Tony nominee Carrie Coon nearly died onstage, and we were none the wiser.

Coon paid a visit to Late Night with Seth Meyers January 15, where she shared the story behind the mysterious medical malady that cut off her ability to breathe onstage at Bug on Broadway, right before opening night.

"There's a moment where I squirt fake blood into my nose, and as soon as the fake blood hit my throat, I started to cough, which, you know, it's not unusual. But then I realized that my throat was closing every 12 seconds." Coon struggled through what was left of the first act under the terrified eye of her co-star, Namir Smallwood, and at intermission, the performance had to be canceled when over-the-counter medications failed to keep her throat open.

"It was awful. I went into an otolaryngologist, I got scoped, and my vocal cords were totally fine, but you could see my throat contracting," Coon holds up her fist, demonstrating the spasms. "It happened all night long. The next day was our opening night, and we didn't know if the show was going to go on, because it was still happening. I went back to her office, and there was an acupuncturist, and he put needles in my ear, I don't know, and then I went and got a massage, and I gave a whole speech to the cast about, 'Let's just pretend the character has this problem, this laryngeal spasm,' and then it went away at 5, an hour before curtain."

The source of the spasm, and its mysterious disappearance, continue to remain out of reach. "My husband [Tracy Letts] was terrified. It's his show, you know, he wrote it, so he's worried about his opening night, but he's also worried about his wife." Talk about a stressful distraction from opening night jitters!

Letts' Bug opened at Manhattan Theatre Club's Samuel J. Friedman Theatre January 8. Read the reviews here.

Coon and Smallwood are starring as Agnes White and Peter Evans, respectively. Both are reprising their performances from the original Chicago run, alongside co-stars Randall Arney (You Can't Take It With You) as Dr. Sweet, Jennifer Engstrom (Sweet Bird of Youth) as R.C., and Steve Key (Sweat) as Jerry Goss. Understudies Ian Duff, Michael Laurence, and Kristen Sieh round out the company. Casting is by JC Clementz, with additional casting by Caparelliotis Casting and Kelly Gillespie. David Cromer is directing.

READ: The 'Punk Rock' Return of Carrie Coon

Coon returns to Broadway for the first time since her debut performance in the 2012 revival of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, in which she starred as Honey opposite Letts, also a Steppenwolf transfer. She has spent the bulk of her career on the screen, including playing Bertha Russell in HBO's Broadway star-packed The Gilded Age and the recent season of The White Lotus.

WATCH: Tracy Letts Was Inspired to Write Bug After the 1995 Oklahoma City Bombing

Set in a seedy Oklahoma motel room, Bug centers on the unlikely romance between a lonely waitress and a mysterious and paranoid drifter. The longer they talk, the more the waitress begins to adopt his neuroses. The work premiered at London's Gate Theatre in 1996, with a revised version playing Off-Broadway's Barrow Street Theatre in 2004, winning the Lucille Lortel and Obie Awards for Best Play. A movie adaptation was released in 2006.

The production features scenic design by Takeshi Kata, costume design by Sarah Laux, lighting design by Heather Gilbert, sound design by Josh Schmidt, and hair and make-up design by J. Jared Janas. Gigi Buffington is the production's dialect and vocal coach, and Marcus Watson is the intimacy coordinator and fight director. Christine D. Freeburg serves as production stage manager.

Click here to buy tickets to Bug on Broadway.

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Photos: Bug on Broadway

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