Weird and Strange Rituals and Habits

    When I started doing theatre, I had to adapt to, and learn to accept and go along with the weird things that actors do.

Pre-show rituals:

     Numerous actors have special rituals that they will do right before a show to try to assure that it will go well. For instance, an actor on Broadway named John Lloyd hits himself with a rubber mallet and pulls on his tongue with his fingers.  Daphne Rubin Vega, an actor in the opening production of Rent lights candles before a show, and yet another actor, like many, prays and meditates.

Superstitions:

    Of course, most people laugh at the superstitions which some actors take more seriously.  One of the well known superstitions is that if "Macbeth" is said inside a theatre (unless the actual character Macbeth is being addressed), their play will be cursed. There is a chance of saving your play though if  you run immediately outside, spin around three times counterclockwise, and spit over your shoulder.

•    One origin of this superstition is that it was thought that real witches gave the word Macbeth to Shakespeare, but then after seeing the play performed for the first time, they weren't impressed, and therefore cursed the word. 

•       I saw the Royal Shakespeare Company put on Macbeth a few years ago, and the show was using 5 understudies because the 5 actors, including the lead for Hamlet, were all recently put in the hospital. During the show, one of the witches slipped backstage and was so injured, she couldn't come out to bow at the end.

• Lincoln also read Macbeth the night before he was assassinated. I don't see how these superstitions could really be true, but finding that out about the Macbeth actors was eerie... In addition, if actors have been working for months on a show, then I don't they usually want to take any chances of sabotaging their hard work by saying Macbeth.

     Another common superstition is to say "break a leg" instead of "good luck" to an actor who is just about to perform, because saying good luck will actually give them bad luck. It's interesting, I've noticed, how embedded this tradition is everywhere. I've never met someone who hasn't heard this superstition. Most people follow it as well.
  
     Some more superstitions are to not wear blue or yellow, as it will cause the actor to forget their lines, mirrors should also never be used in a production, receiving flowers before the performance will cause the show to go badly, and a "ghost light" should always be left on in the middle of the stage when the theatre is not in use, otherwise a ghost will begin to haunt the theatre.

Weird Acting Exercises:

• I went to a theatre workshop, where they made us mime being balloons that were being blown up, and then the air being released, and they made us pretend to be snakes that were being charmed by a snake charmer.  

• So many directors of mine spend the first half hour to hour and a half of a rehearsal just to do yoga.

• A popular exercise to develop physicality is to get us to lead with one part of our body. For example, we'll stick out our stomachs and walk around that way, to see what character we can develop from it.

• I've had a director make us do somersaults across the floor. Then they made us roll across really limply across the floor in a crescent moon shape, like a dead body. 

• In an audition, we were asked to walk across the room acting as different objects, including our interpretation of a taco.  

Then again, I guess theatre is strange because it attracts strange people.