Showmances From Hell: A Children's Treasury of Tragic Thespian Love
Showmance: A romance that blossoms between show people (usually actors) while working on a show.
Anyone who has ever worked on a play (from the lowliest community theater to the highest echelons of Broadway) is familiar with this dreaded concept. Emotions can run high onstage (as they're meant to), but when those feelings follow performers out of the theater, disaster awaits.
In honor of Valentine's Day, we offer five tales of thespian-on-thespian romance…and its tragicomic consequences.
(© Richard Termine)
Don't Cry for Me
I was in a production of Evita and our leading lady was dating the actor playing Juan Peron…who was, in turn, fooling around with the actor playing Che. It sure added a whole new level of intrigue to the "Waltz for Eva and Che."
—Anonymous Actress
(© Paul Kolnik)
Dirty Dancing
Contrary to popular opinion, choreographers are extra tuned in to a rehearsal room and see everything that happens. That's how we know you're a beat behind on the barrel turn, and also that you're making out with the dresser during your 10. I once choreographed a show that was particularly rife with backstage debauchery. The content of the show was hypersexual. The script explored threesomes, violence, bondage, drugs, cheating, deception…and that was just the first act. Life imitated art and I found myself in a rehearsal room with more unspoken sexual tension than the annual Exodus International Christmas Pageant. There were so many hookups, I lost count. My rehearsal room was akin to a Hell's Kitchen bar at two a.m. and I was the annoying DJ trying to get everyone to dance. Strangely enough the hookups, breakups, tears, and drama made for very compelling theater. It was kind of like a big gay immersive performance: Sleep No More…Than Once With the Same Person. Filled with eye roll-worthy drama? Sure. Some of the most fun I've had as a choreographer? Oh girl, yes. My advice on the subject: Don't confuse your backstage.com account with your match.com account.
—Sean Roschman, choreographer
(© Joan Marcus)
Typecasting
I feel like everyone has a story from college (or sometimes even later) about that guy [who] everyone suspects is probably gay and just doesn't know it yet. During rehearsals for a student production of Tony Kushner's Angels in America a showmance blossomed between the actor playing Joe [a closeted gay Mormon] and the actress playing Harper [Joe's wife]. Some of us thought it was adorable, but others of us were like, You guys were cast in these parts for a reason, you know. He ended up breaking it off with her for some reason…
—Anonymous stage manager
(© T. Charles Erickson)
Something Wicked
I was playing Malcolm in an artsy production of Macbeth in which all the actors wore black turtlenecks and looked like they were in a Philip Glass opera circa 1977. Lady Macbeth totally had the hots for Macbeth, which the director must have thought was some pretty clever casting. The only problem: One of the lady witches was also totally macking on the Thane of Glamis. According to other members of the cast, they would sometimes corner him backstage during my long scene with Macduff. I imagine this behind-the-curtain drama was far more interesting than the goofy Robert Wilson knockoff we were doing onstage. Of course, it didn't really matter in the end: Macbeth was totally gay. I imagine a lot of these stories end that way, right?
—Anonymous actor
(© Al Foote III)
A Genuinely Sweet Tale for the Not-Yet-Jaded
When I was a freshman in college the tech director made me the backstage crew head on a production of The Rivals. There was a girl on the fly crew I had a crush on. She was the fabulous kind of girl who shows up to crew in heels and a miniskirt. At intermission I'd find an excuse to wander up to the fly gallery and flirt with her. In retrospect, I can't imagine I was very slick about it, but at the time I thought I was. At one performance I was a little too focused on talking to the cute girl, and forgot to do part of my intermission shift. Right at the end of intermission I realized I'd forgotten to hang a picture for Act 2. I grabbed my headset, said "I'm hanging it now," and ran out onstage without hearing the stage manager reply, "Don't! We've flashed the lights and the audience is in their seats." I carried a giant picture out onstage, and of course had trouble hanging it. I struggled for about thirty seconds with my back to the audience, having no idea they were all staring at me. Finally, when I got the picture hung and turned to walk offstage the audience applauded. I still turn beet red remembering what an idiot I was. The happy ending is that on March 15 I'll have been married to the girl with the heels and the mini skirt — actress Mimi Bilinski — for twelve years.
—Beowulf Boritt, set designer (On the Town, Hand to God)
