Taking My Bow, To Rapturous Applause
Apr. 20th, 2008 09:45 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
deird_ljWell, we've finally finished! I can't quite believe it, yet, but we've actually done all 25 performances. Our final show was last night.
I've been fairly quiet about what's actually been going on with No Love Lost for the last couple of months, mostly because I didn't want to bore you all. So I figured I'd put it all into one post, and then move on to other stuff.
I've been fairly quiet about what's actually been going on with No Love Lost for the last couple of months, mostly because I didn't want to bore you all. So I figured I'd put it all into one post, and then move on to other stuff.
Here goes...
Twenty-Five Performances
That's four or five a week, for six weeks in a row. Plus two dress-rehearsals with an audience. So it's fair to say we had the whole thing honed to perfection by the end.
The most interesting bits, however, are almost invariably the bits that go wrong.
Like when actors don't show up.
Missing People
I've already mentioned the whole storm debacle, which nearly resulted in two missing cast members.
There was also a night where one of the actors forgot to show up. We ended up grabbing a woman who was on front-of-house (handing out programs, and stuff) and giving her ten minutes warning that she was about to star in a play! It was stressful, but kind of exhilarating at the same time.
And then, one of our cast members suffered a Painful Chainsaw Accident halfway through the season. No missing limbs or anything, but he did manage to end up stripping half the flesh off three fingers, and needing to wear a cast.
This being the same character who has to carry a tray of tea things (teapot, cups, milk jug, etc) on stage every night. Without dropping it.
He actually managed the tea thing, even with the mangled arm. But there was one night when his arm was so sore that he ended up almost fainting backstage, and we were so busy taking care of him that we all forgot to go on for the next scene.
Speaking of forgetting things...
Forgetfulness
One way to pass the time backstage is to read. I managed to get through nearly three Jane Austen novels during the spare minutes I had between scenes.
One night, though, I was sitting there waiting to go on stage, and reading yet again. And my 'boyfriend' Michael was sitting right next to me reading his book. I was sort of assuming that I'd notice him get up, so I'd know when to go on stage. And he was thinking the same thing about me...
We ended up sprinting on, and hoping no-one had noticed.
I also ended up forgetting to take my glasses off a few times.
Which was a real pain, because when you're wearing glasses you pretty much look at people in one of two ways: either through the glasses, or over the top. Anything else would leave the rim of your glasses in front of the person's face, which isn't helpful. But I'd been doing all my scenes without glasses, and I could look at people any way I wanted, without thinking about glasses rims.
And then, when I went on stage, if I tried looking at people the way I'd been doing for the last fifteen performances, I'd suddenly find my glasses getting in the way, and I'd have to move my head, which was really distracting and made me forget lines.
Newspaper
I didn't have many props to remember, so I usually got them all on and off the stage properly. But one prop - the newspaper - caused me a whole lot of bother.
As you may recall, I had to read out a list of ads from the newspaper. From "The Observer", actually - and we were so concerned about accuracy that we'd actually got a copy of The Observer sent from London.
Which sounds great, until you realise that this paper is going to be used in twenty-five performances. Twenty-five nights when it'll be folded up, carried on stage, unfolded, opened, closed, folded, unfolded, opened, closed, carried off stage, folded, stuffed in a bag, carried on stage, removed from the bag, unfolded, opened, scrunched down so that I can see over the top of it, un-scrunched, closed, folded, stuffed in a bag, carried off the stage, and placed on the props table again.
And newspaper ain't that durable.
Halfway through the season, I took it upstairs and duct-taped the entire front page on the inside, because I was beginning to accidentally put my fingers through the newspaper every time I picked it up!
Then there was the day I almost didn't take it on with me.
It's my second scene with that blasted list of women, and pretty much the entire scene is me sitting on the couch, reading out the women from the paper in great detail, and then walking off again. That scene? Really isn't going to work unless I have the newspaper.
At the start of the scene, I arrive at the house, and ring the doorbell a couple of times, until my mother lets me into the house (and thus onto the stage). And on this particular evening, I rang the doorbell once, and suddenly thought "Crap! My newspaper isn't in my bag!" and had to sprint across the backstage area, grab the paper, sprint back, ring the doorbell again, hope desperately that I got back to the door before my mother opened it, and try not to look out of breath when I went on...
Lopsided Shirt
We did quite a lot of frantic backstage running around, actually. Aside from the newspaper, my most stressful was probably the night I almost went on for a serious, tragic scene with my shirt buttoned up incorrectly. You know, like when little kids button up their own clothes, and they almost invariably pair the wrong buttons up so that one side comes down way past the other. In my defense, I have to button that shirt while I'm walking downstairs in the dark.
Thankfully, I realised about ten seconds before I had to go on. Stupidly, I then decided to fix the problem. Which left me standing backstage, my shirt still gaping open, frantically doing up buttons and hoping I'll finish before I have to go on stage and be heartbroken about my parents splitting up.
Stupid Bra
The worst of my costume woes goes to my strapless bra, which, one night, decided to fall down to my waist every time I took my shirt off.
I have ten costume changes.
I have a co-ed dressing room.
I have one costume change which takes place a metre off stage, because I don't have time to go anywhere else.
So I spent the entire night flashing the cast and crew, and trying not to care.
Fake Door
I think someone could make an awful lot of money setting up a Candid Camera type of show backstage at a theatre company.
One of the non-mistakey bits I always enjoyed was our fake front door.
You see, from a sound effects perspective, you need a door somewhere backstage for the characters to open with keys, and angrily slam shut, and so forth. And being a standard theatre company, they don't really have much room backstage, so they have a fake door right up next to the wall. It's got just enough space between door and wall to lock someone in (which we did, once...).
It really was incredibly amusing watching Barry march off stage to let Michael in, walking right past Michael, opening up the door, and talking to the wall in an extremely polite manner.
Childbirth Tally
Backstage was mostly black chipboard. Which works really well with chalk. We would quite often leave little notes in chalk for the people who'd be coming on stage in the next scene. Encouragement, silly jokes, and various bits of graffiti.
One of the most popular parts of our giant chalkboard was the list of all my babies. You see, one of the characters was supposed to be a hippie-type woman. And in the five minutes of quiet ad-libbing we had to do at the start of every performance, we would end up sitting on the couch together, and doing a thing with her necklace which was supposed to tell me how many babies I would have (if it swings it's a boy, if it circles it's a girl, and if it just hangs there you won't have any more kids - you keep going until it hangs there). Of course, every night we'd end up with a different result. So we decided to keep a record of it backstage.
And all the cast members had access to our record. So by the end of the show, I was also giving birth to six and a half monkeys, several aliens, a bunch of grapes, and various other random offspring.
There was quite a bit of speculation concerning my love life, actually.
Pretty much the entire cast were convinced that Michael and I were secretly going out (especially because I gave him a ride home every evening). And one night I got food poisoning, and turned up late because I'd been throwing up into my toilet, and there were an awful lot of "morning sickness" jokes flying round the dressing room.
Speaking of sickness...
Audience Drama
One night, towards the end of Act One, we started noticing a kerfuffle at the front of the stage. We decided to ignore it and keep acting, but it got increasingly difficult.
You see, one of the audience members had apparently started feeling unwell. But they didn't want to disrupt the performance by moving into the foyer, so they thought they'd just lie down in front of their seat for a minute.
Of course, this looked like they'd just collapsed. So other audience members started helping out, and running out to the foyer to get an usher, and bringing in drinks of water, and we're still performing and wondering who on earth is lying face-first on the floor, and wondering if anyone's actually died, and trying to remember our lines, but it doesn't really matter because the audience aren't watching us anyway - this little medical drama is much more interesting.
We got through the whole scene, but the audience didn't remember a word of it. I'm pretty sure they had a memorable evening, though.
Saying The Right Lines
It's interesting how the lines you stuff up during rehearsal are never the ones you get wrong during the actual performance. Which is good, especially in some cases.
Like Barry's line about Michael and me. He looks out the window at us, and says "Now what's he... well, I suppose that's allowed now that she loves him." Except during rehearsal, he always ended up saying "Now what's he... well, I suppose that's allowed now that they're married." which would completely throw the audience onto the wrong track!
Thankfully, that one never made it to a proper performance.
One night I forgot to say a line that stops Chris from leaving the stage. He's storming out, and my line gets him to change his mind and sit down instead. Except, on this particular occasion, I forgot, and he had actually left the room before Michael's frantic nudging got me to call out to him. That was kinda stressful.
Worse were the times when we'd almost start laughing. Especially me - I had a lot of time on stage when I wasn't saying anything, just sitting there looking depressed, and Patricia would say the most hysterical lines, the audience would crack up, and I would have this big beaming smile on my face, and hope that no-one was looking at me.
Michael (the bastard) started standing backstage just in my field of vision, and try to make me crack up laughing. Several times he almost managed it, and I'd go off after my scene and beat him over the head with my script.
I've discovered, by the way, an almost foolproof way of not smiling on stage. Imagine you've got something stuck in your teeth, right at the back, and try to get it out with your tongue. It's almost impossible to smile while you're doing that. Almost impossible.
Sleeping Pan
While I almost laughed several times, I never quite cracked. Leanne did, though. And it was all Patricia's fault.
Patricia had this line, which was supposed to go "Dan, Dan, dirty old man, washed his face in a frying pan". And one night, she got it wrong. And she ended up saying "washed his face in a sleeping pan". Which Leanne found utterly hysterical.
And of course, she couldn't laugh, which just made the situation so much funnier - like it always does when you have to keep looking serious.
I should mention that, during this scene, there were several "freezes". We had to stay completely still while Carolyn did her Extra Special Freezy Lines, and then keep going like nothing had happened.
And during the first freeze, Leanne faces the back of the stage, and I'm watching her.
Leanne's shoulders were shaking. Uncontrollably. She was managing not to laugh out loud, but she was still quite obviously laughing. The audience could tell, and were chuckling softly, and I was starting to crack up.
Then we reached the end of the freeze, and Leanne instantly turned around with a completely serious expression on her face like nothing had happened at all, which just made me want to laugh even more.
Second freeze. Leanne and I were watching each other, and Kat was watching us. And all three of us were trying so hard not to laugh, and finding it so funny that the other two were trying not to laugh too.
By the fourth freeze, five of the seven characters on stage were shaking with silent laughter, Michael and I were on the verge of collapse, and Patricia was wondering what on earth was so funny...
I could go into even more detail, about the disgusting lukewarm tea I had to drink on stage every night, having to burst into tears on cue, waving through the 'house's' window every night (as per my script) and always having one of the stage managers sneak around to wave back to me, beautiful flowers sent up to me by my family, the night I almost tipped over a rack full of costumes right next to the stage, the night half my costume almost came off on stage, and the amount of effort we put into stealing party pies from the front-of-house people.
But I've been typing for a couple of hours, now, and you're probably wishing I'd shut up. So I will.
And, now that I'm finally allowed to say it...
MACBETH!
Twenty-Five Performances
That's four or five a week, for six weeks in a row. Plus two dress-rehearsals with an audience. So it's fair to say we had the whole thing honed to perfection by the end.
The most interesting bits, however, are almost invariably the bits that go wrong.
Like when actors don't show up.
Missing People
I've already mentioned the whole storm debacle, which nearly resulted in two missing cast members.
There was also a night where one of the actors forgot to show up. We ended up grabbing a woman who was on front-of-house (handing out programs, and stuff) and giving her ten minutes warning that she was about to star in a play! It was stressful, but kind of exhilarating at the same time.
And then, one of our cast members suffered a Painful Chainsaw Accident halfway through the season. No missing limbs or anything, but he did manage to end up stripping half the flesh off three fingers, and needing to wear a cast.
This being the same character who has to carry a tray of tea things (teapot, cups, milk jug, etc) on stage every night. Without dropping it.
He actually managed the tea thing, even with the mangled arm. But there was one night when his arm was so sore that he ended up almost fainting backstage, and we were so busy taking care of him that we all forgot to go on for the next scene.
Speaking of forgetting things...
Forgetfulness
One way to pass the time backstage is to read. I managed to get through nearly three Jane Austen novels during the spare minutes I had between scenes.
One night, though, I was sitting there waiting to go on stage, and reading yet again. And my 'boyfriend' Michael was sitting right next to me reading his book. I was sort of assuming that I'd notice him get up, so I'd know when to go on stage. And he was thinking the same thing about me...
We ended up sprinting on, and hoping no-one had noticed.
I also ended up forgetting to take my glasses off a few times.
Which was a real pain, because when you're wearing glasses you pretty much look at people in one of two ways: either through the glasses, or over the top. Anything else would leave the rim of your glasses in front of the person's face, which isn't helpful. But I'd been doing all my scenes without glasses, and I could look at people any way I wanted, without thinking about glasses rims.
And then, when I went on stage, if I tried looking at people the way I'd been doing for the last fifteen performances, I'd suddenly find my glasses getting in the way, and I'd have to move my head, which was really distracting and made me forget lines.
Newspaper
I didn't have many props to remember, so I usually got them all on and off the stage properly. But one prop - the newspaper - caused me a whole lot of bother.
As you may recall, I had to read out a list of ads from the newspaper. From "The Observer", actually - and we were so concerned about accuracy that we'd actually got a copy of The Observer sent from London.
Which sounds great, until you realise that this paper is going to be used in twenty-five performances. Twenty-five nights when it'll be folded up, carried on stage, unfolded, opened, closed, folded, unfolded, opened, closed, carried off stage, folded, stuffed in a bag, carried on stage, removed from the bag, unfolded, opened, scrunched down so that I can see over the top of it, un-scrunched, closed, folded, stuffed in a bag, carried off the stage, and placed on the props table again.
And newspaper ain't that durable.
Halfway through the season, I took it upstairs and duct-taped the entire front page on the inside, because I was beginning to accidentally put my fingers through the newspaper every time I picked it up!
Then there was the day I almost didn't take it on with me.
It's my second scene with that blasted list of women, and pretty much the entire scene is me sitting on the couch, reading out the women from the paper in great detail, and then walking off again. That scene? Really isn't going to work unless I have the newspaper.
At the start of the scene, I arrive at the house, and ring the doorbell a couple of times, until my mother lets me into the house (and thus onto the stage). And on this particular evening, I rang the doorbell once, and suddenly thought "Crap! My newspaper isn't in my bag!" and had to sprint across the backstage area, grab the paper, sprint back, ring the doorbell again, hope desperately that I got back to the door before my mother opened it, and try not to look out of breath when I went on...
Lopsided Shirt
We did quite a lot of frantic backstage running around, actually. Aside from the newspaper, my most stressful was probably the night I almost went on for a serious, tragic scene with my shirt buttoned up incorrectly. You know, like when little kids button up their own clothes, and they almost invariably pair the wrong buttons up so that one side comes down way past the other. In my defense, I have to button that shirt while I'm walking downstairs in the dark.
Thankfully, I realised about ten seconds before I had to go on. Stupidly, I then decided to fix the problem. Which left me standing backstage, my shirt still gaping open, frantically doing up buttons and hoping I'll finish before I have to go on stage and be heartbroken about my parents splitting up.
Stupid Bra
The worst of my costume woes goes to my strapless bra, which, one night, decided to fall down to my waist every time I took my shirt off.
I have ten costume changes.
I have a co-ed dressing room.
I have one costume change which takes place a metre off stage, because I don't have time to go anywhere else.
So I spent the entire night flashing the cast and crew, and trying not to care.
Fake Door
I think someone could make an awful lot of money setting up a Candid Camera type of show backstage at a theatre company.
One of the non-mistakey bits I always enjoyed was our fake front door.
You see, from a sound effects perspective, you need a door somewhere backstage for the characters to open with keys, and angrily slam shut, and so forth. And being a standard theatre company, they don't really have much room backstage, so they have a fake door right up next to the wall. It's got just enough space between door and wall to lock someone in (which we did, once...).
It really was incredibly amusing watching Barry march off stage to let Michael in, walking right past Michael, opening up the door, and talking to the wall in an extremely polite manner.
Childbirth Tally
Backstage was mostly black chipboard. Which works really well with chalk. We would quite often leave little notes in chalk for the people who'd be coming on stage in the next scene. Encouragement, silly jokes, and various bits of graffiti.
One of the most popular parts of our giant chalkboard was the list of all my babies. You see, one of the characters was supposed to be a hippie-type woman. And in the five minutes of quiet ad-libbing we had to do at the start of every performance, we would end up sitting on the couch together, and doing a thing with her necklace which was supposed to tell me how many babies I would have (if it swings it's a boy, if it circles it's a girl, and if it just hangs there you won't have any more kids - you keep going until it hangs there). Of course, every night we'd end up with a different result. So we decided to keep a record of it backstage.
And all the cast members had access to our record. So by the end of the show, I was also giving birth to six and a half monkeys, several aliens, a bunch of grapes, and various other random offspring.
There was quite a bit of speculation concerning my love life, actually.
Pretty much the entire cast were convinced that Michael and I were secretly going out (especially because I gave him a ride home every evening). And one night I got food poisoning, and turned up late because I'd been throwing up into my toilet, and there were an awful lot of "morning sickness" jokes flying round the dressing room.
Speaking of sickness...
Audience Drama
One night, towards the end of Act One, we started noticing a kerfuffle at the front of the stage. We decided to ignore it and keep acting, but it got increasingly difficult.
You see, one of the audience members had apparently started feeling unwell. But they didn't want to disrupt the performance by moving into the foyer, so they thought they'd just lie down in front of their seat for a minute.
Of course, this looked like they'd just collapsed. So other audience members started helping out, and running out to the foyer to get an usher, and bringing in drinks of water, and we're still performing and wondering who on earth is lying face-first on the floor, and wondering if anyone's actually died, and trying to remember our lines, but it doesn't really matter because the audience aren't watching us anyway - this little medical drama is much more interesting.
We got through the whole scene, but the audience didn't remember a word of it. I'm pretty sure they had a memorable evening, though.
Saying The Right Lines
It's interesting how the lines you stuff up during rehearsal are never the ones you get wrong during the actual performance. Which is good, especially in some cases.
Like Barry's line about Michael and me. He looks out the window at us, and says "Now what's he... well, I suppose that's allowed now that she loves him." Except during rehearsal, he always ended up saying "Now what's he... well, I suppose that's allowed now that they're married." which would completely throw the audience onto the wrong track!
Thankfully, that one never made it to a proper performance.
One night I forgot to say a line that stops Chris from leaving the stage. He's storming out, and my line gets him to change his mind and sit down instead. Except, on this particular occasion, I forgot, and he had actually left the room before Michael's frantic nudging got me to call out to him. That was kinda stressful.
Worse were the times when we'd almost start laughing. Especially me - I had a lot of time on stage when I wasn't saying anything, just sitting there looking depressed, and Patricia would say the most hysterical lines, the audience would crack up, and I would have this big beaming smile on my face, and hope that no-one was looking at me.
Michael (the bastard) started standing backstage just in my field of vision, and try to make me crack up laughing. Several times he almost managed it, and I'd go off after my scene and beat him over the head with my script.
I've discovered, by the way, an almost foolproof way of not smiling on stage. Imagine you've got something stuck in your teeth, right at the back, and try to get it out with your tongue. It's almost impossible to smile while you're doing that. Almost impossible.
Sleeping Pan
While I almost laughed several times, I never quite cracked. Leanne did, though. And it was all Patricia's fault.
Patricia had this line, which was supposed to go "Dan, Dan, dirty old man, washed his face in a frying pan". And one night, she got it wrong. And she ended up saying "washed his face in a sleeping pan". Which Leanne found utterly hysterical.
And of course, she couldn't laugh, which just made the situation so much funnier - like it always does when you have to keep looking serious.
I should mention that, during this scene, there were several "freezes". We had to stay completely still while Carolyn did her Extra Special Freezy Lines, and then keep going like nothing had happened.
And during the first freeze, Leanne faces the back of the stage, and I'm watching her.
Leanne's shoulders were shaking. Uncontrollably. She was managing not to laugh out loud, but she was still quite obviously laughing. The audience could tell, and were chuckling softly, and I was starting to crack up.
Then we reached the end of the freeze, and Leanne instantly turned around with a completely serious expression on her face like nothing had happened at all, which just made me want to laugh even more.
Second freeze. Leanne and I were watching each other, and Kat was watching us. And all three of us were trying so hard not to laugh, and finding it so funny that the other two were trying not to laugh too.
By the fourth freeze, five of the seven characters on stage were shaking with silent laughter, Michael and I were on the verge of collapse, and Patricia was wondering what on earth was so funny...
I could go into even more detail, about the disgusting lukewarm tea I had to drink on stage every night, having to burst into tears on cue, waving through the 'house's' window every night (as per my script) and always having one of the stage managers sneak around to wave back to me, beautiful flowers sent up to me by my family, the night I almost tipped over a rack full of costumes right next to the stage, the night half my costume almost came off on stage, and the amount of effort we put into stealing party pies from the front-of-house people.
But I've been typing for a couple of hours, now, and you're probably wishing I'd shut up. So I will.
And, now that I'm finally allowed to say it...
MACBETH!
