CMU School of Drama


Friday, January 08, 2016

The Actress Who Died on Stage While Portraying Her Theatrical Death

www.todayifoundout.com: Several artists have died on stage while conducting live performances; however, one case is highly unique and probably the most ironic at the same time. The incident involved actress Edith Webster.

2 comments:

Julian Goldman said...

I’m kind of morbidly curious what exactly happened. Was it just coincidental perfect timing? Could she tell something was wrong a potentially rushed through the song because of it, managing to make it to the end? Did she collapse and then have a heart attack after she collapsed? I guess she was probably singing while having a heart attack, which is pretty impressive. Obviously we will never know since she died, but I’m curious what happened from her perspective. Also, I wonder, statistically speaking, how likely is this situation? Given the number of death scenes and the number of people who have died while performing, how likely is it for something like this to happen? Part of me wonders if maybe this was inevitably going to happen at some point, especially if her heart attack was triggered by performing, but I have no idea how common dying on stage is.

Unknown said...

I have to say, this situation is entertaining to me, in a macabre kind of way. I have heard of different deaths on stage before, but they tended to fit into two types: either dying at a random point in the play from natural causes like a heart attack, or an actor dying during a death scene because of a problem with a weapon prop or some other misfortune. However, this kind of perfect coincidence, which as Julian pointed out brings up a lot of questions about the exact moment, is something I’ve never heard of before. However, it’s kind of beautiful to me, to die while still in the moment of giving your heart and soul to the thing you love to do. To die surrounded by the world you gave your life to and adding to that world right down to the last second is a much better way to go in my opinion then lying in a hospital bed, and for that matter a more dramatic one.