How the Mighty Are Fallen....

I ache. Everywhere. Why? you ask. Because, I answer, our show today took place in a middle school which had its auditorium on the second floor. I will pause while you go back and read that sentence again, in order that you may realize and understand the full implication of those words. Yes, the auditorium was upstairs. Now, this isn't the first time we have had to load into a space which was higher than where we parked the truck. Of course, most of the time those are actual theatres with huge cargo elevators which can hold a good third of our equipment at a time. Sadly, today was not one of those times. They DID have an elevator, which is lovely, but it was merely a slightly oversized passenger elevator, meaning that some pieces of our equipment couldn't fit. In yet another cruel twist of fate designed, I'm sure, to try to unseat me from my atheistic perch, the pieces of equipment which were too big to fit in the elevator were both completely necessary to the show AND freaking heavy. Oh, and awkward to muscle up 4 flights of stairs. Can't forget that. (I would humbly beseech fate to stop attempting to unseat me from my perch because all its cruel twists do is convince me more fully that no compassionate deity would do such things to His creation. So there.)

This school did attempt to supply us wit a crew--an ADULT crew which consisted of about 4 female teachers and one male parent. The four female teachers were lovely people and very keen to help, as long as they didn't have to lift anything heavy. But hey, I did get to hear a lot of snippets of juicy gossip as I passed by where they were standing, my arms full of heavy stuff. The male parent was far more helpful with the heavy lifting, but he also didn't show up until we were almost finished. I do not say any of this to demean or diminish their help. They are wonderful people to volunteer for this, not really knowing what it is we need. I appreciate them being there, they just weren't of much assistance. Of course, they probably could have been of MORE assistance if the school hadn't seen fit to put an auditorium on the SECOND FLOOR. And they wouldn't have even been NEEDED if Chamber had the good sense not to BOOK a show in a school where the auditorium is on--say it with me, class--the second floor! Getting everything off the truck and into the space, which had taken us 30 minutes yesterday, took us 90 today. Part of that reason is that Schneider and I, when it came to the heavy awkward, we-need-to-get-it-up-the-stairs stuff, had to come off the truck and be the ones who muscled it up the repeatedly aforementioned stairs. And that is not including putting things together, just getting it on the stage. That left us with 90 minutes to get everything put together in a space which was--are you sensing a theme here?--too small for what we had. The stage was very wide but very shallow, so while the set fit, we had barely any upstage space behind our proscenium, nor any downstage playing space in front of it. And I swear to you all I shall never complain about changing in a band room again nor will I ever bring up any of the hardships suffered during the last tour, because right after discussing the storage closets we had to change in this past fall, where do you think we had to change? You guessed it--a storage closet! So we had to get everything ready by 11:00(we had started at 8:00) because we had to go downstairs and eat our free lunch (which was cafeteria food, and believe me, the quality of the lunches is dropping steadily) before our 12:00 show. Eat really isn't the right word--snarf, I believe is far more accurate. So bruised, battered, and uncomfortably swollen, we headed back upstairs to do the show, which we HAD to start on time because the students were to be dismissed immediately following our performance.

The show, surprisingly, went very well. Perhaps it was the adrenaline, perhaps it was the fear of falling off the front of the stage in the dark, perhaps it was the lead weight of a cafeteria cheesesteak in one's gut, but we did a very good show. The children were responsive and attentive, and enjoyed it, and somehow we managed to feel pretty loose and energized. I'm not sure what about our morning contributed to that, but I am NOT interested in doing any follow-up experiments. Once the show was over, we had to do a slow, painful reversal of the events of the morning. The best part was me trying to get the truck back into the circular drive in front of the school where--there's just blog post references aplenty in today's events--everyone was stopped to pick their kids up from school! I informed Levitt about this and she said I should just block the drive. I tried to point out that would merely keep the people who were in our way IN our way with no way to get out of our way (no way! Way.) but she insisted. Thankfully, a few people left their spots right in front of our doors and I was able to pull in and keep a lane of traffic available. We started the load out at 3 and finished by 4:30. In that time, I believe I incurred more bruises than the "He always says he's sorry afterwards" episode of Jerry Springer, and then had to drive the truck for 2 1/2 hours to our next destination, lovely New Haven CT, where I am presently typing this to you, my gentle readers, even through my aches, because it's important you know what horrors await you in Danvers, CT. Consider yourself warned.

Tomorrow we have a 7:00 load in for a 10:00 show, BUT the school has rented a theatre. With a loading dock! And we still get FED. It could be the best Friday ever......