Every once in a while I miss the high of being onstage, in character, with every eye in the audience on me and every ear hanging onto my every word. It's probably because I'm the oldest, and for the first three years of my life, each moment I was onstage, surrounded by my devoted audience (parents, aunts, uncles, grandparents, strangers in grocery stores).
But I thought of a hilarious theater memory that is not recorded anywhere but my brain. It was my junior year of high school, and I was in a Pleasant Grove community production of Quilters, which is a seven woman show about pioneers and... yes, quilts. It's pretty much as horrible as it sounds like it is. It's definitely on the list of free musicals to perform, so it's done a lot in theaters without money.
Closing night--we have cameras filming our performance so we can keep it on DVD forever. I was particularly looking forward to really studying myself, examining my craft. After all, at the time I was certain I would be a professional actress, always on the stage. Blech.
So, the cameras are rolling, the curtain goes up... and the other six actresses on the stage and I exchange looks of horror. Our lines are barely heard, even with the excellent microphones and sound system at the Grove Theater--all muffled by some old biddy in the crowd with the most horrendous smoker's cough of all time.
We could barely keep straight faces onstage. Every time we spoke, there it was, floating above every other noise: "Hack, hack, hack."
Needless to say, our DVD was ruined. As was our hoedown.
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2 comments:
ahh, I do remember seeing you in that show! I'd forgotten all about it until just now. Fortunately I was NOT there the night of the hacker, phew!
and I feel your pain. remember how Dustin taped over my cast's performance of Much Ado? tears. forever.
Pretty sure I saw this with Lorraine. If I remember correctly, the last line of the monologue that was all your own was, "It's real slow going." You were sewing a quilt. Must have done a pretty good job if I've remembered it this long
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