Hello Gentle Reader!
Well, Sunday marked my final performance for a while, but it was anything but uneventful. 😂 I get to the theatre that afternoon with the mindset that we are going to have a start time of 2pm and I would be back home and in my pajamas relaxing the rest of the night away before chaos week at my survival job. First, I think I have to note that the temperatures were easily in the 100 degree range and possibly hotter. Once you start broiling though, you can’t really tell if it has gotten hotter.
5 minutes to curtain and my casemates get into their places for a reveal that happens shortly after we begin. The “Places” call is made and I head over to spot where I catch a pair of pants that are thrown to me offstage. The curtain speech is made and the main curtain is pulled open and I listen… waiting for my cue to enter.
Up to this point, you could hear this group of people is ready to laugh. They had some good vocalizations while the first actor is giving his exposition speech. I hear my cue “they’d eat the linoleum off the floor if it had a vinaigrette on it”
With that, I am on stage. I get to say, “Maybe his plane is late.” Then slowly, the lights flickered out. Or maybe it felt slow. 2 minutes into the play, the power dies! My cast mate and I stood patiently waiting for a minute or so, in the hopes that it would be a quick little blink of the lights.
And there we stood for what felt like 10 minutes, but was more like a minute in reality. I finally turn to the audience and said, “so how are you doing today?” We had a laugh, but I wanted to keep people in a cheery mood, so I kept talking…
I recall saying “believe it or not, this isn’t the first time I have been in this predicament.” I told them a short story about when I was in White Christmas there was one performance that the lights went out due to winds from an upcoming rainy night that was expected. While we had 2 flood lights at the back of the theatre, they weren’t powerful enough to light the stage safely enough to complete the show. Instead, we offered conversation and the cast gathered on the stage and we sang some carols with the audience. It was really quite a lovely moment to be a part of.
Very kindly, many of the people offered to use their phone lights to keep the stage lit, but I said, you don’t want to drain your battery! Especially if we are in a true power outage.
One of the people asked me to recount the time that I was in Lend Me A Tenor (which was the whole reason why I wanted to be in this show) and how it is to take on the role of Max again. I know I had written about my experience and as I am sure you know, Dear Reader, I am terrible at marketing myself. Instead of saying that I had a whole blog post about it and they could read it on TheActorvist.com, my face hole said “I can’t fully remember the details. But I have a reason why…” then spouted (like some sort of snob) that I was in several shows that year that rolled into each other that it was hard to recall all the details. Only after someone from our stage crew gave us the hook did I think about trying to recount the blog post itself.
UGH!!! I could kick myself. LOL
I feel very lucky that even though it was only a small majority of the audience would come back for the postponed start time, they were a lively bunch. What a way to end a super fun run! The cast and staff were absolutely wonderful and the rehearsal period was short as was the run. It couldn’t have been more perfect. Even with all of our oopsies. 😂 Or would a plural of oopsies be oopsieses?
What out of the ordinary thing has happened to you in a theatre? Did I tell you about the time that someone was breathing oddly and unresponsive during a show? Wait this isn’t about my stories 😳 I want to know more about YOU!
Thank you again, Kind Reader for your time and until next time… Stay safe and alert and take care of yourself and those you care about.
❤️
The Actorvist 