Tuesday, February 21, 2006
A Fantastic Weekend
It all went by so quickly! Just like that, the show's over and struck. After the performance Sunday night, thanks to a large and energetic group of volunteer laborers, we managed to take down the show in about 45 minutes, which was easily the quickest strike I've ever been a part of.
It was a pretty busy weekend for all of us, so posts were (obviously) not happening, but we'll be remedying that over the next several days with show histories and news. For me personally, things went well and smoothly, but with plenty of little problems to set the pulse racing. The coffin figured prominently in my list of minor terrors. It was a plywood box a few feet wide and a couple deep, and I spent most of the second act inside it, alone or with Kristine or Kevin sandwiched in there with me. On Sunday, after the underwear modeling scene (now you're sorry you missed it), I was putting my clothes back on in a hurry. I only had a couple minutes or so before the coffin door would open, which was generally just enough time--you try getting dressed any faster in a coffin--if things went well. This time, I managed to catch the zipper on my fly in my pants. With it being so dark in there, with so little room to move, I couldn't see what it was stuck on (not me, fortunately--that I would have known), so I just decided to give it a tug. Of course that didn't help. Neither did pulling the zipper back down; in fact, that made it worse. The more I tugged and pulled, the lower and more stuck it got. With time running out, I threw on my vest and tried manfully to arrange my chaps to cover my crotch. When I finally came out of the coffin, I spent the rest of the show--i.e. the whole third act--wondering if people were staring at my groins. As inconspicuously as I could, I studied the faces in the audience for looks of shock or delight, but it was a pretty mixed bunch of mugs. In the end, I tried to hunch over a bit and hope for the best. When we came off stage, the first thing I did was look down, only to find that there was a flap covering the zipper. You couldn't see anything. Of course that meant I'd looked like a hunchback for half an hour for no reason, but those, my friends, are the sacrifices we make for our art.
More to come from the show, including Betsy's production notes.
It was a pretty busy weekend for all of us, so posts were (obviously) not happening, but we'll be remedying that over the next several days with show histories and news. For me personally, things went well and smoothly, but with plenty of little problems to set the pulse racing. The coffin figured prominently in my list of minor terrors. It was a plywood box a few feet wide and a couple deep, and I spent most of the second act inside it, alone or with Kristine or Kevin sandwiched in there with me. On Sunday, after the underwear modeling scene (now you're sorry you missed it), I was putting my clothes back on in a hurry. I only had a couple minutes or so before the coffin door would open, which was generally just enough time--you try getting dressed any faster in a coffin--if things went well. This time, I managed to catch the zipper on my fly in my pants. With it being so dark in there, with so little room to move, I couldn't see what it was stuck on (not me, fortunately--that I would have known), so I just decided to give it a tug. Of course that didn't help. Neither did pulling the zipper back down; in fact, that made it worse. The more I tugged and pulled, the lower and more stuck it got. With time running out, I threw on my vest and tried manfully to arrange my chaps to cover my crotch. When I finally came out of the coffin, I spent the rest of the show--i.e. the whole third act--wondering if people were staring at my groins. As inconspicuously as I could, I studied the faces in the audience for looks of shock or delight, but it was a pretty mixed bunch of mugs. In the end, I tried to hunch over a bit and hope for the best. When we came off stage, the first thing I did was look down, only to find that there was a flap covering the zipper. You couldn't see anything. Of course that meant I'd looked like a hunchback for half an hour for no reason, but those, my friends, are the sacrifices we make for our art.
More to come from the show, including Betsy's production notes.
