Opening Night
The scene backstage was nothing but chaos.
Adam had no idea why, on opening night, suddenly, all the props and costume pieces seemed to have acquired new and mysterious locations.
He heard a crash through the vents, and heard Alisan cursing as things were thrown around.
“Damn it! Adam?” she called, knowing that he could hear her.
“Yeah?” he called back, pausing in the middle of his vocal sirens.
“Tell me you have my blue turban in there with you…” her disembodied voice begged.
Adam glanced around. He saw piles of stuff, but nothing blue. So he offered a deal. “I’ll help you find your turban, if you help me find my wig…” he bargained.
Her giggle carried into his dressing room, making him smile, in spite of the stress. Adam imagined all the possible scenarios that could bring a smile to Alisan’s face on show night.
They met halfway between their dressing rooms, just in time for Michelle to run by, looking worried, with Luba trailing her.
“What’s up?” Adam asked, stopping Luba. He absolutely loved her voice, and was jealous of all the purple she got to wear.
“Michelle can’t find Moses…” she said quietly.
“What? Val’s missing?” Kevin quipped, stepping out into the hall, dressed as Ramses.
“No, you asshole,” Alisan smirked. “The fake Moses. …So, I guess that means the blanket’s missing, too…” she trailed off.
“Okay. Did you check the rack?” Adam asked Alisan. “For your turban? Under it, and everything?”
“Luba!” he called, “What’s up with the prop tables? Aren’t they set up?”
“No, they’re not…”
Sighing, Adam trailed Alisan toward the backstage area where there should have been tables with personal props like Val’s stick, and the burning bush. For some reason, both of those were in plain sight, but the missing pieces were still nowhere to be seen.
In the end, one of the stagehands produced all the missing items, minutes before they were to go on. Adam’s wig was a tangled mess. Alisan’s turban had dirt on it. And as for baby Moses and the blanket, both reeked with an indefinable stench.
“Sorry, Michelle,” Alisan said, holding her breath and handing them over.
Michelle bristled. “I don’t know how I’m expected to love this thing tonight,” she said and held the doll away from her. “What happened to all of this? Where was it?”
“Custodial staff at the theatre?” Adam guessed. “Probably did a total top-to-bottom in here, and ended up shoving everything in some dank back room…”
Then, he stood back, distancing himself a little, from the crowd and took some deep breaths to focus himself on what he was doing. For the next two-and-a-half hours, he wouldn’t be Adam anymore, he was going to be Joshua. He needed to be in character before he even set foot on that stage, and he usually had more time to prepare.
But when the lights went up, and Adam took the stage for the beginning of Act I, he knew that none of the craziness backstage mattered anymore.
This was opening night.
And they were going to perform the hell out of the show.
--
As much as Adam was all about losing himself in the role, he didn’t count on getting quite so into it that he would have a hard time transitioning from one scene to another. Getting whipped after his big song, witnessing the chaos of that aftermath… It was all much heavier than it had been in rehearsals.
And it wasn’t only him.
Alisan was just as lost in the part of Miriam, Moses’ sister, begging Michelle, who played their mother, to confess that Moses was in fact a Hebrew, and not the son of a Pharoh, to save him from death…
She stood back as Luba, who played the Egyptian princess who discovered Moses in the river. Listened to her tell the truth about who Moses really was. Watched him being banished. And Alisan felt like her heart was breaking, but she stood by, holding herself together, until she could make it off stage.
When Luba reprised Drawn From The Water, Alisan had her moment to escape, before she had to take the stage again for The Horns of Jericho. In the shadow behind the curtain, Alisan let herself fall apart. And when she felt someone’s arms come around her, she knew Adam was behind her.
Alisan turned, and they pressed their foreheads together.
“It’s like this for you, too,” she asked, sniffling. She knew she couldn’t afford to cry off all her makeup.
Silently he nodded.
“I don’t know why,” she hedged, twisting the smelly blanket in her hands. “But everything just feels so real tonight.”
Adam just held on, and let Alisan hold onto him. They stared at each other quietly, until Luba was finished, and it was almost Adam’s cue to sing a solo chorus.
“We’ll be okay,” he promised, squeezing her hand, as he took the stage again.