1. It's a recurring problem with attempts to put on big shows in this town that, for various reasons involving availability and hire costs, it's never possible to retain any of the big stages for more than a week, including bump-in and bump-out, so you end up rehearsing for months on end to go on stage for three evenings and a matinee. (The first big show I was involved in here was
Kiss Me, Kate, which in a striking irony has a scene where a character's attempt to spin his show as successful is deflated by another character pointing out that it folded after only four performances.) Another recurring problem is that it's increasingly difficult to find people willing to get involved, with the whole "give up five months of your life for four performances" thing being one of the reasons why. In the past, that hasn't bothered me so much, but looking back on all the things I've had to pass over these last five months, I might be more reluctant in future. I suspect it will end up depending, as it usually does, on what the next big show turns out to be.
2. In other news,
The Duchess of Coolgardie has closed after the usual four performances. The first couple were a bit shaky, for one reason and another, but everything clicked together for the third and by the end of the fourth we were kind of sad that we had to stop just as we were all getting the hang of it. (But also relieved, see above re: five months of our lives we're never getting back.) Playing in front of an audience changed the dynamic of the performance in ways I hadn't anticipated; the audiences were encouraged to get into the melodrama spirit and cheer and boo and go "awww" at the appropriate moments, and it took me a few shows to get a feel for where to set the level of the performance and how to fit the dialogue around the audience reactions. I may have had it especially hard because, as the villain, pretty much everything I said or did set off a fresh wave of boos. I do have to admit that some of the audience reactions were entertaining; I particularly liked a moment when my soft-hearted target was soliloquizing that, although by now she knew me to be a villain, she couldn't stand back and let me die alone and wretched - at which a voice from the audience called out "Yes you can!"
3. I had the usual opening-week nightmare the night after the last dress rehearsal, in the version that's become usual where I recognise it immediately and am not actually bothered by it. But then I had it again the night after the first performance - back to full strength, in a way it hasn't been for years. And then I had it again a couple more times the Monday and Tuesday after the show closed. Maybe it's been rejuvenated by this show being in a theatre I haven't worked in before, or maybe this show has been unusually stressful (which is not an implausible theory). But I kind of wonder, particularly since I kept having it after the show was over, whether there's some other stressor involved that's just been borrowing the shape of the opening-week nightmare because that happened to be ready to hand.
4. Rehearsals have begun for the Christmas Show. Not sure I have anything particular to say about that.
5. Spent last night hanging out with friends, chatting, eating pizza, and, at what felt like the appropriate moment, breaking out
Story War, the storytelling card game where the cards have whatever powers you can persuade the referee to accept. This was my second attempt to introduce the game to this group of friends; the first attempt went somewhat poorly, I thought, due to a number of factors (including Earth Hour happening in the middle, which made the cards hard to read), but enough people had been there and had pleasant memories of it to be prepared to give it a second shot. It went a lot better this time, especially after several people dropped out and we switched from playing the team game to the one-on-one game. Partly that's got to be because we were left with the people who were really getting into the game, but it's been my experience that (at least in the context where I've usually played Story War) the team game generally doesn't go as well; on the face of it, it isn't that much more complicated than the one-on-one game, but it seems to be just that bit too much. This was the first time I broke out the expansion pack with the cards based on internet memes, and I apparently didn't shuffle very well, because we saw pretty much the entire cast of
Bravest Warriors over the course of the night - which led to some wild flaily improvisation because none of us had the faintest idea who these people were. (I only know now because I noticed they seemed to share an art style, and looked them up on the internet after I got home.) One of my friends decided to post a
running commentary on Twitter.
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