A Battery of Tests

So today was an extremely long day. It started at 6:30 in the morning, when we all rushed down to the hotel's free breakfast with a mere 15 minutes before we had to be in the van and on our way to the venue. (Stupid hotel breakfast that doesn't start until 6:30-that's all kinds of not right...) After we snarfed down our hurried repast, we made our way outside and discovered that the truck would not start. Yep, frigid temperatures and a day off sitting all alone in the parking lot had messed up the battery. So we had to call Ryder and have them send out some assistance , leaving Schneider and I to await the mechanic's arrival whilst the rest of the cast went ahead to the venue to let them know what was afoot. So two hours and a lot of bad hotel coffee later, the guy finally shows up to jump the truck. Because of how long it took, the school we were appearing at had to push back the start time until 12:30. We got there with enough time to make it, except that loading into a school is always a difficult thing considering we have way too much stuff to really fit into a middle school auditorium. But the load-in went swiftly (considering it's only the second time we've done it) and we got almost everything up by 11:30, when we had to stop in order to eat lunch. See, when we perform in schools, it's in the contract that the school has to feed us. Thats great, since it's an extra free meal, but in this case, we ended up eating prior to the show rather than after it, and it cut into the little prep time we had before the show started. And since we were using the school's music room as a dressing room, it wasn't exactly conducive to getting makeup on quickly. Add to that the fact that due to the feeding interruption, our poor electrician had no time to do any focusing on the lights prior to the house opening, and you can understand why the show was a little hairy on the technical side of things. Tell-Tale was quite possibly the darkest it's ever been--in parts of it I had to do my best sunflower impersonation and move about seeking the light wherever it may be. There was, surprisingly, a decent amount of wing space, so that wasn't too bad. And thankfully the kids were incredibly enthusiastic about the show--I got horrified reactions during Tell-Tale, and lots of laughs during Sleepy. They checked out a little during the Necklace, but that's typical. All in all, even though the whole day was a huge pain in the ass, it turned out to be a very rewarding show, since the kids had such a good time.

Load out was okay--still a little slower than I'd like, but that's what happens when your stage manager can't keep track of the pack list. But Schneider and I are getting better at putting things into the truck in a more speedy way, and I have complete confidence that by the end of next week, it's going to be second nature to us. Thankfully, we were only about an hour away from our next hotel, where we'll be staying until Monday morning, so the next few days should be nice. It should be interesting tomorrow, since it'll be the first time we'll have done back to back shows. There's a lot of soreness in the cast tonight (including yours truly) so it'll be interesting to see how everything pulls through tomorrow. The show this time around is way more physically demanding on me, but I'm actually enjoying it more. When I'm able to get to Jumping Frog and still manage to have enough energy to pull that hectic cartoon out of my ass, it's a pretty cool feeling. Helps keep me from feeling too old. :-)

Something took place today that I found funny (in an "my that's odd" kind of way) that I never thought actually happened, since I give kids credit for being far more incisive than they apparently are. During Tell-Tale, after I "kill" the old man, I supposedly cut him up and stash him under the floor. Well, this being theatre, and me not being a method actor, that obviously does not happen. Instead the old man rolls under the bed and stays there until he is wheeled off after the story is over. I was told constantly last tour that kids would crane their necks to see where I was when the bed was rolled away from its spot, as if they actually expected me to be there. I found this hard to believe, because to me it's patently obvious where the old man goes after the death. Where the hell else is he GOING to go? The bed is quite high, so there's obviously room under it for someone to hide, and do they really think the actor gets hidden under the floor? I put the stories I was told to memories that stretched back 30 years, when children were less cynical and way more gullible--I mean naive. Well, it happened. A couple of 7th grade girls, who had helped us set up and break down asked me how I had managed to hide the old man in the stair unit we use as "the floorboards". I was quite taken aback. Part of me wanted to shake them and ask them "Where do you THINK he was?" But I must admit, I found the whole thing pretty cool. In a world of ever more sophisticated technology and computerized everything, where everything has a digital explanation or a space-age cause, it's reassuring that at the end of the day, kids (even seen-it-all 7th graders) still have enough imagination and sense of wonder to be taken in by a hideaway bed. (And a particularly convincing murder performance by yours truly, I might add. Okay, end of shameless plug...) It's probably pretty sappy that something like that makes me happy, and that it sort of reassures me that what I do does actually serve some sort of purpose, but hey, it is through my occasional sappiness that the true power of my bitter cynicism arises....