March 18, 2012

  • Cursed, I tell ya!

    Opening night went well - except I had a problem.  The cape that I wear in two scenes during Act I - the same cape that has stayed on all Tech Week, the cape that has a piece of velcro holding the straps together, the same cape for which I'd asked that they PLEASE put a snap on it instead of velcro but "we can't because it's a rental" - decided it didn't want to go on.

    The very first scene with the cape, I walk on, the breeze as I'm walking lifts the cape and it falls right off my shoulders.  I have to pick it up and try putting it back on my shoulders and it distracts me the rest of the scene.

    Then, my next scene, as I'm supposed to be "seducing" someone, it falls right off my shoulders again.  I picked it up and threw it on the bed because I was done with it.  What I really wanted to do was throw it on the ground and dance on it, but I couldn't because "it's a rental."  I at least got a laugh for throwing it on the bed.  Otherwise, opening night went well.  And suffice it to say, I now have a snap on my cape as I originally requested.

    Last night, the curse was back - one of our two actors playing the Gangsters in the show was too sick to perform.  We had to change some lines and Gangster #2 had to do ALL of the Gangster lines.  That went okay, but it sounded like one of our orchestra members was missing.  They were just somehow really off last night.  LOTS of clunker notes and weird tempos.  To top that off, when I'd finished my number, the woman who plays opposite me tells me that the CEO of the company I work for is in the audience.  She and her husband are friends with him and family.  She said she didn't want to tell me until after my big song so I wouldn't worry.  Eeeek!  Turned out he loved the show and loved talking to us afterward.

    Oh - and to top things off yesterday, since it was St. Patrick's Day and since we Americans love bastardizing holidays that have nothing to do with America and turning them into excuses for drunken binges (St Patrick's Day, Cinco de Mayo), a couple actors decided they needed to start drinking at 7 in the morning yesterday.  One luckily quit around 9am.  The other didn't until about 4pm and no matter how much he protested to us that he wasn't drunk, he was still a bit sloppy last night.  And it showed in parts of the performance.

    I have only once performed buzzed - my father's best friend, who was my Confirmation sponsor and my father's older sister both passed away within a day of each other and I found out about them both at the same time, a few hours before a performance.  I had ONE whiskey with dinner.  It was a single and I've had more than that and not gotten much from it, but for some reason this one whiskey hit me.  And two hours later at curtain time, I was still buzzed.  And I had to open that particular show with a sword fight!!  Believe me, that was enough for me to NEVER again have ANY alcohol before a performance.  But it also made me wonder - there are several actors in Northeast Ohio who are known for the fact that they WON'T perform unless tipsy and I just don't get it.  How in the HELL could anyone act while drunk or even slightly buzzed??  You need your full faculties to concentrate on what you're doing and to be on your toes for anything that could go wrong, which is why I just don't get anyone who performs that way.

    I have also been without a phone since Friday morning.  I had the screen replaced when it was shattered a few weeks back.  And Friday morning my screen stopped responding to my touch, so I can't unlock it to use it.  From what I was told, just below the touch screen is another layer called the digitizer which is what actually responds to your touch.  That is what has stopped working.  The company that replaced my screen is going to replace the digitizer, but the part is not available until Tuesday or Wednesday.  And since I haven't had a land line for years I have no phone.  You don't realize how reliant you are on the phone until you don't have it.  Strangely, however, I have found that the more I am away from Facebook and Twitter, the less I miss them.  Facebook especially.  I haven't been to Facebook except to see if anyone's sent me messages.  Used to be I checked it several times a day.  Now I check it maybe once or twice.  Usually only once since I pretty much only turn my computer on in the mornings, not at night.  And it's now been two weeks that I haven't paid attention to Facebook and two days that I've only seen Twitter on the computer and I'm missing them less each day.  Once I get the phone back, Twitter will be more common since I have many people's tweets sent directly to my phone as texts, but I'm wondering if I'll ever go back to Facebook?