Actor Ken Beider is recovering after an accidental stabbing during a performance of Gavin Kayner’s “The Language of Flowers” on Sunday at the Temple of Music and Art’s Cabaret Theatre.
Beider played an ex-convict in the production. Late into the first act, he was stabbed in the stomach with a serrated knife during a staged tussle with another actor. Beider finished the act, said Paul Brunelle, who was working the lights at the show and is a close friend of Beider’s, who asked him to speak on his behalf.
“After the act, he took about 30 seconds to get up,” said Brunelle. “When the lights went up, everyone was completely quiet.”
Brunelle put a compress on the bleeding wound and an ambulance was called. Though pale and shaky, Beider took the elevator to the ground floor and waited outside for it to arrive.
“As Ken was rolled off, the audience clapped for him,” Brunelle said.
Surgery was performed at Banner University Medical Center to confirm that there were no internal injuries. The wound had gone through the fatty tissue and into some muscle, but no organs had been injured. He received 12 staples and was sent home on Monday, Brunelle said.
Stage injuries are not unusual. The Broadway production of “Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark” was riddled with accidents, from falls to run-ins with scenery.
Last year, actor Hugh Jackman sliced off a tip of his finger when he was cutting a lemon in a scene in the Broadway play “The River.”
Kayner, who also produced and directed the show, is shook up about the incident. “I’m flabbergasted,” he said. “We rehearsed that scene over and over. We thought we had done everything right.”
The remaining performances have been canceled. Ticket holders have already been reimbursed, said Kayner’s wife, Norma.
