The Joys Of Live Theatre

Last night started off as a not-very-eventful night at the Theatre: My volunteers arrived on time, we started allright, I ordered some Chinese food to pick-up, and I went ahead and seated my latecomers.

And then, at 8:35 P.M., it happened.

One of the Assistant Stage Managers (ASM from this point) hurried out and asked me where Eliza’s understudy was seated. I told him (not in an easily accessible seat) and we needed to get her immediately because our Eliza wasn’t feeling well and the Stage Manager wasn’t sure if we were going to cancel or continue if she didn’t feel well enough to go on. So, the understudy came up to me and asked what was going on and I took her into the green room and I said, “you might be going on” and she was in shock. The SM then went on the mike and called for a hold up and got all actors off the stage while she talked with the director to figure out what we should do next. Then I offered to go and get the understudy’s bag and purse from her chair and, as I walked through the theatre, I felt all 160+ eyes on me as I grabbed her big old bag and just hurried out. At that point, I knew we had to make some sort of announcement, so I grabbed my Box Office manager and we talked to the SM and we figured that we were going to hold for a little while due to the leading lady’s not feeling well and we offered up complimentary drinks to our patrons.

In the midst of patrons exiting into the lobby, I got the call from our SM that we were to cancel the performance and exchange all tickets, so I made my next onstage speech. The audience was v. calm and sympathetic towards our leading lady and wishing that she was feeling better as they left and, for the next twenty minutes, I was keeping people calm in the lobby and answering questions and taking names for the BO manager if they didn’t want to wait in line, while the understudy was getting prepared for possibly performing tomorrow.

The lobby cleared relatively quickly after that, and I closed up shop while the BO manager finished up in the office. As I turned off the concessions area lights, I had a call on my cellphone- it was the Chinese place asking about my order and picking it up. It was 9:25 P.M.

After I picked up my (v. late) dinner, the BO manager & I headed over to Munsen’s other job and she was surprised to see us as we told her what happened. After Munsen got off work, we met up at The Office and had a few beers to restore order to the chaos.