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Break Hearts & Break Legs
The Joy of theatre superstition — and how breaking a leg is good!
In theatre parlance, it’s a common to wish an actor to break a leg before they go on. Despite how bad this sounds, it is actually a benediction.
Theatre people are a superstitious lot. And they take their superstitions seriously. There’s no more dangerous word, especially once you’re in theatre, than the words “good luck.” (Okay, maybe Macbeth is more dangerous. The Scottish Play. I mean, of course, The Scottish Play.)
But, generally, the thinking is that, whatever you say, the opposite is going to happen. So, you wish someone good luck and you’re going to wish someone a heaping dose of bad luck, and you wish someone to break their leg, and, chances are, unless they’re working on Spiderman: Turn Off the Dark, they’re probably going to be okay.
Okay, that was bad. Theatre people have a dark sense of humor, too. It’s how we get through tech week and eight shows a week.
You have to figure, there are so many things that can go wrong during a show. (And the only reason I can talk about this at all is because I am not currently…
