...

Please note that the actor in question was male.

[cprted]

"I'm in Houston." The show was in Charlotte, NC. Yeah, I guess you are going to be late...

Pssst ... look up two posts ... 

[dallas10086]

Wow. It's a long bad day when you don't know you already posted. Thanks!

[madiobrien]

I've also been an actors one phone call from jail. But my most interesting one was during a run of Christmas carol where we had one of my actors go missing. We were told he was hospitalized for intoxication by his boyfriend that had been trying to get him out of the theater for weeks.  He was a main character and we had to replace him for several weeks of the run while not hearing from him.  towards the end we almost filed a missing persons report, but he miracloulsy showed up for the last performance and performed with no explanation that i know of. 

[crazychicksj]

This is actually an incident in which I was rail chief and 2nd ASM.

Me: Hey, SM, Actor 1 and Actor 2 and I are going to be late.
SM: How late?
Me: Less than 10 minutes, I'm negotiating for 5.
SM: ...why?
Me: Actor 1 came into the green room looking for hostages. He said they had to be necessary to the show so you couldn't kill just him for the late start. He needs CAT 5 cables to make the mane with.
SM: ...you volunteered didn't you?
Me: Uhhhhhhhh...
SM: If you're here in 10 minutes or less I'll pretend this never happened.

Luckily there wasn't any traffic so we were able to pick up dinner on the way back and still be 3 minutes early.

BTW: This particular actor was asked to make a lion's mane out of CAT 5 cables for A Midsummer Night's Dream. He usually makes whips and floggers out of computer cables, the director having seen this decided the mane should be made that way.

[DeeCap]

Scene: 15 minutes before student matinee for "Much Ado About Nothing". I noticed Don Jon still hasn't signed in.
I called his house. No answer. He also didn't carry a cell phone (this was back when people still made the choice to not have a cell phone)

I get a phone call in the booth

Actor: "Hi. I'm 20 minutes away. My car died. I had to walk 2 miles to get to a payphone. My wife is picking me up but she is 14 miles away."
Me: "um, ok. We will have someone covering for you when you arrive"
Actor: "I guess this is a bad time to say that I should get a cell phone"
Me: "Yes. You should get on that"

The artistic director did his role and the actor arrived 5 minutes after his final scene. He got a cell phone two days later.