About a real baby onstage at the theatre

[Bluebellsagain]

This weekend I saw a West End show with a cast that included a baby (looked to be 6-9
months old certainly no older.) It was on stage in two scenes and was a focal point of the action. Baby seemed very placid where needed, also cried where (apparently) the script required it. I was pretty surprised, never seen this before and not sure how I felt about it. The play was quite dark subject matter wise and also featured some children aged between about 5 and 10 who were onstage in the very disturbing end scene.

AIBU that it seems odd to put your young baby in for that?! He doesn't appear to have been multi-cast (unlike the other kids) so must do 6/7 shows a week!

I worry about child actors in scenes that are disturbing apparently Steven spielberg played on Drew Barrymore thinking ET was real and told her he was dead to get her to cry poor kid was 5yearsold

Yeah health and safety all the way 😁 I think nowadays kids are protected and the baby wouldn't have been in any distress, i just remember steven with his smug smug face going on about getting the right shot poor Drew didn't have the best child actor childhood did she

I imagine the adult cast are very adaptable and ensure that if the baby starts crying, they have an appropriate and believable response ready. You only have to go to the same production twice (and i mean any production, with a totally adult cast) to know that every performance is slightly different.

And as someone else said, there will be several babies and I guess if one is going through a terribly colicky screamy phase they just stick another one on stage!

Some very interesting responses- thanks all! I didn't know there were four babies in the show or that it didn't cry in every show. Thanks :)

I recently saw the Ferryman at the Royal Court and a baby made an appearance. It sounds much like the play you have described. It didn't occur to me that there were any safeguarding issues.
There was also a live goose. I imagine that their welfare is given a high priority. I remember when the Harry Potter stage show premiered, it featured live owls. Things went wobbly when an owl took to the rafters and stayed there. They discontinued the live owl appearances as it was said the birds would find it stressful.