Blog-O-Ween! An Actor's Horror Story

With Halloween just around the corner, another mysterious event is knocking at our doors, scratching at our windows, and leaving all the cabinets open in our kitchens. That's right, Blog-O-Ween is here! I'm going to be updating every weekday until Halloween, so keep an eye out for a lot of posts coming down the pipe.

I'm going to kick off Blog-O-Ween with one of my very first horror stories from performing. I wanted to write an improv horror story, but I've been incredibly lucky so for in my improv career. Theater? Not so much. Brace yourselves for true terror.


It is December of 2007 and I have been cast in my first speaking role in a play. I am Jingles the Elf in a play called Santa's Spectacles. My high school theatre class was putting on for some of the local elementary schools. The play is filled with the singing of Christmas Carols and a whole bunch of clever dialogue. We have rehearsed twice.

I knew my lines and more or less how most of the play's plot worked out. I wasn't concerned about the lack of rehearsal or the singing cause--I mean, I'm working with some experienced high school actors.

This play revolved around Jingles the Elf giving a cranky old lady Santa's glasses. One of the most important plot points was me stealing her glasses and giving her Santa's. I had to do a lot of physical stuff to get on stage and my costume had no pockets, so naturally I just stuffed the Santa glasses down my pants until the handoff. Come time for the handoff, however, the glasses are nowhere to be found! I reached subtly to my left hip and they weren't there. I gave an exaggerated look to the left,and then to the right, and then I grabbed my waistband pulled and looked down my pants for them. This probably looked like a well-rehearsed gag, but I was legitimately horrified that I couldn't find the most important prop in the play. (It turns out, they had fallen out a few feet behind me during one of my cartwheels or somersaults into the scene.)

Thinking as quickly as my young, terrified mind could I pulled some sleight of hand with the old lady's glasses and made it look like I was handing her a new pair of specs. I stumbled through the rest of that scene and finally, mercifully made it off-stage. All of my lines had gone out of my head. To make things worse, I heard the scenes happening on stage and it was clear that the other actors were struggling with their lines as well.

Our dialogue was skipping between pages nonsensically as we only remembered scraps of our lines. Scene after scene would collapse and we would struggle to cue the next plot point and pray the next scene would fare better. It went on like this for what felt like an eternity until we finally managed to make it to the final scene of the play.

Everyone is on stage and we're all trying to squeeze in the lines we remember without any regard for our cue lines. All I am focused on is reaching the finish. I have to get Santa on-stage so he can forgive all the transgressions and set all the things right. Finally we managed to make it to the line before his entrance and he burst in with a large "Ho ho Hoooooooo!" Here was a true Christmas miracle. If I didn't believe in Santa bringing joy and happiness to people before that moment, I certainly did after it. He was a shining red and white beacon of hope. He was my relief and joy made human.

Santa strolled into the scene and did his job beautifully. He carried us, confused and exhausted, right into the play's happy ending. We escaped the wrath of Santa's Spectacles and still had the wits to tell the tale. Later on, our director and our audience would tell us how much they loved the show! I learned that day how much can go wrong on stage and still allow your audience to leave happy. Turns out, basically everything can go wrong as long as you get Santa on-stage to fix all of it. Also you should perform with joy and intensity regardless of mistakes and yadda yadda yadda.

The take home here? Be someone else's Santa Claus. Come in and save them as soon as they need it.

What are some of your work-horror stories? They don't have to be from improv or theatre, just a harrowing experience that you somehow miraculously survived.