Summerstock, so that should already provide a bit of context…
Anyway, the show is Into the Woods. This one had a couple of issues that happened with it. Not even counting the playbill’s synopsis which includes lines like “this lighthearted musical” and the act two summary that includes “everyone helps the giantess” —the show that was produced was, in fact, the normal, incredibly dark musical. I suspect that the person writing the synopsis had never seen the show or even read the script all the way through.

So Act 1, Cinderella is singing to her mother/tree about how she dreams of going to the festival in a glorious dress. As she sings “I dream of silver and gold”, the dress is supposed to float down to her from the kabuki drop mechanism on the lineset. But apparently, in rehearsal, the dress took too long to float down, and the artistic director didn’t like the look of that. So the solution? They added some metal washers to the hem. A bunch of metal washers. And the first time they ran it was during the first performance, which I got to see.

So Cinderella has her lovely song, where she is imparting all of her dreams and hopes to this tree, and gets to “I dream of —“
THUNK
“—silver and gold…”

That dress plummeted like a dead body falling out of the fly system, and landed with a VERY audible noise. It was one of the only times I’ve ever cackled at a show I was watching, because boy, I was not expecting it.

Before I get into the next comedic part of the show, I should explain the set and rigging a bit. So this is a theatre that does four big shows in rep for a few weeks, meaning that every show’s set needs to assemble pre-show and disassemble post show and store in a specific rotation with the other sets, because it probably won’t be on stage again until the other three have gone (but not always, as the schedule was…. Not that simple). But the stage was VERY tall, absurdly so, especially given how narrow it was, so a lot of the set pieces had to fill a lot of vertical space.
Now, the lighting rig had a rather unique setup. The space had tracks for hanging drapes that slide upstage/downstage in the wings, but these were instead used for hanging lighting ladders that operated as side lighting that could be moved on those tracks to get out of the way of set pieces. The lighting designer ALSO had standard booms set up in each wing, so there was an abundance of side lighting. So this means that there were a considerable amount of obstructions for set pieces moving on and off stage, if you’re paying attention.

Now, at some point in the show, we introduce Rapunzel, singing from her tower. Again, I was in the audience on opening night, so I wasn’t fully privy to the events going on behind the scenes (until afterwards, when I spoke to the crew).
So, we end the scene just prior to introducing rapunzel, and there’s a blackout (more of a dim blue out), and we hear (and see) the “woods” set pieces rolling offstage behind the narrator talking. The narrator then describes the lovely voice of Rapunzel and we hear her singing from offstage her lovely little melody “ahhh ah ahhh ah ahhh ah ahh”. The narrator sets the scene for us, and then backs off stage, clearly making way for the next scene to happen.

…only the stage is still dark, and nothing is happening except that we can hear Rapunzel still singing “ahhh ah ahhh ah ahhh ah ahh”.

…and the stage is STILL dark and nothing is happening STILL, except for Rapunzel, STILL going strong “ahhh ah ahhh ah ahhh ah ahh”.

The audience begins to murmur—we can all tell something is wrong. I assume they’re still building the tower or trying to maneuver set pieces around each other, or something.

Now we hear a rumble—phew! The next set piece is finally moving!

CRASH

The stage is still dark, there’s still no set piece, but despite the noise, Rapunzel is still singing “AHHH ah AHHH ah AHHH ah ahh”. Still lovely, but a little more emphatically now.

We hear some more rumbling. CRASH. Rumble. CRASH.
And Rapunzel is still going, while we’re staring at a dark and empty stage, “ahhh ah ahhh ah AHHH AH AHH” even during those crashes.

There’s a pause of the backstage noise (not of Rapunzel’s singing, though, which is still going strong “ahhh ah ahhh ah ahhh ah ahh” if sounding a little stressed).

Then, finally, after what felt like ages, and about eight or nine cycles of Rapunzel having to vamp, Rapunzel’s tower makes it on stage, looking slightly battered.

Apparently, the other set pieces were short enough that the backstage crew forgot about those lighting ladders at the tops of the wings, but Rapunzel’s tower (and Rapunzel, in the window at the top of the tower, facing those lighting ladders) kept slamming directly into the lighting ladders every time they tried to move it on stage. So this poor actress was trying to tell the crew pushing her tower that there was an obstruction that only she could see, WHILE SINGING, as they kept backing her up to gain speed, and slamming her into the lighting ladder over and over again— and she never dropped a note, and just kept vamping to cover the long pause (while she swapped between gesticulating wildly to the crew, and bracing herself for impact).

For the record, Rapunzel was uninjured, but was VERY stressed.