Thursday, May 20, 2010

Preview Night!

Overall, the first show went well.

Today was also my first day of work (re: first day waking up before noon), so I was tired before I got to the theatre, but it's hard to not perk up when a hundred pair of eyes are on you.

My dad was in the audience, as well as one of my really good friends, but surprisingly, that didn't make me particularly nervous. The girls entrance went well, no props were forgotten, no lines were dropped, and lots of clumps were made (that's a good thing).

We exit for a few scenes, and then come back on for the finale. As I was heading towards the stage, I swung into the dressing room and grabbed a tictac.

I love tictacs.

Unfortunately, part of it got lodged right in the back of my throat and I really badly had to cough, but by this time, I was already under the second deck, seconds from going on stage. I attempted to cough quietly, but failed and got glared at. So, like the true performer/idiot I am, I decided to suck it up (figuratively) and deal with it.

Our cue rang and out we ran and--oh shit. My stomach kept clenching as I tried to cough but not cough, and I'm standing there trying to sing and all I really want to do is cough into my elbow, but that's not in the script and Ralph's about to kill himself. Now is not the time.

As Ralph is about to kill himself, I gasp and bury my head into a man's shoulder as per usual, but tonight I took that opportunity as a time to hack away and hopefully clear my throat. It kinda worked actually, and my throat felt better but not exactly normal.

(Said man told me afterwords that it was such a tender, tragic moment until I started hacking away. Ah well.)

One of my cast mates who I stood with immediately afterwords was kinda worried--she knows that I know to fake it, so wtf--but I just kept smiling and tried to concentrate on the no-longer-suicidal-leading male (because that's how you get a girl to admit she likes you. With a gun to the temple.).

Act II went well, no more coughing fits, and it ended quicker than I was expecting.

I flew. Out below the deck, down the stairs, through the hallway-since-there's-no-actual-green-room and into the dressing room. I knew my dad wouldn't appreciate waiting long, so I just changed into my normal clothes and left all my make-up and fake eyelashes on. Out the dressing room, through the lobby, out the front door and--oooh.

Flat tire.

Not cool.

The theatre is in the middle of a park, not the best area to be hanging around at night, so it was totally possible that the tire had been slashed.

Very not cool.

My dad, ever resourceful, had a jack and a spare tire ready by the time I met at the truck. Since I had nothing to do and had no way to help, I decided to start pulling out the bobby pins from my hair. I have shoulder length hair. It was pinned up in curls no more than two inches thick at any part of my head. There were a lot of bobby pins (49 to be exact).

The tire was too low to get the jack under, so we had to call BCAA and wait. Meanwhile, since I have work in the morning, one of my friends agreed to drive me home. I felt bad about leaving my dad, but there wasn't much I could do.

Instead of leaving right away, a few cast mates were hanging out by the theatre doors, so we joined them for a while. My hair was of great interest since with all the pins out, I looked like Shirley Temple. They took turns pulling on a curl and watching it boing back.

A big truck with an empty bed drove through the parking lot and very noisily drove over a curb, which caught our attention. Someone made a joke about how we don't need that curb anyway, when all of a sudden I realized, whoops, that truck would be for us.

It was, BCAA had arrived startlingly quickly.

They decided to repair the tire rather than temporarily fixing it, and right as some of my friends were debating going out for a meal or just staying there in the breeze (it was really windy, but we were all sweaty and yucky so it was nice), my dad started heading over to us.

All fixed!

Now, home. Although I kinda liked the Shirley Temple curls (I'm going to keep them for Gala on Friday), I took a shower and for two and a half minutes, my hair was blissfully clean and straight! Then I sat down and pulled the curlers out. Last time it took 36 curlers. I'll count them tomorrow morning as I take them out too. Holy geez they take a long time.

Oh, there was also a plumber's butt incidence during the Act I finale tonight, but that shall remain nameless. The girls got a kick out of it, but to be fair, we get to stand up straight, and our make-up won't melt.

One show down, ten to go.

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