For his one day off, Zach Braff flew out to Los Angeles Monday night to appear on “Jimmy Kimmel Live.” While there, he talked about the grueling schedule of doing a Broadway production. Braff is starring in Woody Allen‘s “Bullets Over Broadway, maintaining a schedule of eight shows a week.
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What makes the experience even more surreal than being so exhausted all the time is that, because of the stage lights, he can only see the very front row of the audience. And those aren’t particularly good seats, as the audience members sitting there have to strain their necks up to see the show. Apparently, according to Braff, those are discount seats the theater sells the morning of each show.
He said it’s challenging to try to entertain the entire audience when all he can see are “these really wacky people in the front row.”
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Braff recalled one woman in particular, who was fast asleep through the entire first act of the show. He pointed out that the show not only has a 20-piece orchestra, but it also features gunshots and groups of men tap dancing. Nevertheless, this woman was sound asleep, and he found it very distracting.
During intermission, Braff decided to do something about it. He sent her a Red Bull with a note that read, “Look it’s very, very hard to do the show for the 699 other people if you’re asleep. Would you consider maybe having a couple sips and waking up.”
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This gesture didn’t have the result he was expecting, though. Instead of finding the woman awake, he found her propped up on multiple booster seats, both underneath her and behind her. Her family had propped her up and put sunglasses on her, “and the Red Bull was in her hand,” Braff said, swearing this was a true story. “It was like ‘Weekend at Bernie’s.’”
The woman apparently spent the entire second act of the production leaned over with those shades on, holding the Red Bull in her hand … fast asleep.