You Never Say Good Luck On Opening Night

The exact origin of this expression is unknown, but some of the most popular theories are the Shakespearean or traditional theory, and the bowing theory. In Australian theatrical circles saying "good luck" is also avoided, but the replacement is often "chookas! One should always leave a light burning in an empty theatre. Though it's a superstition, it does have practical value as well: In , Playbill ran an article about Broadway theatres that were believed to be haunted.

Related to a similar rule for sailing ships, it is considered bad luck for an actor to whistle on or off stage. As original stage crews were hired from ships in port theatrical rigging has its origins in sailing rigging , sailors, and by extension theatrical riggers, used coded whistles to communicate scene changes.

Actors who whistled would confuse them into changing the set or scenery and could result in injury or death. In today's theatres, the stage crew normally uses an intercom or cue light system. From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. This article has multiple issues. Please help improve it or discuss these issues on the talk page. Learn how and when to remove these template messages. This article possibly contains original research. Please improve it by verifying the claims made and adding inline citations.

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Literature as Uncanny Causality. Phrases like "break a leg" and "merde" are meant to confuse these theatrical pixies and defeat their obstinate ways. A wish for something bad will yield something good from them. But why specifically the well-wish to "break a leg? Breaking a leg means you have broken past this barrier and made it successfully onstage!

Some evidence suggests this phrase was born with early vaudeville when performers waited backstage and it was decided in the moment if their act would go on that performance. If they were sent on, they had broken the leg. Then they just had to watch out for the hook. Other theories support that "break a leg" goes much further back, perhaps to Elizabethan England, where audiences threw money when they enjoyed a performance fruits and vegetables for a bad one.

Actors would have to bend over to collect their rewards, thus breaking the line of their leg. Do not whistle in the theatre. In the s, theatres began to employ mechanisms to fly scenery, props and, sometimes, actors. The rigging of theatrical fly systems was very similar to that of many sailing ships.

So it was only a matter of time before sailors found work in the theatre crew.

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On the seas, sailors communicated to each other through a code of whistling. When they began working in theatre, this means of communication followed. A certain combination of whistles could mean instructions to raise or lower scenery.

If an actor happened to go across the stage whistling, the operators of the fly system might easily confuse their ditty for a cue — clearly dangerous for anyone underneath who might get crushed by a wrongly executed scene change. Despite the advent of headsets and the fact that we don't whistle signals anymore tradition is tradition. Even whispering the name of one of William Shakespeare 's bloodiest plays inside a theatre is a most egregious taboo. In fact, to do so will raise the ire of most theatre folk to a panic.

There are a variety of speculations as to why saying the play's name in a theatre is considered bad luck. One possible genesis for this superstition comes from the incantations of the three witches in Macbeth. It is believed that Shakespeare adapted these spells from actual books of black magic. This opened the play up to forces of darkness which are supposed to plague productions of what most now refer to as "The Scottish Play.

Another theory claims that the actor playing Macbeth in the original production died in an accident, and Shakespeare, himself, had to go on in his place. It is believed that all subsequent productions are now haunted by this actor and his dismal fate.

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Go outside the theatre, spin around in a circle three times and spit. Avoid placing a peacock feather onstage. Why is a beautifully ornamental bit of plumage bad luck in a theatre production? The pattern on a peacock feather creates an eye, or according to legend an evil eye, which brings bad juju to a production.

The idea of the evil eye hidden in objects extends back as far as the Ancient Greeks. Peacock feathers were also feared by early Europeans as they were part of the ornamentation of Mongol hordes who invaded parts of the continent during the Middle Ages. For a long time, peacock feathers were looked upon by Europeans as part of a dark and bloody history.

Much like the Macbeth curse, you don't want such savagery and evil associated with a production. Turn on the ghost light. Never leave a stage entirely dark. Just don't do it. Practicality might be part of it, since there is always a plethora of obstacles furniture, trap doors, and orchestra pits that could lead to accidents in the dark.

But there is a second common sense explanation. When theatres were first lit in the early part of the s — before electricity — the lights were powered by gas.