EVula's Blog

Faith restored!

So today we had a "test performance" of a sort for the play that I'm doing, Little Women. To say that this has been a trying show would be a bit of an understatement. But first, some back-story!

I signed on to do the show as the ASM; for those that don't know, that stands for assistant stage manager. However, once I showed up to a rehearsal, lo and behold, there isn't a stage manager. Okay, crap. That means that I have (technically) a lot more responsibilities than I was planning on. The show itself is suffering from a couple of bad actors (and shaky line knowledge from a few other people, though most of the shaky-line folk are good enough actors to play it off well). Because I've had to shift gears from ASM to SM, I've been on book, which means that I've been horribly unprepared backstage (can't feed the actors their lines and figure out what goes where at the same, oddly enough).

So all week, I've been on book for the actors. Yesterday was the first time ever that I was back stage to sort out props.. and, as per usual, there were a few missing/temporarily lost props here and there (and actors who don't know what to do with their props). That's perfectly normal for a rehearsal where we have props for the first time. However, this week's rehearsals were our only rehearsals before today's two performances (at a school), and opening night is tomorrow. As a result, last night was very stressful, and I feel really bad about missing stuff here and there.

But at the same time... I've been a bit deceived about what my role would be, I'm working under very tight conditions, last night was the first time I'd ever been backstage for this production, the first time I'd ever had any of the props, and the first time I'd ever seen the show all the way through (actually, it was the first time it had been run all the way through, ever). To expect me to know where everything is supposed to be, or what everyone should do, is ludicrous. Anyone who may be disappointed or upset with the job is welcome to kiss my ass.

Anyway, now that you have the back-story, on with the rest...

So all week, the actors have been shaky on their lines, their blocking, their cues... all in all, frustrating stuff. Last night just outright sucked, with tensions running very high among the cast (everyone pretty much just wanted to kill everyone else); as a result, I didn't have especially high hopes for today's two performances. Then the show started... or at least, tried. It had such a rocky start, with lines getting dropped and missed cues. But, after that first scene, it went well. Eerily well.

We got through the first performance, then ate pizza backstage. You could almost see the tension being drained away from the actors' faces. They were joking around backstage, laughing and having a ball like they didn't have a care in the world, which was such a pleasant change of pace from just a few hours prior. They eventually ran just through their lines, hamming it up and ad-libbing wherever they felt like (which is always a sign of relaxation).

The second show was fine, except for the fact that the janitor didn't know the show was going on and just walked right across the stage. Grrrrr.

Anyway, I'm just glad that the ball is finally rolling on this. I have no doubt that there will be finger-pointing, though; this is a fairly political bunch, from what I've gathered. I really couldn't care less if anyone points it at me; I've been doing the best job I can, and given the circumstances, I refuse to take any responsibility for anything that may be awry. Oh well, I'm just going to try to get through this without any finger-pointing, since it's ultimately nothing but unproductive.

Posted by Eric at November 18, 2004 06:14 PM