"Why Was That an Option?" —Theater Troupe’s Sound Designer Fail Cracks up Cast

The Rhode Center for the Arts (@rhodecenterforthearts) uploaded a viral social media post showing a mid-performance sound design fail that ended up causing the entirety of the cast to break and erupt into laughter.

In a caption for the video's post, the theater wrote that the troupe's "sound designer has never used hotkeys since," and judging by the sound effect that echoed throughout the theater, it's not difficult to see why.

The video begins with the theater troupe standing in front of the audience and singing in unison. The cadence of their track is a solemn, somber tune. The artists on stage stand looking out despondently as they rattle off the sad song together, some of them are holding suitcases.

Then, out of nowhere, with a live orchestra accompanying their singing with instrumentals, an electronic sound that would feel right at home in a production about circus clowns begins echoing throughout the theater. This prompts some of the performers to smile and cover their mouths.

A person's voice can be heard stating in the middle of the performance, "I'm so sorry," accompanied by laughs from the audience. As one of the actors finishes singing at the end of the song, she accompanies another actor on stage, who can't help but smile.

One of the commenters who replied to the TikTok posted that they hoped the performance being recorded was actually a "dress rehearsal."

Thankfully, one person replied to the Rhode Center for the Arts' TikTok that it wasn't a live performance.

Unfortunately, however, there have been other instances during live theatrical performances where there have been snafus that have interrupted the action on stage.

In 2009, actors Hugh Jackman and Daniel Craig during stage performances of A Steady Rain were both interrupted by audience members' cell phones.

Jackman purportedly kept the Chicago accent he worked on for the play while addressing the viewers' phone where he stated, "You wanna get that? Grab it. I don't care, grab it. Grab your phone, it doesn't matter."

During a preview, Craig did the same previously during another preview, asking the audience member, "You wanna get that?"

Broadway World also reported in 2024 that a performance of SUFFS, which takes a musical adaptation of the Suffragette movement, was interrupted by protesters upset the show was "a whitewash" referring to the cast of characters represented in the play.

Protesters held up a sign during the performance that contained the aforementioned messaging, along with text of a link to a web page that contained more information about the protesters' gripes with the show aimed at educating audiences about the history of women getting the right to vote in America.

The website wrote the play "is a betrayal of the next generation of feminists. We REJECT this rehashed white feminism. This action is brought to you by an autonomous group of radical, anti-racist, queer feminists. Claims to teach history but really it’s a whitewashed, slanted, and ultimately dangerous version of history."

A rep from SUFFS's production team confirmed that the incident was real but averred that the safety of neither cast nor crew was "compromised" during the show. The work of protesters drew ire from one of the play's performers, who castigated the demonstrators for attempting to erase her "soul and ancestral pain" during the performance.

Laila Erica Drew, who played the part of Phyllis in the play aired her grievances in an Instagram post: "Since we wanna talk about erasure, thanks for trying to erase the work I do in this show. Now I definitely know nobody cares that I'm baring my soul and my ancestral pain on stage every single night."

Furthermore, she stated that the activists who claimed to care about feminism and women's rights clearly made their true intentions known during the protest. Her post suggested that they cared more about gaining attention for disrupting the performance about women's voting rights to get their messaging across.

"Especially the people who claim to be fighting for us but in the same breath say they want to 'cancel' one of the only shows on Broadway that addresses Black erasure," Drew wrote in her social media upload.

OnStage reacted to the protest during the show, delineating why interrupting a theatrical performance for the sake of getting messaging about a cause across was bad form. Moreover, the outlet stated that the protesters airing their grievances were actually protesting the very phenomena that SUFFS covers in its subject matter.

"What was interesting about the Suffs protest is the fact that the very things the group was protesting are actually addressed in the show. Seems like this group should have actually sat through a performance before protesting it."

Kind of reminds you of the climate change activists who destroy priceless works of art.