LawrenceCConnolly.com

It’s opening night. You make your entrance, hit your mark, and then – silence. Your mind goes blank. You can’t remember your first line.

It’s called “going up” on stage – a reference to the reflexive way people have of looking up and to the side when they can’t remember something. According to actor John Mahoney, “It happens to everybody. I’ve read stories about John Gielgud, Ralph Richardson, Noel Coward and Olivier.”

Knowing that such luminaries have had it happen to them may make it easier for the rest of us. And it’s good to keep in mind that… [read more at the 21st-Century Scop].

“I do community theater, and all muting and unmuting is done from the tech booth. Well, every once in a while, if the tech person can’t mute an actor’s mic right away when they leave the stage, the audience catches them saying something like, ‘Well, I really f****d THAT up!'”

The above account, courtesy of Buzzfeed’s “17 Seriously Cringeworthy ‘Forgot To Turn The Mic Off’ Stories,” is one of many that deals with the ways wireless audio has … [read more at the 21st Century Scop].

In Francis Ford Coppola’s film The Conversation (1974) surveillance expert Harry Caul (Gene Hackman) becomes obsessed with a cryptic recording that he believes suggests a young couple is in danger. Similarly, in Brian De Palma’s Blow Out (1981), sound engineer Jack Terri (John Travolta) investigates a mystery by listening to a recording made at the scene of a crime. And even master sleuth Sherlock Holmes demonstrates the importance of audio clues in the story “The Speckled Band” (1892), when a whistle emanating from a closed room leads him to….

[Read more at the 21st-Century Scop].

The image at left is from the recently restored film Sherlock Holmes (1916), starring William Gillette in the first-ever screen portrayal of the master sleuth. The film is currently streaming on Apple TV.

There’s more than one way to find a missing person, but could you do it without actually looking? This week’s episode of Mystery Theatre invites you to consider not one but two prompts that could lead to solving the mystery: “What is the alternative to looking?” and “What does one do when one doesn’t see?”

[Read more at the 21st-Century Scop.]