The Producers opens tonight!

The Producers features a play with in a play.  When the actors and crew are getting ready to perform “Springtime for Hitler,” Leo wishes everyone “Good Luck.”  This makes everyone stop and explain to Leo that you never say good luck to someone in the theatre.  You say “Break a leg.”

But where did this saying come from?  I’ll tell you you… I don’t know.  Much like the old question, “how can an audience sit through a performance of Brigadoon?” - the answer is a mystery to me.

There are theories…

- Simply if wishing for good luck made bad things happen, then wishing for something bad (a broken leg) would make good things happen.

- In Ancient Greece, people didn’t applaud. Instead, they stomped for their appreciation and if they stomped long enough (because of a great performance), they would break a leg.

- It’s said that it comes from understudies telling the primaries to break their legs (because they really wanted them to) so often that it became bad luck if they didn’t.

- In the Elizabethan theatre during the final bows or curtain call, audiences would throw money, usually coins, onto the stage depending on how well they enjoyed the performance. In some bad performances they would throw rotten vegetables, but in the good cases, money. Actors would then ‘take a knee’, effectively breaking their leg line, on stage and pick up the money. As a result, when a person wishes someone to ‘break a leg’ it refers to wishing them success in their performance so in the end they would have to kneel down and collect a welcoming tip.

- Could simply mean, have a great performance so that the audience will applaude and you can bow.  When an actor bows they break or bend their leg. 

- In the days of early vaudeville, the producers would book more performers than could possibly perform in the given time of the show - since “bad” acts could be pulled before their completion… so, in order to insure that the show didn’t start paying people who don’t actually perform, there was a general policy that a performer did NOT get paid unless they actually performed on-stage. So the phrase “break a leg” referred to breaking the visual plane of the legs (curtains) that lined the side of the stage.

BREAK A LEG CAST AND CREW OF THE PRODUCERS!!!

February 25th - March 7th, 2010