"I asked cook to make those little pecan cookies you like so much."
I was sure we COULD do it, but I wasn't sure we WOULD do it. But we did.
I spent about 20 minutes after I got to the theater watching a youngish deer feed in the scrub woods between the Barn and the stream that runs on the other side of the parking lot. Good omens and all that...
We were running lines backstage up until the stage manager called places. Then after a short (can it really be called a curtain speech when there's no curtain) curtain speech by the house manager/board member/local radio personality we were off to the races.
There were a couple of bobbles in that opening scene that we've been struggling with ... most notably, I am supposed to do one of my lines without looking at the person behind me who I'm yelling at. (Sort of one of those "get your hands out of that cookie jar" lines moms are so good at when you're in the other room nicking cookies.) But out of my peripheral vision I can see that M hasn't got the antimacassar in her hands so how am I supposed to yell at her to put it down? So out of nowhere I come up with some alternative line like "Maude... are you thinking about fingering that antimacassar? Well. Don't." AND THE AUDIENCE LAUGHED. Hot damn. Go me. Actually, it was really lovely to finally GET laughs. It just makes all the difference. There is no better feeling.
Totally great night. My pals smothered me in flowers. We managed to get through the show with no MAJOR problems.
We almost had a disaster. Was out on the back balcony after my opening bit talking to the BFF. As we were talking he took his fedora off, and there was this huge black stripe across his forehead. Bonehead costumer had tried to magic marker the weather stripping she was using to make the hat fit better and the ink came off on his forehead. DUH. Not sure what she did to the hat to fix it, but with a judicious application of baby wipes we got the ink off his face and were so glad we noticed it before he took his hat off on stage!
Then after the show we had what we call a Green Room ... mostly just snacks out in front of the theater. We all brought stuff and the snack bar makes punch and we chat with the audience. And snack. First food I'd had in about 8 hours, so I munched away in between hugs and post-mortems from my pals. Several you them said "That play needed more YOU." D'awwwww....
Director Cee hugged me hard and said "love ya." Almost made me cry. I am not used to such things.
But that's the joy of theater. Easy loving from friends, and from strangers. And so, we put performance #1 in the bag... only nine more to go!!
I spent about 20 minutes after I got to the theater watching a youngish deer feed in the scrub woods between the Barn and the stream that runs on the other side of the parking lot. Good omens and all that...
We were running lines backstage up until the stage manager called places. Then after a short (can it really be called a curtain speech when there's no curtain) curtain speech by the house manager/board member/local radio personality we were off to the races.
There were a couple of bobbles in that opening scene that we've been struggling with ... most notably, I am supposed to do one of my lines without looking at the person behind me who I'm yelling at. (Sort of one of those "get your hands out of that cookie jar" lines moms are so good at when you're in the other room nicking cookies.) But out of my peripheral vision I can see that M hasn't got the antimacassar in her hands so how am I supposed to yell at her to put it down? So out of nowhere I come up with some alternative line like "Maude... are you thinking about fingering that antimacassar? Well. Don't." AND THE AUDIENCE LAUGHED. Hot damn. Go me. Actually, it was really lovely to finally GET laughs. It just makes all the difference. There is no better feeling.
Totally great night. My pals smothered me in flowers. We managed to get through the show with no MAJOR problems.
We almost had a disaster. Was out on the back balcony after my opening bit talking to the BFF. As we were talking he took his fedora off, and there was this huge black stripe across his forehead. Bonehead costumer had tried to magic marker the weather stripping she was using to make the hat fit better and the ink came off on his forehead. DUH. Not sure what she did to the hat to fix it, but with a judicious application of baby wipes we got the ink off his face and were so glad we noticed it before he took his hat off on stage!
Then after the show we had what we call a Green Room ... mostly just snacks out in front of the theater. We all brought stuff and the snack bar makes punch and we chat with the audience. And snack. First food I'd had in about 8 hours, so I munched away in between hugs and post-mortems from my pals. Several you them said "That play needed more YOU." D'awwwww....
Director Cee hugged me hard and said "love ya." Almost made me cry. I am not used to such things.
But that's the joy of theater. Easy loving from friends, and from strangers. And so, we put performance #1 in the bag... only nine more to go!!