Embarassing Situations on stage

Candlestick02

Forgive me if this has been brought up before, but another thread reminded me of a few on-stage snafoo's. Anybody got any good ones? like that made you LOL?

It's so weird, but apparently when I was on-stage w/ another sister, either doing the presentation or pretending to be the house-holder I would, I guess, think I was an actress or something. I really felt the need to be really and truly believable. So, on one particular occasion I was being the non-JW being witnessed to by another young one (although she was older than me -- she was about 21 and I was like 16 or so). So, she's going on about how God's gonna bring Armageddon and yada-yada-yada..and I gave her a face like 'OH NO!' -- like I really was worried about the impending doom of this world. Well SHE frieked out and whispered to me 'what?' -- like she thought something slipped out of her mouth wrong and was really worried that I was trying to warn her of that..it was TOO FUNNY! poor girl, she had no idea how much of a drama queen I could be. What can I say, I was workin' it!

The other time that comes to mind is when I was a little kid. Dad had a part on stage and had all the young ones up there -- which at the time wasn't many and so he had to use LITTLE kids. So, I was up there along w/ my sister and some other kids and my dad (as the PO elder and only elder in the congo at the time) had us kids draw pictures of our favorite biblical stories and talk about our drawing up on stage. When he got to me I remember holding up my drawing of Noah and an ark and animals, but being as I was only like 3 or 4 I couldn't say much and so I got nervous and ran off the stage crying. Talk about horrifying, when you're a shy little kid. Fortunately, I outgrew that... but I was mortified at the time. Poor little 3 yr old Candlestick me!

Anyone got any funny times on stage that you can recall?

sir82

Is microphone carrying close enough?

There once was a kid who was, shall we say, coordination-ally challenged. It was his turn to carry the microphone.

These were the microphones with cords (I think most Halls have cordless now). Anyway, someone raises their hand, the conductor calls on him. It's on this kid's side of the hall.

As he starts to move forward, he steps on the microphone cord, pulling the micrphone downward.

I guess he must have thought "Can't...let...go...of...microphone" and so clung to it in his one hand for dear life.

As his weight carried him forward, the cord pulled him over, so he basically fell flat on his face.

The hall was a mass of attempted suppression of chuckling & sniggering, not at all times successful. I distinctly remember one old-school elderly elder, with a thick German accent, whispering loudly to his about-to-lose-it completely wife, "Don't laugh! Don't laugh!" Which of course made it worse.

Fun times.

pratt1

I got one funny, one not funny, but embrassing.

1. My dad actually studied with the dubs in the early 70's. Anyway he was in a demonstration on the service meeting and it called for him to get angry at my mother for trying to witness to him. My dad the great actor grabbed his newspaper and threw it on the table and stormed off the platform in a huff. Well when as he got out of his seat to storm off the platform he ripped his pants from back to front, it made a huge sound. Dad was so embrassed he nearly stopped going to the hall at all.

2. As an elder was giving the sunday talk, his oldest daughter that married an MS who was physically and emotionally abusing her came on to the platform, sat on one of the end chairs and cried "Daddy please help me". She then started to urinate on herself. Apparently she had tried to leave her husband and move back home with her parents, but her Dad wouldn't hear of it.

She was eventually hospitalized. I don't know what happened to her, but it was very sad.

undercover

The microphone story reminded me one that I pulled.

Our congregation had been "counseled" about holding the roving mike when it came around. They weren't supposed to grab it because us microphone servants knew exactly the correct distance to hold the mike so that there wouldn't be feedback or hisses or pops.

Well this one stubborn sister always insisted grabbing the mike. I used to try to fool her by moving it around as she went for it. It was comical sometimes watching her trying to grab it, but she always managed to get a hold of it. Then it would be a tug of war about how far to hold it away from her. She thought that it should almost touch her, so I had to fight to keep her from doing that.

Well, one night I was in an ill mood and she was called on. She saw that I was the handler and was prepared for the tug-of-war to ensue. Instead of fighting her for it I just let her grab it and gave no resistance whatsoever. She grabbed it hard and pulled it back hard and slammed it into her teeth, creating all kinds of loud, weird noises and feedback. It was great.

The only stage situations I can remember is one elder whose leg fell asleep during a public talk and he fell. That was pretty funny.

Another one, which wasn't funny, was a brother who was terribly sensitive and had terrible stage fright but was talked into joining the ministry school by the elders who told him he pretty much had to. He worked weeks on his first talk and then when he got up to give it froze up completely. He stood there for the entire 5 or 6 minutes without speaking and without the school overseer doing anything. When his time was up, the bell rang and the overseer had to walk up and tell him he could sit down. We felt sorry for him, but looking back on it now, it was cruel that anyone ever expected him to do that to begin with.

Effervescent

I think I've posted this story before, but I visited a hall with an aunt once, somewhere around Salem in Oregon. The Sunday talk was realllllllly long, and dragging on forever, the Elder seemed to be one of those boring monotone speakers. I think I was about ready to doze off when all of the sudden the poor man stopped speaking, swayed a bit and fell forward into the mike and then CRASH.... on the floor passed out. Women screamed and there was mayhem, and an ambulance was quickly called. They dragged the poor guy out the side door to wait for the ambulance so that they could continue with the Watchtower portion. They made an announcement at the end of the meeting that this poor visiting Elder had a bad case of the flu and would be released from the hospital by the end of the day after they got some fluids in him. I felt bad for him, but it was the most exciting Sunday talk I ever went to!

sass_my_frass

I hated writing a script so that the householder would have to know exactly what to say when... so I'd just talk non-stop and have them nodding and 'oh', 'umm'.... One night I was ad-libbing and said 'Hallelujah!'

Now that I describe it, it doesn't seem so bad. I guess the meetings are so dull that any little change or bit of weirdness is really OUT THERE. The woman who heckled the public speaker got talked about for years.

Soledad

Nothing outstanding ever happened on stage in our KH. Just a lot of boring speakers, an occasional sister who forgot her lines or started to giggle in the middle of her presentation.

My poor little brother once started to break down in the middle of one of his talks. I think he was like 10 years old. This one obnoxious teenager started to laugh. I waited until the end of the meeting then I went over to him and whacked him in the head with a rolled up magazine. Then I think his mother smacked him too. The teenager never ever pulled that stupid stunt again.

caligirl

I was 6 or 7 the first time that I was householder in the main hall with my Mom giving the talk. My best friend at the time happened to be sitting in the front row, and made a really funny face at me and I jsut cracked up laughing and couldn't stop for the whole talk. I did manange to nod a few times to questions she asked, but other than that I was pretty much useless. When I get laughing really hard, I don't make any sound, so I was pretty much sitting up there shaking with tears running out of my eyes for 5 minutes. I suppose that it was more embarassing for my Mom than for me.

coffee_black

My ex had a funny one growing up. He and his friends would always try to make eachother laugh on the platform when one had a part. One time my x was giving a talk and three of his friends were in the back row... He took one look at them and busted up. The CO turned around to see what he was laughing at. Well they were pretending to be the 3 monkeys...hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil. Well the guy with his hands over his ears took his hands down real quick when he saw the co start to turn around. Likewise the guy with his hand over his mouth quickly put it down. But the guy with his hand over his eyes...couldn't see what was going on.... So the CO caught him... deep trouble.

Coffee

lisavegas420

I remember being a householder. The sister gave me my little stack of index cards with my lines on it. Somehow I got my cards mixed up...so my first line was..."well thank you for explaining this to me, I'll see you next week." She just starred at me for the longest time, then whispered to me...wrong card..oops

lisa

Embarassing Situations on stage

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