This is nothin'!

If I can survive the following in my limited experience, I can survive this. This is nothin.

Anything Goes ~ Actor, Mrs. Harcourt

* At Dress Rehearsal, we completely messed up our lines by one guy feeding me a line from ten pages later, I picked up that, we kept going until we came to one place where we realized we were too far and so jumped back but didn't jump back far enough so we came too soon to the place we first hit and then realized we hadn't introduced a crucial plot point so jumped back again and then jumped forward but jumped too far again and NEARLY got through it but one sentence from the end we broke up laughing.

* Also at Dress Rehearsal, our director yelled at us, broke his cane over his knee and stormed out. I learned later this is what he did at EVERY Dress Rehearsal.

* Last night of performance, in the second number, the romantic lead dislocated his knee...and then continued on with the play, including the part when he had to crawl on the stage.

Our Town ~ Actor, Mrs. Soames

* One night, one of the actors simply didn't show up during an expositional information scene. The other two actors who were new to theatre had to come up with all his lines while not looking like they were answering their own questions.

You Can't Take It With You ~ Actor, Mrs. Kirby

* One character was sent out to buy pickled pigs feet during Act II and was meant to return on his cue - except that he didn't, and he didn't, and he didn't...leaving the guy playing my husband to have to come up with all this extraneous dialogue about the cultivation of orchids.

The French Butler ~ An Evening's Diversion ~ Director, 1998

* We decided to put on the show with only a month to rehearse, my first play ever to rehearse

* Our romantic lead refused to kiss the heroine because his girlfriend was in the audience. They broke up right after the performance regardless.

* Our foppish character who acts as the catalyst had to be replaced two weeks before performance because the fellow who was supposed to play the role hadn't realized he wasn't going to be around the weekend of the show

* Hence our butler had to step up to play the role of the fop, and we had to beg one of our friends to be the butler. The fop, who speaks in paragraphs, wrote down his speeches in his journal prop and read half of his lines on stage.

* At dress rehearsal this group not affiliated with the University at all happened to be using the rehearsal space although we had blocked it out. Much fuming and uber-politeness ensued.

* We were such a small production, our actors had to be the stage crew as well!

Salome ~ Director, 1999

* A week before performance, our Herod still hadn't memorized his last ten pages of dialogue. Consequently, I had to go over every line of dialogue with him on Easter Sunday for five hours.

* We lost one of our guards four weeks before performance due to a schedule conflict. Fortunately, someone else stepped up and was better suited physically to the role.

* At tech/dress I hadn't realized that I had put in too many cues for the tech people to try to combine tech/dress without simply a dry tech. Tempers were very high.

Wizard of Oz ~ Director, 2001

* I was given 425 students ages 3-14 who all had to be in this ONE production

* I was given no budget

* I was given a sound-eating gym with the new stage and the priest who ran the school didn't want me to have a sound system (fortunately we got one donated anyway)

* We got the sound system so late that several of our sound cues were WAY off (Dorothy hitting the Tin Man's chest and then five seconds LATER we hear the rap on his chest!)

* Likewise, the wireless mikes kept brushing on the costumes, not working, falling off, etc. The stage mikes kept falling into the actors and our Wizard had no mike whatsoever so the first night the Scarecrow grabbed a mike off the stand in front of him and ran to the curtain with it BEFORE they were supposed to see the Wizard!

* The stage was linoleum so I couldn't build a set on it with any safety

* The stage had ONE backstage entrance and no backstage or sidestage to speak of whatsoever

* My Scarecrow infected his knee when jumping on a trampoline and then falling off TWO WEEKS before performance. We managed to train an understudy, but our original Scarecrow made it and despite all protestations still did 99% of the original blocking

Twelfth Night ~ Director, 2002

* I was given no budget

* I was given no stage (they have torn out the stage! There's just a lonely curtain hanging over concrete!)

* I was hired late in the year

* HCH had not done real theatre for at least three years

* When I did get a stage, it was the Town Hall which eats sound, which had one sidestage area, one backstage entrance, and one front stage entrance and...

* A giant window in the middle of the stage (no backstage) that ruined any possibility for lighting

* Which was small anyway because we had one spotlight and we couldn't put it in the balcony (because it was considered "unsafe" although it was no less sturdy than any other balcony in the world) to maximize size

* One of the actors didn't bother to tell me he had severe asthma until way AFTER the performance weekend and I had put him through two back to back swordfights

The French Butler ~ An Evening's Diversion ~ Director, 2002

* We put on the show with 15 hours of rehearsal

* On the second night of performance, the transformer blew out entirely and the electric company couldn't get there until half way through the show and couldn't fix it at the moment regardless, so...

* We started the show by running home and bringing back flashlights, jar candles, and lots of extension cords.

* The lights we either put on the stage or gave to the audience to get them to hold on the actors so that they could see who was speaking

* For the first half-hour we put on a pathetic variety song (aka, I ran backstage and said, "Quick! Can anyone do anything? Jokes? Tricks? Songs? We've got to stall!" [we didn't know it was the transformer - we thought it was just a brown out to begin with]).

* Finally, our spotlight operator cobbled together 30 feet of extension cord and ran it up to the garage that still had power and so half-way through Act II of the three act play we had power to anything that could be plugged in

* Which meant we only had one spotlight and the audience still had to hold the flashlights

* At the end, we had the flashlight holders make an honor guard to the stairs so that people could leave

* Strangely, this bizarre performance was better received than the previous night when all had gone as planned

* Unfortunately, our videography wasn't what it is now and we have only long shots from R and L on the dress and first night, and then our close-ups are on the bizarre night making for a very weird show

* My brother and his friend who were in the show decided to throw in a commercial for Altoids right before the climax of the play. Hey. Why not.

Brigadoon ~ Director, 2003

* Again, very small budget, but at least we had a better stage (St. Mary's), better costumes, better sound and better lights...

* Except that one of our follow spot guys blew out TWO lightbulbs (we really don't know how) on ONE spotlight

* The stage crew were supposed to bring on Harry Beaton when he's dead. They're small. He's huge. But we've got a stretcher - no problem. Except that one night, one of them lost their footing and dropped the stretcher WITH Harry Beaton on it. Dead Harry's eyes flew open and his arms dropped to grip the edge of the stretcher

* Our Jeff was expelled two weeks before performance. Fortunately, his leaving was the cause of the cast finally bonding together on a common emotion, and the fellow who stepped up to bat with ten rehearsals was fully off-book and able to do the choreography!

* Our romantic leads HATED one another. Which wouldn't have been a problem except that they kept digging at one another, and so when by accident in the chase scene Harry's sword brushed Fiona's ankle, she burst into huge tears, ran off the stage, and didn't return until coaxed and told she was a wonderful actress and that everyone loved her - some hour later

* Since this was our first musical in a while...um...not all the voices were quite...um...up to par....

* On the last night, Harry's sash over his shoulder got loose and consequently he wasn't as stable (trying to fix it) when he went down on his knee during the Maggie/Harry dance, so Maggie wobbled as she tried to stand on his knee

* One night, Harry was holding Fiona so close that her, um, help in endowments, became totally askew. Fortunately, his arm was the only thing keeping her together.

* On the last night, Charlie was so eager to finish the act he yelled out, "Get him!" BEFORE Harry said that he planned to run away

Bearskin ~ Director, 2003

* Again, rehearsal was ubertight, the moreso since we never had everyone together until performance due to summer vacations, etc.

* I was still orchestrating the music up to the morning of performance

* There was a big hoopla about when we could have the stage because St. Ann's said that they HAD to have us out of there by Friday (July 4th!) afternoon so that they could set up that evening for their Vacation Bible Study. They didn't start setting up until after 5 p.m. mass on SUNDAY. So we were forced to have a performance on July 4th when we could have had a 3,4,5th evening performances and 6th matinee after all. Power struggles are not pretty. But lying is even less pretty

* Consequently, we were gypped of a full week for tech/dress

* One of our thieves dropped out so she could do soccer and then wasn't played as much as she thought she was going to be (my brother stepped up)

* Our father, Firmin, had to drop out because he wasn't going to be there for the performance after all (Dad stepped up)

* Our clarinetist dropped out because she couldn't remember how to play the clarinet (she's been playing oboe)

* Our cellist dropped out because he didn't realize he'd have to be at every rehearsal

* Our pianist was away the week before performance on vacation

* The second night of performance the Shadow did a round off and his Voice was too close to him and got a faceful of foot

* The second night of performance Mireille forgot to bring out and give the crucifix to the Shadow (a major plot point), and so she felt horrible and missed a few lines of one of her cues (she pulled herself together for the rest of the show!).

* Consequently, I ran backstage, found the crucifix, ran behind the curtain and thrust it at one of the sisters, just as the lights came up to throw her shadow on the wall (early because I was calling the show and our lights person wasn't sure which verse he was supposed to raise the lights on) - so I'm imagining my hand in huge shadow suddenly retreating

* Consequently, she gave it to one of the angels who, after she came out to take away the souls of the slain, slipped the crucifix to the Shadow just in time for him to put it on so the Gypsy/Devil could take it off!

* The stage crew never quite got down the timing to bring out the Gypsy's glove so she could put it on to take off the crucifix

* On the third night, one of the stage crew was in SHORTS

* On the third night, the Shadow tripped as he ran up the stairs, trying to look manly

* On the second night, the Shadow got his ankle nicked and had to go throughout the rest of the play regardless

* On the second night, the Shadow's Voice completely blanked out as he went up for his big Act II solo that's RIGHT after the intermission. He sang it perfectly until he "woke up" on the last night and got his foot caught in the chair leg and then tried to kick it off his leg - a rather comic end to a song about a man who's afraid he's just been damned

This is nuthin'. It's a mystery. The show must go on. Possibly she won't go down, possibly she'll stay afloat, possibly all this will come to an end on a positive note!

I'm writing down all the accidents - but to be honest, despite whatever might happen - the SHOW MUST GO ON. And more importantly, these items are not ALL that happened. MOST of what happened was just fine. But in theatre you're not just dealing with yourself - you're putting responsibility into other people's hands. You rehearse and rehearse as much as possible and try to get everything together - in my recent experience, with no support, no budget, frequently no stage (such things are changing and make a WORLD of difference) - but the point is that wonderful beauty was created, and behind stage all this chaos was going on. Chaos most people don't even know about.

(Like when 100 dead pigeons fell down on Jesus's head in Jesus Christ Superstar on the ending chord - they hadn't realized how close the pigeons were to the lights - and this was a prof. performance! Or when in Les Mis the guy who does the turntable wasn't paying attention and kept messing up how far he turned it, causing Thenardier to have to walk away from his tavern completely to remain in the front of the stage without being rotated to the back of the stage. Or in another performance, Eponine was wearing falsies that came loose so she looked pregnant for a bit and she just waited until she wasn't the focus of attention and then grabbed her falsie and pulled it back into place without breaking character. Or when in Phantom of the Opera the chandelier got caught on the wire and so only came down at an excruciatingly slow rate prompting Kristen and I to think that if anyone didn't get out of the way by the time it puttered to a stop way before the stage, they DESERVED to die. Or in the same performance, the Phantom got himself twisted up in his cape so he had to wriggle himself on his belly across the stage in one of his scenes with Christine. Or at that Hamlet in the Globe when Pelonious forgot his line and had to be fed it from audience members! And at that same performance, one of the Groundlings fainted dead away, and no one blinked an eye but kept going on with the show. Or when in Richard II in Stratford-on-Avon, their John of Gaunt became very sick and so they had to drag in every wandering veteran and give them the script to read ON STAGE! Or when in the Hudson High performance of Hello Dolly one of their actors decided to do a split although he'd been told not to and did indeed strain his...privates and was unable to go on for the last performance.]

Theatre is risk.

Life is risk.

Not unreasonable risk. Not risk taken without precaution to alleviate if not eradicate the risk. But in point of fact, everything we do is risk. Should we avoid risk, we become Mrs. Havesham.

What have you risked today?

Mood: Plaugh.
Music: A Mighty Wind
Thought: Strawberry Daquiris are good.