theatre stories – Life Off Headset

Weekly Recap + what we ate: When things go awry

The Daylights Savings Time change has kicked my butt this year. I’ve been going to bed too late, getting up too late. Luckily the kids were all early risers to start, so even though they’re getting up later than usual, they still have plenty of time to get ready in the morning. I think we are almost back on track now, though that 7:15am piano lesson on Wednesday of last week was brutal. This week I’m having the kids sleep in their “tomorrow” clothes on Tuesday night so it’s one less step in the morning before piano lessons.

Last week was my last week off contract before I start prepping the stage management department for another show. It ended up being very full. Monday I met up with a friend at the Duck Decoy Museum. It was kind of fun to revisit this museum, which we chose because it was roughly half way between my friend and me. It was nice to catch up, go for a stroll along the Chesapeake Bay and grab a bite to eat. My friend used to work in opera too; we started out in the business together – me as an intern and her as an Assistant Stage Manager. I’ve known her for over twenty years. We talked a lot about opera stuff and life stuff. It’s funny to see how some of the people we worked with when we were both just starting out are now pretty important in the opera world, some even running opera companies. My friend was a pretty big deal too, but is taking a step back to re-evaluate things. Sometimes I think back and feel so lucky that the colleagues I worked with twenty years ago are, twenty years later, still good friends.

That was the big adventure for the week. I spent most of the week going to appointments and prepping supertitles for a voice recital. I can be pretty efficient about prepping titles because it is a lot of steps and I like to have them done well in advance of the recital, but for some reason this time I just couldn’t focus and ended up doing it pretty last minute, which I don’t like. The was such an interesting recital program. There were songs in English, German, French, Chinese, Uhygur, Farsi, and Quechua (an indigenous language of Peru). Making those titles were certainly challenging. Even though the singer gives me the translations, I still have to match the translations to the music/text, which is hard to do without having even a basic understanding of the language. google Translate can help some, though the Quechua song was definitely tough. On a whole, though, the titles for this recital was a really fun challenge. This is the super nerdy part of doing supertitles that I like.

Funny story – twenty minutes before the recital, the pianist’s iPad wouldn’t turn on. All his music was on that iPad. I gather there was a lot of panic backstage and mad photo copying of music. You wouldn’t have guessed anything was off during the recital. Until we came to the last piece in the first half. They singer and pianist started the song. They got about half a page in, and then stopped. And the pianist looked at the audience and started speaking. He explained about the iPad not turning on and all the help they got to get a hold of the music for the program. But then, they didn’t realize until just this moment that the music he had been given for this last piece was in a different key than what they had rehearsed.

“If it was just a half step, or a whole step or even a third different, I would have just transposed it as we went,” he said, which made my head explode just a little bit. But I guess that’s why he’s a professional pianist. “But,” he went on, “the music is a a whole fourth higher and that’s beyond me. So I don’t know what to do.”

And the singer said, “Let’s just try it a fourth higher. I’ll sing it a fourth higher. And if that doesn’t work, we’ll come back with a different solution after intermission.”

For folks who aren’t musicians – a fourth higher is a HUGE difference. Vocally it just sits in a completely different place in the voice. It’s like the difference between Elphaba and Glinda. Or, I don’t know between a turkey and a hummingbird.

But they did it. The song still sounded great, just a different feel than if she had sung it in the lower key. At intermission, the pianist’s iPad started working again, so the second half proceeded without incident, but what a memorable recital it was. This was my last recital with this group for the season, and I’m a little sad that I won’t get to work on another recital until the fall.

Weekend – We are in a little lull with kids activities now that the 13 year old is done with basketball season and the 8 year old finished his goalkeeping clinic. There are still plenty of other activities but for the first time in ages, our afternoons were pretty open. I did things like fold laundry. We played board games on Saturday night – Taco Cat Goat Cheese Pizza while the Husband made dinner, and after dinner, we opened a game that Santa brought for Christmas. It’s called Flamecraft and the jury’s still out on this game. It has a billion pieces and takes a while to set up and each turn is a million steps. I kept pointedly asking the Husband, “Why did Santa think this game was a good idea?” Despite my grumbling, the family took to it. The premise is easy enough that the 8 and 5 year old could play, as long as we weren’t keeping score or trying to be strategic or anything. And the game is beautifully illustrated. The kids seemed to like it, so maybe it will stay in our rotation.

Sunday was more exciting than I wanted. After the 5 year old’s agility class, we went to a bakery to pick up some treats and then to the grocery store. As I was pulling into the Giant parking lot, I started to smell something funny and I thought maybe it was just that corner of the parking lot, but then I noticed all this smoke. I thought it was coming from my exhaust, but an elderly gentleman in the parking lot waved at me and yelled, “YOUR CAR IS OVER-HEATING!”

I pulled into a spot and called the Husband because I figured he would know what to do. But then the nice elderly gentleman knocked on my window and said, “Do you want me to take a look?” Now I very much believe in the grace of good Samaratian and said, “yes please!”

So we popped the hood of the car and there was all this smoke and water, which I guess means it really was steam that was coming out of my car. The elderly gentleman (who had the name Phil embroidered on his shirt – he was clearly coming from work) starts looking around. Then he makes a comment about what a cute little kid I have in my car. And I agree that she’s very cute and ask him if he has kids.

“Well,” he says to me, “I probably shouldn’t tell you this, but I’ve lived with four women in my life and I have grand kids ranging in age from 18 to 24. But I love kids.”

Then he noticed that the radiator hose had become disconnected. He asked me a bunch of questions and said, “You should get that check out. Did you call your husband?”

Now modern woman that I am, I had a moment of pause when he asked that. But then, I realized, Phil wasn’t wrong – the first call I made was to the Husband. Is it sexist if it’s true?

Phil went back to his car to get a pair of pliers so he could re-check the hose, but first he asked, “Can I give your daughter a toy?” I said yes, because I figured why not, and he comes back with a park of piers and a stuffed animal -a cat that squeaked when you squeezed it. Of course the 5 year old was delighted. (Side note- when the 13 year old found out that a random stranger had given the 5 year old a stuffed animal, she asked, “Is he trying to use her as a drug mule?” That made me laugh so hard.) Phil reattached the hose and told me to fill the coolant and take it to my mechanic immediately. And then my guardian angel was on his way.

Sunday afternoon, I had two friends over for lunch. These were the friends whom I went pottery painting with two weeks ago. Our pottery pieces were done, so one friend picked them up and they came over for lunch and pottery hand off. I thought my flower pot turned out very cute:

For lunch, I made a batch of the blogger favorite curry chick pea salad, which we ate with olive bread and cucumbers. One of my friends brought some pastries from a new Asian American bakery, Rose Ave., and the pastries were divine. My favorite was the Ube cream Queen Aman. Queen Aman is one of my favorite pastries, and to add ube cream… so delicious.

After the friends left, the Husband and I tried to go out to look at blinds and mattresses, two things we are in dire need of. But the blind place closed early on Sundays and the Macy’s near us didn’t have mattresses. Bummer. Feeling a little defeated, we didn’t know what to do and were going to head straight home. But then we decided to go to the Botanical Gardens instead. So we had a nice walk through the park to the gardens and back. The gardens are still very brown and grey, but there are bits of colour starting to pop up and it made for a nice pick me up. Also, exciting was that we left the kids at home to do this. Now that the oldest is legally old enough to stay home with the two little kids, the Husband and I have on occasion gone out to run errands or what not, just the two of us. It’s been so amazing to be able to walk out the door without a kid in tow. Milestones!

Speaking of things gone awry (because things always happen in 3) – After my fall while running last week, I noticed something interesting. I didn’t cut my chin, but it did start to scab over. I’m not sure what is up with that? Also after a couple days, my chin started to bruise really really badly. Like it looked like I rubbed my chin in graphite in an ill attempt to draw a goatee on myself. It was pretty distinct. I was a little self conscious about it and thought, maybe I should cover it up with make-up. But that would require buying make-up and figuring out how to use it. I had no interest in any of that. So I just let the chin get blacker and bluer and went on with life. I did have a thought that I should just head people off at the pass and reference it first – “How are you doing?” “Oh, you know – ” vague hand wave ” – just a little accident. Ugh. How are you?” But I just let it be.

What fascinated me was there were people who would ask my about my black and blue chin and the people who didn’t say anything. And I’m not talking about strangers in the street. These were people who I see every day and are friendly with. I’m sure there’s no correlation here for those who asked “WHAT HAPPENED???” and those who didn’t say anything. But it did get me thinking about whether or not I would say something if I saw someone with a huge wound? I mean when I see a friend or colleague come in with a boot or crutches, I usually will ask what happened. But would it make a difference it’s on the face? Do people have the same internal monologue as I do? “Ooh that looks bad. i hope they’re okay. Will I make them self-conscious if I say something? Should I let them reference it first? I don’t want to pretend nothing is going on – I might seem unobservant or uncaring…” Or maybe it’s just me and most people if they don’t say anything just didn’t notice? There’s no right or wrong answer here, of course; just something that was rattling around in my brain this week.

Grateful For:

-Seeing the first spring flowers coming up. Hyacinths along our front walk.

-Basketball courts at the park and a body that still can shoot a basket. A couple days last week, I met the 13 year old at the basketball courts after school and we shot baskets for 30-45 minutes. Is there anything as satisfying as making a basket? I’m bad enough at basketball that it still gives me a little rush every time the ball sails though the hoop.

-Clean sheets on my bed.

-My father’s help with the Chinese songs in the recital program that I worked on. There was one song in Chinese and the English text I got was matched to Chinese characters, but the music had pin yin (the romanization of the characters), so I couldn’t match the English to the music. I sent the Mandarin text to my dad, and he talked me through the characters so that I could match the English translation to the pin yin in the score. I’m so glad I had him for help.

-For that matter – I’m really grateful that my parents spoke Mandarin to me when I was a a child. My Mandarin isn’t great, but I can get by, and I did notice when we were in Taiwan it got easier with each day. When I was prepping for the recital last week, once I heard the Chinese songs being sung, I understood enough of the words that I knew I was on the right track. I can only read a handful of characters and would loved to read/write more, but it’s a really hard language to learn. But I’m really grateful that I have a little bit of the language in me. Also grateful for the little French that I have. It’s enough that I can help the 8 year old with his homework. Every time I heard people speaking Mandarin or French out and about and maybe understand some of it, I think about how cool languages are and how neat it is that people communicate. Also I found this super interesting about what animals sound like in different languages.

-Friends that invite the 13 year old out to shows and to shoot hoops. I know it’s hard for her to always be tied to activities that her younger siblings can take part in, so I’m grateful when she has friends (and their parents) that invite her out and come pick her up and bring her home. This week, she had invites to go play basketball t the Rec Center and to see a concert at a local high school. These things would have been hard for us to take the little kids to so I’m grateful that she has friends that include her in plans. Also I think it’s nice to switch up the dynamic between the kids once in a while by having it be just one or two kids at home.

-This green messenger bag:

We bought this bag 13 years ago to use as a diaper bag when the oldest child was born. At the time the options for diaper bags were kind of frilly and pretty and the Husband wanted something gender neutral and utilitarian. So we went to REI and this bag had all the features we wanted. This bag has gone on so many trips with us, on flights, over oceans. And it’s still in great shape. Anyhow, ironically, I had been using an old diaper bag to carry my laptop around. The diaper bag had been an impulse purchase – it had been on super sale and looked really cute, but when it arrived it wasn’t super functional as a diaper bag so I put it in a closet for years until I realized that it actually fit my laptop perfectly. So I’ve been using that yellow diaper bag for my laptop. Anyhow after many years, the faux leather on the yellow diaper bag is starting to flake so I decided it was time to retire it, and I just started carrying my laptop around in a tote bag, which isn’t great. Then last week, I was cleaning out a closet and I unearthed the green messenger bag that had been living in the closet for a couple year what with COVID and the kids being out of diapers and all that. Well the green messenger/former diaper bag was perfect for fitting my lap top and it has now been put back into service. I’m just a little tickled that for years I used a diaper bag for my laptop and a messenger bag for a diaper bag. And now it feels like life has come full circle. (Also – I do NOT miss the days when leaving the house required packing as if for an Arctic expedition – food, toys, diapers, wipes, change of clothes…. So much simpler to leave the house now, though the Husband will say that I still pack too much to leave the house. But he’s a guy and perhaps doesn’t believe in having emergencies outside the house.)

-Phil who helped me with my car in the Giant parking lot and gave the 5 year old a stuffed animal.

Looking Forward To:

-The 8 year old’s French concert this week. Every year, all the French Immersion classes at his school put on a concert where each class sings a song. It’s pretty cute. I do have to find the kid a pair of black pants. But he has first communion later this year and I’m told he needs black pants for that too, so hoepfully I can find somethign he can wear more than once.

-Peak Bloom! There is an updated prediction for peak bloom – it is now predicted for March 28th – 31st. I’m not yet in rehearsal, so I think I should be able to go see the cherry blossoms at some point.

-New glasses! I finally made an appointment with the eye doctor, updated my prescription. I am VERY near sighted, the optometrist said. I knew that, but I think I’ve gotten even worse since my last appointment…. three years ago. Luckily my far sightedness has remained about the same, so I didn’t bother to get new sunglasses since I use those just for driving. I chose new every day glasses, that I’m kind of excited about – they have red rims. They aren’t as bold as I wanted, but I need nose pads on my glasses, and that limits the options. At any rate, the new glasses will arrive in two weeks and I’m really excited because I currently can’t distinguish betwen 6 and 8 on my crossword puzzle squares and THIS IS IMPORTANT.

-Listening to this audiobook:

Hearing Dame Judi Dench’s words (she doesn’t actually read her own part, Barbara Flynn does, doing a remarkable job), as she talks about the plays of Shakespeare is both hilarious and revelatory. Highly recommend for any Shakespeare or theatre enthusiasts.

What We Ate:
Monday: Mac and Cheese and hot dogs.

Tuesday: Chicken mole tacos. I made this mole sauce from Rick Bayless. It made so much mole sauce, that I froze three jars and I can’t wait to eat more. It makes for a super easy meal – poach chicken thighs for 15 minutes, shredded and tossed it with the mole sauce. Tortillas, home made pico de gallo, sour cream, and avocado.

Wednesday: Fried catfish sandwiches. The Husband cooked.

Thursday: Pork and eggplant stir fry with noodles. The husband Cooked. This was very tasty.

Friday: I was working so I had a salad at the work cafeteria. And a chocolste chip cookie. They have the best chocolate chip cookies at work. The family at home had take out pizza, wings, and watched Sleeping Beauty.

Saturday: Breakfast sandwiches, cucumbers, and fruit.

Sunday: Tortellini and gnocchi. Some with red sauce some plain.

Hope you have a lovely week. Has anything gone awry for you lately?

Weekly Recap + what we ate: tech week!

Saturday was a day off after three looong days in the theatre. It’s been an exhausting week. Luckily the rehearsal schedule lightens up a little bit after this, but I’m behind on putting the cues into my score, so I’ll have to spend several hours on that when we’re not on stage or in a lighting session.

view from my station out front. I have many buttons to push.

Being out and about on the day off was something of a shock. I feel as if I started prepping for this show in summer and yesterday, I went outside and had to blink twice because it is fall. Trees blazing with colour and light. Leaves barely clinging on to branches, their cohorts carpeting the ground. Yet also it’s unseasonably warm this week – in the 70s and 80s. Our choreographer, who is from England, asked me the other day if this warm temperature was normal, and I started to say, “No, it’s not normal,” but then I stopped because I can’t remember what is “normal” weather anymore. I mean I certainly don’t remember it being 80 degrees the week before Hallowe’en, but I don’t think we’ve had a truly cold Hallowe’en in ages. Not the cool nights that I remember growing up, of layers and sweatpants under Hallowe’en costumes.

Some Fun Things This Week:
-Soup Swap At Work! This was absolutely an awesome idea. Four of us brought soup – we had butternut squash soup, cream of mushroom, matzoh ball soup, and I made kale and sausage soup. Someone brought bread, and I picked up apples from the Farmer’s market that morning. Since there were so many soup options, we decided to serve ourselves soup in mugs so that we could each try all of the options without filling up on big bowls of any one soup. Then we started mixing the soups and putting the matzoh balls in different soups. We had lots of leftovers. Definitely goes on our “Let’s do it again” list for work.

-The 11 year old went on a two night overnight trip with her school. I didn’t know this beforehand, but every sixth grader has the opportunity to go on an overnight trip, called Outdoor Education. It’s not really camping because everyone stays in a cabin, but they do spend the day in the wood – suburban woods, but still, outside among trees – and roast marshmallows at night. She apparently had a great time, which surprised me a little because she has always rejected the idea of sleepaway camp. Anyhow, the first day she was gone, I got home form work at midnight and saw that she had left her lunch on the living room floor and I got so sad because day 1 lunch was the one meal that was not provided. And I proceeded to worry about her for the next two days. (Would I have been this upset about it if it hadn’t been tech week, and I had gotten a full night’s sleep? Maybe not.) When she came home, I asked her about it, and she said that she just got a PB&J from the cafeteria and it was fine. I’m so proud of her for figuring it out. Also – I completely forgot to pay the Outdoor Ed fee because the online system was down. I don’t know … the whole thing was somehow utterly mentally exhausting for me. The important thing, though… she had a good time and no one had to pick her up at midnight from the camp because she wanted to come home.

-This fun jigsaw puzzle that one of my co-workers brought in for our office. We may have stayed later than prudent to finish it one night…

What a perfect puzzle for a bunch of theatre nerds!

Some genius things this week:
1) My favorite farm stand is my go to source for apples this time of year. The guy at the register once told me that they have about thirty varieties of apples over the course of Fall. I love trying all the different varieties of apples, but I could never keep straight what I was bringing home. Well, recently, they’ve started putting out paper bags for customers to buy apples. Brilliant! I can write the names of the apples on the bag. I feel like I’ve just been able to up my apple tasting game.

Just one small section of the apples available

2) The use of technology so casually and easily in rehearsal continues to amaze me. I mean when I first started working at this company, we were still faxing things back and forth. In fact there are some ways we notate things on paperwork because it was the only way that it would be clear when the fax came through on the other end. I used to have to make really complicated drawings on paperwork using Word or Paint or what not to show the crew how things should be set up. (My friend could make the most amazing line drawings in Word. They were truly works of art.) But now, I can just take a picture and add it to the paperwork.

The other easy use of our phones/cameras these days is to make study videos of parts of rehearsal so that the director can review them at night and come in with new ideas the next day. It used to be if we wanted to make study videos, we would have to get a camera and a tripod. But now, everyone has a phone with a camera and lots of memory and it’s so easy just to use that. The other week we were making lots of study videos and I had to hold the camera and it got tedious – my arms got tired and shaky. I thought, “How amazing is this technology, and yet, how much are we not set up to use it like this in rehearsal the way we need?” I went looking for a way to rig something to hold the camera up so I wouldn’t have to do it. I ended up finding two book ends and just wedging the phone between them, but it still wasn’t perfect because the bookends kept sliding apart.

Then the fight choreographer started prowling around the room, as if on a mission. And he came back with two rubber bands and a pencil and set this up for me:

The combination of high tech and low tech made me giggle.

What didn’t go so well this week – as usual, home life suffers during tech week. I barely see the Husband or the kids and when I do, it’s very functional. Pack lunches, brush teeth, empty backpacks, fold laundry (just half a load)… Next tech week, I want to find ways to be more… human with my family. Not sure what that means yet… find moments of connection and not just function?

Tech week treats – For me, tech week is a combination of meticulously planned healthy meals and also unlimited snacking. Two indulgences in this latter category which I discovered this week, one sweet and one savory:

Nerds Gummy Clusters! Where have you been all my life? I like have a variety of flavor and texture combinations in my candy and these are the perfect blend of sweet and sour and crunchy and chewy. Apparently there’s Nerd rope too? That might be a little much for me – I like that I can just pop one or two of these in my mouth at a time.

And then buffalo wing pretzels. Buffalo wings are one of my favorite things – and these pretzels – crunchy, tangy, spicy – are like having wings without all the bones and stringy bits.

Grateful for (tech week edition):

– post its notes and removable stickers. This is how I mark up my book. Post Its and removable stickers in all colors so I can color code all the things. On the wall of the theatre there are stage manager prompt books from the 70s and 80s and it’s all pencil and ruler lines and impeccably neat handwriting. I think I did learn to use ruler and lines when i first started marking up a score, but now I use post its, 0.9 lead mechanical pencils, and Frixion pens.

– sunshine and warm weather. Being in a dark theatre for 12-14 hours a day, the few moments of sunshine that I was able to steal are divine. (There was one day where I worked straight through two meal breaks and did not see the sun at all and that made me sad.) I managed to carve out at least 10 minutes, sometimes 30, every day to walk outside and soak up the sun.

– my lunchbox. I have a special lunch box for tech that is the size of a small cooler. It’s huge. But it has to be so that I can pack all my food. I have a huge aversion to being hungry, so I always make sure I pack a lot of food to get me through tech. There is a cafeteria at work, and restaurants in walking distance, but I like the security of knowing what all I have planned to eat that day. The first few days are usually 12+ hours at the theatre so I pack lunch and dinner and two or three substantial snacks as well as a snack to eat on the way home. It all fits in my lunch box, along with an ice pack or two. (One of my co-workers has a tech meal planning spreadsheet – stage managers love a good spreadsheet.) Thank you lunch box for keeping me from having to think about what I’m going to eat. The fewer decisions I have to make once I’m at the theatre, the better.

-Sleep and Showers. Full disclosure – I’m not a “shower every day” person. I think I shower every two or three days. This is how bad it is – I lose count. But I have to say, after working a really rough rehearsal, getting home from work after midnight and waking up 5-6 hours later to do the breakfast/lunch/kids/school bus thing and then being at the theatre by 10am, I just feel groggy and dragging. I feel like I’ve been hit by a truck. On those mornings, a shower does wonders for me. It makes me feel like it’s a new day, I’ve washed off all the baggage and criticism of the night before and am ready to face whatever is thrown at me. I am grateful for the chance to shower and start fresh.

Looking forward to:

-opening night. Actually final dress rehearsal. I know that opening night is supposed to be the big night, but for me it’s really about the final dress rehearsal. In opera, the final dress rehearsal usually has an invited audience and sometimes it’s the first time we get to run the show all the way through, including bows. (Side bar on Bows … there is never time to stage bows and usually it’s just crammed in at the end of rehearsals, in the five minutes between when the orchestra is released and when the stage crew gets to go home. And some shows… “staging bows” falls by the wayside and the stage management team is handed a sheet of paper on final dress with the bow order and we are supposed to just make it happen. Bows always seem so simple, but there is still a little bit to it – you have to tell the singers which side of stage to enter from, which side to go to after the bow, what the order is, how many bows, where to stand at the end of bow so they don’t get hit by the curtain coming in…. Final dress is the first time we really get to run bows and it is ALWAYS awkward.) Anyhow, I’m looking forward to final dress and getting all the elements lined up line up properly. It’s where I really feel like I’ve gotten the show to the finish line. Opening night is the victory lap.

-Hallowe’en. (okay, Hallowe’en was last night, but I drafted this earlier in the week and didn’t get a chance to post. It happened. More of a recap later). Last year, I was working on Hallowe’en, but this year, the schedule worked out that I’m off. Of course, Hallowe’en falls during tech week, which meant that I was up at 6am assembling one kid’s costume before going to the theatre, and hot gluing another kid’s costume ten minutes before we were out the door. Thankfully the third kid just wants something from our dress up bin. I hadn’t planned on carving pumpkins this year because of the tech schedule, but at the last minute, our neighbors invited us over for a pumpkin carving party so we had jack o’lanterns after all. usually we design our own jack o’lanterns, but the neighbors had some cool stencils and the kids really liked them, so I carved then ones they wanted. I thought they turned out really well.

-sleep. Because it’s been tech and 14 hour days at the theatre and still having to get up in time to pack lunches and get the kids to school. The Husband has been great and telling the kids to let me sleep in until 7am.

What We Ate – I have nothing for this. The Husband, as always during tech week, held down the fort, and he made dinner all week. I was gone every night so I didn’t even get to eat any of his yummy cookings. I think there was broccoli and pasta one night, there was an eggs night. Of course, pizza and a movie. He did make a pickle pizza, which I had leftovers of, and it was very tasty. I ate mostly leftovers, except for the one day when I was at the theatre on Farmer’s Market day and I got, in addition to Kimchi, an eggplant parmesan sandwich.

As for family movie night – I heard they watched Ghostbusters. I’m a little jealous they didn’t wait for me, but it is very seasonally appropriate.

Stage Management thoughts in real life: “That’s just the show they get”

I was talking to a dancer in rehearsal the other day about onstage mishaps. She was telling me about a moment during the last show we worked on together, when she was in the middle of a huge fight scene, and her skirt fell off. She couldn’t get it re-fastened, and spent the rest of the scene clutching her skirt to her body while trying to scratch someone’s eyes out.

Hearing her story brought back many memories. I’ve definitely had my share of onstage mishaps:

-There was the time that I was doing a show and a giant chalkboard was supposed to fly in from above during a crucial moment of a scene. Well, we had been doing a different show the night before and in order for the set pieces of that show to fit, they had to fasten the giant chalkboard from my show off so that it wouldn’t swing. Welp… after the last show, the crew forgot to untie it for our show. So when I called the cue for the Giant chalkboard… nothing happened! There the baritone is standing with a giant piece of chalk, looking up, wondering if this huge piece of scenery is going to come in, all the while singing this very fast French patter music. The baritone, who is honestly one of the nicest people I’ve ever worked with, was so confused and a little bit angry.

-One show a the soprano was supposed to sit in a chaise to sing her big famous aria. Well in the scene previous, another character was thrown into the chaise in a fight, and the force of him collapsing in the the chaise shattered it. Afterwards he told me that he tried to figure out how to put it back together while staying in character, but it was futile. No one was going to be sitting in that chaise. The soprano ended up singing her big aria about love and life leaning against a desk.

– There was the recital I stage managed, of a husband and wife opera singing couple where the husband, who wasn’t feeling very well, walked offstage in the middle of their duet. “I can’t,” he muttered to himself, leaving his wife and the pianist standing on stage and the audience completely befuddled. We took a quick fifteen minute pause. The wife and the pianist looked through all the music they had with them and cobbled together a solo recital program. It still ended up being an evening of beautiful music. The husband and wife singers are no longer married.

-There was the time when the clarinetist for a show thought that the performance was at 7pm when it was at 2pm. By the time we realized he was missing he was too far away to come in for the show, so the conductor and the pianist re-orchestrated the entire show to cover for the missing clarinet.

– Last spring, when I had to step in and call the show for a colleague, I accidentally left the lighting channel turned off during a crucial moment. (The lighting channel is the headset channel that I use to talk to the light board operator. Usually I have different channels to talk to different departments so that people don’t have to listen to all the different departmental conversations at once.) Anyhow, I left the lighting channel off accidentally, so when I called for the stage to go dark so we could execute a scene shift, the light board op couldn’t hear me and didn’t take the light cue. So the stage did not go dark, and the audience got to witness the somewhat awkward sight of the crew coming onstage to push scenery around.

Luckily these incidents did not involve injury, just lots of awkwardness and a bit of fast thinking of how to triage the situation.

As I was talking to the dancer about her skirt incident, she mentioned that her boyfriend had come to see the show and he said he thought it seemed like she was holding on to her skirt awfully tight. We had a good laugh about how sometimes things happen onstage and the show isn’t perfect. It’s very very rarely perfect, in fact. Often even though it is mortifying or stressful at the time, it makes for a good story afterward. She said that she felt bad that her boyfriend didn’t get to see the perfect show.

“You know,” I told her, “It’s live theatre. That was just the show that they got that night.”

I think that’s one of the beautiful things about live theatre – it’s not something that is to be experienced the same way over and over again like a movie might be. Of course we aim for consitency, and for safety’s sake that’s the goal. At the same time, things happen, things that you can’t predict, even though you can learn and prevent them from happening again. (putting an extra stitch in that skirt hook, writing a Post-it in my book that says, “Lighting channel ON”…) Friday night’s show is not going to be the same as Sunday afternoon’s show, and that’s okay. For Friday night’s audience, that is the show that they get to see; that’s the unique experience that they get to have.

And as I said that to the dancer, I realized that this is true of life too. We can plan and plan and anticipate events, but sometimes things happen, and this is just the moment/day/month/life that we get. It might not be what we rehearsed, but it’s still can be a very fine moment.