I am in a strange position tonight gentle readers. I am in the position of having to apologize and admit that I was wrong. As you may remember, I went off a few weeks ago about how crappy it is to perform in front of children in religious schools, and how much better the audiences full of heathens were. Well, my face is seriously scarlet. We performed yesterday for a public school, and you know how that went. Today we went to Our Lady of Mercy, a space which was so small we couldn't get any of our set pieces in, a space where we had to park on the street and wheel the cases we could use into a passenger elevator and take them downstairs, a space where we were changing in a storage closet. And yet, the load-in was smooth and swift, with us being able to keep all the big pieces on the truck and maneuver the other pieces off the truck around them, set up was lightning fast since we didn't have any huge heavy pieces to lift, and the people at teh school were polite, helpful and friendly. (Even if the maintenance guy did sound like an extra from...well name any gangster film...) But the best part of the day were the kids. Ah, the kids. 6-8th grade, and these kids were the exact opposite of the oil painting we dealt with yesterday. I swear I heard kids crying while I was chopping up the old man. And they were laughing like crazy at the funny parts. We even ended up having one kid yelling, "YEAH!" at the end of the show as we took our bows. It was amazing. It was the type of audience that reaffirms in my heart why I spend my mornings eating hard boiled eggs and hotel coffee at hours most sane people are hitting snooze for the third time. These kids were so into what they were seeing that they made each one of us happier to be there. And the whole no set thing didn't bother anyone either. In fact, Bob suggested, and I concur, that having so many things to deal with allowed us to be creative. In fact, it FORCED us to be creative and do things differently. And that allowed us to do something that you never get to do in Chamber's productions--play. There was a chance for us to bring things to the performances that would never have been there had we done a regular show. We were kept on our toes, and we were allowed to bring what we wanted to the characters. An example--at the beginning of Sleepy Hollow, I am usually huddled behind the stage with a black cloth over me. At a certain point, I stand up under the cloth and make my way onto the deck, trying to be scary as I do so. I then lay down under the cloth, and on my intro cue, I throw the cloth off me like I'm having a nightmare, then sit up and am revealed as Ichabod. I then stand up to toss the cloth offstage and do a pratfall to set up for a physical description schtick. Well, they decided that since we didn't have the deck, there was no reason to do the cloth thing, which I wholeheartedly agreed with. So I was to enter during the nightmare cue with my cane and reveal myself that way. Well, I come on out, and get the laugh I usually get when they see me in the silly wig and nose, but then I realize I have to end upon my ass so I can do the schtick for the physical description. So I lean on my cane which I let slip out from under me and fall that way. Personally, I think that's a better, far more characteristic entrance for Ichabod, and I never thought the whole cloth thing worked all that well as a scary opening. But it's one of those things that would never have happened with the regular show, and it was one of the things that infused the show with a truly playful feeling. Now, I'm not suggesting that we just trash the show and do whatever we want. I'm just saying it was fun, and like I've said a number of times, I think that Chamber loses out on not allowing their actors to bring their own instincts to some of these roles. But hey, what do I know?
I know this--the way we did the show today is the way private performances should always be done. I have yet to be in a school yet where the show actually fits. Even if the set will fit up and down, the show itself never fits side to side, and that's the important part. So whenever you go into a school, follow our plan and go setless. You end up having a much easier day, and I feel the show looks better, even if you don't have all the bells and whistles. It looks like a show meant to be in a school,a nd that looks more professional than trying to make that huge monstrosity fit into a timy space. The effects, like the Headless Horseman, actually look better with less technology around them when in a small space. Otherwise, you;ve only got half the stuff needed for the effect to work, yet you try to do the effect, and that looks lamer than not trying to do THAT effect and instead doing something much simpler, like, I don't know, having the Horseman come out from the wings and creep toward me from behind. It scared the kids today. I just think if you deal with the actual space you have and adapt to that instead of trying to make the space adapt to you, you'll have a more successful show. I plan on suggesting this to Chamber after this tour is over. It won't happen, of course, but I do plan on making the suggestion. Otherwise, i have no right to complain.
Anywho, after the show, we drove to Harrisburg, PA, a drive which was incredibly uneventful. Tomorrow we have a show at an actual theatre--the only one we have this week. Hopefully it will go half as well as today's did. And yes, I do accept that fact that the religious kids kicked the public school kids ass when it came to enthusiasm. I will also say that the teachers at today's school did NOT do the thing the other Catholic school's teachers did, which was intimidate the children into submission. Today's teachers actually told the kids to ENJOY themselves! So I do put a large amount of the credit to that. I applaud the teachers for that. And yes, this will prove to all you doubters who think that I never admit being wrong that you are, in fact, wrong as well. I admit when I'm wrong. I'm just very rarely wrong. So there you have it--Pond in 2012--He'll Admit When He's Wrong, But Won't Have To!
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