I can't believe I just had to do that...

[stagegal1]

Ok, I'll explain the poop thing.  A few years ago, I did a new musical that had a talking bird in it.  Believe it or not, this was a professional, off-broadway show with some pretty well known actors in it.  Well, the bird had a bit of an attitude and the writers and director wanted poop to fall on a character that the bird didn't like so it looked like he pooped on her.

We eventually cut it, thank god, but not until I spent more than 2 hours saying, "Standby poop.  Poop...GO, reset poop, Standby..."  We were testing different consistencies.

oy gevalt

[heatonSM]

I was working at a small storefront theater in L.A. and the bathroom for the actor's was only accesible through the lobby.  So at 5 min. to curtain we would have a "pee" call.  Imagine..."Ladies and Gentlemen, this is your pee call.  Places for pee call, please."

[loebtmc]

amusingly, I too have had a live bird poop cue in a show - it eventually got cut, but we used a group of magician's doves and tried to train them to fly - on cue - onto the hat of an actor who (of course) was one of those folks who hated/was terrified of birds. Really. What a trip. Like the actor can't ACT being pooped on - with or without a bird! sometimes I wonder......

[geoffsm]

Although this isn't my experience...I ASMed a show in which a cue sequence included "Standby offstage sex noises....Sex noises GO"

I once had to institute a "No costume jewelry at rehearsal" rule after an actress' ring flew of while she was in the middle on scene flailing her arms.  It flew across the room and almost took my eye out.

I do recall one specific time working on a show (the same one with the sex noises)...I was reading off a props checklist to my fellow ASM and I was yelling across the room: "Cellphone...joint...french toast stick...condoms...AK-47...skittles." I just kind of stopped and thought...gee, I wonder what people would think if they didn't know what I was doing. 

[centaura]

I was doing a touring show for really young kids, and one of the things that I had to instruct a local guy to do every show was to help the pink poodle with the big hat.  I told that to a guy at one venue, and he looked at me funny and said "Are you speaking in code?".  I told him no, that I really wasn't, and that he was going to see an actor in a full body pink poodle costume come to him and that she would need help putting on the 4' tall hat [showed him the prop box] and she needed someone to hold the hat while she did up the harness that held the hat in place. 

-Centaura

[dallas10086]

One of my favorite local shows I've SM'd is "Mr. Marmalade", about a very little girl whose imaginary friend Mr. Marmalade is an abusive, coke-snorting, porn-toting businessman. If you ever get a chance to see it done well, go...it's hilarious. So of course one of my first questions upon hearing the premise was, "Who is buying the dildos and porn?" The answer turned out to be me. So I go into the obvious shop and the clerk, who sees me studying the boxes of dildos maybe a little more closely than his regular customers, asks me how he can help me, I reply, "Do you think I could take some of these out of the boxes and see how far they bounce?"

[DeeCap]

On one show I had an actress who liked to "go commando" under her clothes.
I didn't know that she did this until she had her first fitting and the costume shop called me.
So I had to remind her to wear undergarments when she had fittings

I worked on a film where we had to locate a dead deer. It had to be freshly dead, and in one piece. We were so desperate that the producer said one day "Whoever finds a dead deer today will get a producer credit!" I had to drive up and down the New York State Thruway in search for a fresh, dead, deer.

The props department ended up making a dead deer.

[Amie]

On one show I had an actress who liked to "go commando" under her clothes.
I didn't know that she did this until she had her first fitting and the costume shop called me.
So I had to remind her to wear undergarments when she had fittings

I worked on a film where we had to locate a dead deer. It had to be freshly dead, and in one piece. We were so desperate that the producer said one day "Whoever finds a dead deer today will get a producer credit!" I had to drive up and down the New York State Thruway in search for a fresh, dead, deer.

The props department ended up making a dead deer.

Isn't that what a props department is supposed to do anyway? haha!

Gross! (on both accounts, really)

[centaura]

I was in charge of petty cash on tour, and had to buy all the condoms that the sound guy used on the wireless mics.  But, being practical, I was doing all my week's prop shopping as well.  We were in a Walmart down south and in my shopping cart I had every box of unlubricated condoms that the store had, plus some cookies, whipped cream, shaving cream and a ladder.

As well, I was a young, white 20-something female shopping with my 40+ black male sound tech that trip.

That was one of my more memorable trips for condoms; though I generally raised eyebrows whenever I went and bought out their supply of unlubs.  It was interesting my first time - I think I was as red as the box that they came in, but after 6 years I could go through checkout and never even bat an eye, no matter what types of looks I was getting from the cashier.

-Centaura

[ljh007]

In one show, a former local news anchor celebrity was playing a character would be hanged onstage. We were having a harness call to work on the hanging, and the noose kept spinning in circles. So here is this tubby middle aged news anchor spinning around ten feet off the deck, whimpering and getting really sick to his stomach. A few feet away, the Fabio-lookalike director/choreographer is working out the soft shoe routine he will be showing the actors that night. Spinning news anchor, tap dancing Fabio. I just turned to the head carp and said "Some days, I love my job."

#2: My family came to see a show I was doing and helped me clean up props, etc afterwards. At places the next day, I can't find the two felt dog-ears (like, as if ears had been cut off a dog - anyone ever done "Lonesome West"?). They look kind of weird, so I can see how someone would think they were trash. After looking for nearly half an hour, it's 15 to places and I realize they have to be in the trash. So I get my ASM to wrangle the actors to places, I alert the actors to the possibility that we may have no dog ears tonight, and I dive into the dumpster. After 12 disgusting minutes opening each and every bag, waist-deep in all kinds of rubbish, I find the blasted ears. I climb out, compose myself, march into the dressing room holding up the garbage-stinky ears and announce "Places, please."

[Dee]

So I go into the obvious shop and the clerk, who sees me studying the boxes of dildos maybe a little more closely than his regular customers, asks me how he can help me, I reply, "Do you think I could take some of these out of the boxes and see how far they bounce?"

Freaking Hysterical!!!  I SM'd for Debbie Does Dallas The Musical and had to paint  2 VERY large Dildos banana yellow.  This was after I went to every shop in Phoenix asking to see the largest dildo they had. and oh yeah do you have this in yellow?

[bex]

My favorite thing I've had to do was for a production of Deadwood Dick or The Game of Gold that I ASM'ed in college.  In the first tech rehearsal, the director decided that she didn't like the way the galloping horse sound cues sounded.  The solution was for myself and the other ASM to somehow make the sounds live backstage, and after a multitude of options were bandied about, someone laughingly suggested "We can do it Monty Python style, anybody have some coconuts?"  Unfortunately we did not have any coconuts, but the TD found some empty tupperware containers in the green room that made great horse hoove sounds when turned upside down and beaten on a wooden table top.  The problem with this was that both of us have really small hands and couldn't grip the tupperware.  Final solution: Taco Bell cups- the plastic kind that are smaller on the bottom so they fit in the cup holder in your car.  I spent the next 5 days before opening stalking people in the green room eating their dinner and fishing their empty cups out of the garbage.

[cprted]

Puppetry of the Penis came into my venue a while back.  In one of the final gags, one of the "puppeteers" points a fan at the other "puppeteer" who is standing on a skateboard holding his scrotum making a "sail."  I had tied a length of tie-lie attached to the skateboard and on cue, pulled the naked scrotum-sail bearing man towards me into the wings.

[NomieRae]

I did a show where we had Reborning dolls (Collectible dolls that look incredibly real, are weighted, smell like babies etc) where we had one "regular" doll and one "mutilated" doll. The regular doll our puppet maker actually bought from a woman who sent us "adoption" papers, the whole nine yards as if we had adopted her....Not only did I have to refresh the blood and gore on the mutilated doll every night as preset, I was also designated by everyone that I had to put the "regular" doll to bed at night because I"m the only one who held her like a baby and not like a prop.

CREEPED ME OUT.

[maximillionx]

The craziest thing I've had to do for a show was when I was crewing Angels in America in college.  As soon as I finished my scene change, I grabbed a feather and some debris (confetti that seemed like a ceiling was cracking) and ran up 2 flights of stairs and along the length of our building.  Once that was done, I had to enter the grid above the audience and travel over the entire audience until I was over the stage.  It doesn't help the grid was verrrry creaky and only above 4' - 5' high and included 2 ladders to climb.  I had to accomplish this in under 3 minutes or so without anyone hearing or seeing.  I was out of breathe pretty consistently.