California Bloggin' v5.0 :: Desiderium

Opening Night

It went really well! There was one problem, though. The SFX crew has six microphones. One of them died. The tech director fixed it and everything was fine after that but there were a couple of effects that the audience didn't hear. Oh well. I told the tech director that's our glitch for the the three-day run. As I'm typing this, however, I remembered the movie "Apollo 13." Very early on in the mission, a hydrogen tank bursts and Jim Lovell says "That's our glitch for this mission." Man, I hope I'm not as wrong as he was!

Anyway, we hit all our cues. I was suprised that I did, considering I was shaking so much. ;) But after I got past the part where I have to walk to the front of the stage and do an effect during the death scene of one of the actors, I was fine. Actually, somehow I was able to tune out the audience and concentrate hitting my cues. The actors did really well, too. Some of them had their best performances ever.

After the show, we all go out to the lobby for a "meet and greet" with the audience. (Refreshements are involved as well.) People I didn't even know were coming up to me and telling me how much they enjoyed it. It was so cool!

I didn't get a chance to blog about this before but I didn't realize I'd have to wear make-up. Yuck! The only make-up I wear in everyday life is a little mascara and, sometimes, lipstick. Because this is supposed to be a radio show, the director didn't want us to look really made up, so she told the women to wear their street make-up but kick it up a notch. If that didn't work, we could use stage make-up. So, for rehearsal on Wednesday, I figured I should kick it up two notches since I don't usually wear make-up. I thought I looked like a hooker but, under the lights, I looked OK.

One more thing. One of the grocery stores in town always has a sandwich board set up with a poster from the show and rehearsal photos. After Wednesday's rehearsal, I went to the store and I was standing in the check-out line. I saw both cashiers near the door chatting. They turned to look at me a couple of times but didn't come to wait on me. After three or four minutes, they both came over. They said they were looking at my pictures on the sandwich board. Pictures. With an "s." Two of them. Cool. They asked me if I had a big part. I said, although it's not a speaking part, yes, it's big.

OK. This really is the last thing. My picture was in the paper (not the one I used to work for) on Thursday with a great article about the show. Yesterday, the local paper ran a story and the director was quoted as saying "The sound effects crew is almost the star of the show." So, I figured if anyone asks me why I wanted to do sound effects instead of having a speaking part for my first time on stage, I'll say "If I wasn't going to be the star, why bother?" ;)