A Star is Born

So, yeah... Bad Dame. I can't help it. You see, I knit. The cast has discovered that I knit, and that I knit fingerless gloves. So, they want me to make fingerless gloves for them. I've made two pairs already, mostly done with a third, and have three more commissioned. That's right, they're paying for them. Anyway, between those, my day job and the show itself, I'm a little busy.
Excuses out of the way, I'll get back to what I wanted to talk about in the first place. (But first, met up with the Pick Up Artist last week, and despite getting a flat tire in the process had a VERY enjoyable evening).

Slings and Arrows. Right? If you love theatre, you have to see it. No choice. It is exactly what theatre artists go through to make a show happen. All of the egos and eccentricities, the money and the lack thereof, the failures and frustrations, and the incredible highs, and the drinking. That's what theatre is, folks.


Set at the fictional New Burbage Shakespeare Festival, Slings and Arrows follows Geoffrey Tennent, the new Artistic Director who is being haunted by the old one, Oliver Welles. There are three seasons, and each season is six episodes. Each season focuses on a different major work of Shakespeare, although you do see glimpses into one or two other productions as well. First season is Hamlet, second season is Macbeth, third is King Lear. That's all the synopsis you're getting because you need to see it.

So my point in bringing this up? Well, because in the 2nd season, the understudy has to go on for the lead at the last minute. Now up until this point, I had enjoyed the show, laughed at how accurate it was. But when that understudy went on, I marveled at how brilliantly they captured that feeling. It happens that way, with everyone watching from the wings to send support, and maybe to snicker, but mostly to watch something new and exciting. The way dressers are sewing an understudy into costume. The way the scene partners push and pull them in the right direction or telegraph hidden messages of encouragement so the audience can't see it. The way the whole show changes with a new energy and a new life. And that's why I do theatre. Theatre is NEVER about when everything is perfect. That's boring. We live for the challenge, we love to rush to save the day and we love when the shit hits the fan and somehow the show goes on.

My favorite moment in live theatre so far was when the woman playing Dolly in Hello, Dolly! at the Village Theatre lost her voice halfway through the first act. She literally couldn't make a sound. Ms. Kotula, her understudy, was already in the show playing a different character, so we stopped the show for fifteen minutes, threw her in costume as she was running lines hurriedly. We restarted, with brand new Dolly. That was the first time Ms. Kotula had ever done the role in front of an audience. Hardly any of us remembered what happened, because everyone was concentrating so hard on her, but I do remember when she came down the stairs of the Harmonia Gardens for the title song, it was magic. And you can't explain it to anyone who wasn't there just what it felt like, though you can try.

Slings and Arrows made that possible, at least, a little bit.