Professional Skepticism was surrounded by an eerie curse... two of our actors sprained their ankles a few days before we went up. Completely unrelated accidents, proving the universe has an even more sick sense of humor than I ever imagined. Here's how the initial conversation with me and another castmate went:
Summer (arriving at rehearsal): Hey, Ben. Seth is going to be a bit late. You heard about his leg, right?
Ben: You mean Bill.
Summer: Um... no. Seth called me earlier today and said he sprained his ankle.
Ben: You mean Bill called you, right?
---silence---
Summer: Bill hurt his leg?
Ben: Seth hurt his leg?
Summer: Oh my god...
You can imagine the rest. Now, this was a few days before we opened, so we weren't entirely certain we could manage. But in the spirit of any seasoned thespian we forged ahead. We frantically reblocked the play to take out some of the more dangerous fight scenes and incorporated Seth's limp (which was more severe than Bill's) as a character trait. I thought we had salvaged the show and we all had hopes of putting on a beautiful performance.
Alas, the Powers That Be did not agree. Unfortunately the "show must go on" edict is not universally known, and as this was a production hosted by an academic group (at a business school), our producer decided to cut his losses and mount a staged reading instead. This news came to us the night of our final dress run and was a shocking blow.
As painful as it was to sit shackled to our chairs, scripts in hand, in front of hundreds of Bentley College freshmen for three nights, I must say that we put on the best damn staged reading possible. Lines memorized, characters fully developed, our freaking staged reading held a captive and entertained audience.
So, to my intrepid cast, thank you for bravely forging ahead, for keeping the faith against unbelievable obstacles, and for helping me laugh about the whole sad situation. I love you kids.
Here they are, my boys, my heroes...
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8 comments:
Congraulations to all involved! That sounds like hard work! Now I know that if WE run into any problems I can look forward to "The Six Fifty-Seven" as done by sock puppets.
So I guess there's no need to come to the party since I now know all about the joy AND the heartache of the show...? :-)
And yet I still expect you to be there. At the very least so you can meet this incredible crew... ;)
This will be a bitter-sweet story to tell your children or your students one day. And certainly, the telling of it is quite funny! "You mean 'Bill,' right?" Anyway, I have no doubt that your reading was the best reading of a play ever not performed!
Oh, and it's a great picture!
your life is like drama club into your 20s, color me jealous.
love, clayton
We have such a great story to tell when something like this comes up at a party now...who's that guy with the glasses? Is he the Dad in that family picture? Whatever he is, I bet he's a sarcastic jackass.
(Thank you, darlin, we love you, too) :)
You know, I always thought that guy with the glasses was pretty hot! Sarcastic jackass, yes, but hot too.
Really? I always thought he looked the a lovechild of Ron Livingston and Diedrich Bader with a penchant for nerdery.
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