Open for Business

Well, the show I've been working on this summer opened last night. I'm so relieved to have it up and running -- and for it almost to be over. This past week has been a very busy, exhausting week as I've spent countless hours working with the director to get things ready. We had a full run-thru of the show late yesterday afternoon before officially opening at 8:00pm last night. Being the assistant director and a cast member is a challenge I'm not sure I'm up for ever again. I think somewhere along the line I forgot that I actually had to act. During yesterday's run thru, I had an abyssmal performance mostly because my mind was focused on whether the lights and sound were going to work okay and whether the set changes would go as smoothly as I'd scheduled them and trying to figure out when to schedule people to sing between one acts. Finally, about an hour before curtain, I went to a quiet room and just sat for about 15 minutes trying to focus and get my energy to a performance level and not have people asking questions or being distracted by the chattering (14 actors make a lot of noise) or the kid who insists on wandering around singing -- and not quietly. I'm not sure I gave my BEST performance, but I felt pretty good when it was over and I was back at the sound booth again helping run the show.

The only real problem last night (outside of body mics that seemed to have a mind of their own -- or actors who decided to turn their mics off or to mute and then didn't understand why their mics didn't work) was the bugs! It's an outside show. We sprayed for bugs yesterday afternoon, but we either missed a couple spots or the lights for the show were stronger than the fear of spray. I know the light/sound booth area was pretty much swarmed with bugs and my sis said she had a bug fly up her nose in the middle of a mini-monologue. Another actor visibly cringed and swatted at a bug mid-scene (NICE FOCUS!).