The Funniest People in Theater

This is a short, quick, and easy read.

Some Sample Anecdotes:

• As a young actress just starting in show business, Eve Arden quickly learned not to be absent minded. She once finished a play's first act, went to her dressing room, took off her costume and removed her makeup, and then left the theater to take a bus home - only to find the theater manager running after her and yelling, "Second act!" She returned to the stage wearing galoshes and no makeup, where she discovered her fellow actors desperately ad-libbing lines such as "I saw her in the garden, I think" and "She'll probably be here any minute."

• The great American scoundrel and playwright Wilson Mizner heard about a man in Reno who was executed by means of poison gas. When the warden asked him for his last request, he replied, "A gas mask." Mr. Mizner was shocked that a man with a sense of humor like that could be executed.

• At one point, Lorraine Hansberry's writing of a play seemed to be going nowhere, so she threw the pages into the air, then left the room to get a broom to sweep the pages into the fire. When she returned, she found her husband gathering the pages together and putting them in order. A few days later, he set the pages before her, and she resumed writing the play. In 1959, the New York Drama Critics Circle named the play, A Raisin in the Sun, the Best Play of the Year.

• 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 England, to "give someone the bird" means to boo them. On the New York opening night of Bitter Sweet, Noël Coward walked into Evelyn Laye's dressing room and presented her with a silver box. When she opened the box, a mechanical bird emerged, flapped its wings, and sang. Mr. Coward said, "I wanted to be the first to give you the bird."