Opening Night Blues

Things that go wrong on Opening Night of In the Blood ...

1. I spend the entire show nursing the headache that I've had all day, the headache that I've been unable to tell is from ...
   
   
   
   1. lack of eating (Rather than cobble something together from the wineshop goods, I go over budget and buy myself some lunch. Instead of filling me up, it sits like a rock in my stomach.),
   
   
   2. stress (I look for our wineshop painkillers only to find out that -- in true wineshop fashion -- someone has used the last of our huge bottle of Ibuprofin and no one has bothered to get some more),
   
   
   3. lack of sleep, sinuses, (Students of mine who saw the preview performance last night were to catch an early dinner with me and tell me what they thought of the show. I call them to say I can't attend and go home after my wineshop shift to pop a decongestant and get a quick nap before the show),
   
   or some combination of the four. (After the show my stage manager says, "You looked really rough. I was worried about you.")



2. I realize that in the push to get In the Blood up, I've neglected the simultaneous opening of Am I Black Enough, Yet? in Roanoke, not even sending them an email congratulations. Todd calls me from Roanoke before Blood to wish me luck and to say that he looks forward to talking about how things went with AIBEY? I wonder if I hear passive condemnation in his words.



3. In all the years I've acted and directed in town I have never known what the loathsome critic for the local paper looked like. On my way home to my nap, I leave congratulatory notes for my cast and see the chairs set aside for her. It's a really small space so after my nap, back in the theater, before the show starts I see her come in. Now I know what she looks like and can be distracted by her presence, refraining from attacking her on principle. Years of blissful ignorance down the tubes. (I hate critics. That's a rant for later.)



4. Before the show, the chair that one cast member is sitting on backstage rips multiple holes in his black pants. We hold for five minutes as another cast member frantically sews as many of them as she can. The first cast member exchanges his underwear for the black underwear of a third cast member to "hide" the rest of the holes.



5. The second cast member finishes sewing right before the show starts, has just enough time to throw on her own pants and go out. In the rush she forgets to preset $5 on her. Thus the $5, a visually prominent prop in the last third of the first scene, is not there. She and another cast member mime it.



6. The sewing and the $5, is enough to keep that cast member from fully sinking into her role in the first part of the show. The audience doesn't notice, but she and I feel it.



7. Half way through the first act, an audience member behind me starts absent mindedly pumping his leg. Since we're all sitting on platforms, the entire section vibrates with the motion. He will do this on and off throughout the whole show.



8. The sound system, which acted up during Tech Week and was fine last night, acts up again, dropping out at the end of the first act, robbing the act ends of its culminating sound cues, one of which is my favorite in the show. Again, the audience doesn't notice, but the sound designer has to be held back from choking himself with his own program in frustration.



9. During Intermission, our sound op power cycles the amplifier backstage. This brings the sound back on. He tells the stage manager to do this if the sound should go off again. Thus, the stage manager is so intent on listening for sound problems and baby-sitting the amplifier, she forgets to be out in the house with a drink of water for sewing actor to take to help wash down the egg salad sandwich she has just had before her second big monologue.



10. Sound either from the street, the stairwell outside of the theater, or from the theater itself keeps filtering into the space.



11. Also during the beginning of the second act, someone opens the emergency door (that's right by the stage) from the outside. They notice that there's a show going on immediately and close it ... well, they more cease their opening than fully close the door, and I have to nod to my prop designer, who is sitting across from me, to get up and close it. This is rather ironic since right before the performance I ask someone if anyone has ever tried to enter during a show having never had this happen during the shows I've seen in the space. "Oh yeah," they say.

In spite of all of this, the audience -- full of Live Arts performers, friends, family, and staff members -- enjoys the show. People are congratulatory and enthusiastically jovial during the reception. It looks like we have a good show on our hands. Still nursing the headache and thinking less of the reception Champagne and more of the can of lentil soup I have at home, I slip out and, still nursing the headache, stumble off to food and bed.

The words of my sewing cast member ring in my head, "Oh well, you know what they say ... bad opening, good run."