Area Premiere: A Mini Serial. Post 2: Opening Weekend

In Which "Delightfully Over-The-Top" and "Not-So-Delighfully Over-The-Top" are Used To Describe Dan in the Same Evening

Bam-bam-bam-bam. Four shows in four days, following the dress rehearsal. Attendance has been up, and we even had a man who is probably the pre-eminent "theatre blogger" in the Twin Cities show up for night one and praise us somewhat lavishly in a review that just came out yesterday. If want to take time to read the entire article, he actually describes the play and just about everything that went into it, while heaping compliments on just about everything and everyone involved. If you don't want to take time to read through, I'll just note that my performance was described as being "...delightfully over-the-top." Thank goodness for that particular choice of adverb. But anyway - everything in the first night's show could not have gone much better. Huge crowd (49 patrons - we had to add chairs from our standard arrangment, which is somewhat smaller with the new, expanded stage and some somewhat reduced sightlines), lots of laughs, and I was very humbled by a lot of very kind things people said at the opening night reception, following the show.

That is - I must assume I felt that way at the reception, because I do not remember the hours after 10 pm very clearly.

I'm going to make a long and messy story very short and simply say - WHY O WHY do I not have the ability to just kind of party?

And I'm going to follow it up by saying that my hangover I had the next day was beyond agonizing. To the point that, after I had suffered through a day of a severe chills (yes, friends, chills), and probably my seventh fit of vomiting (no exaggeration) at 4:30 pm (2nd night show approaching fast with a 6:30 call-time), I actually had begun to wonder if I was maybe actually suffering, instead, from a bout of food poisoning. (I happened to posit that possible theory in the presence of my fellow actors that evening - while strategically placing plastic bags backstage - and it since become the stuff of legends, with the term "food poisoning" always being accompanied by requisite "finger quotes").

Funny also (only in retrospect) as I was curled up in front of a space heater, shaking, at 5:45 or so when Sharon came in and asked how late I'd wait till I'd decide whether to call someone.

"Call someone?" (I shot upright) "What are you talking about?!?"

"About whether you can do the show."

"And what do you suppose they'd do if I said I couldn't do the show."

"Cancel it?"

She's so cute.

Aaaanyway, the food poisoning had worked its way out of my body in time for the Sunday matinee. Crowds (from Friday through the Monday pay-what-you-can-night) have gotten steadily smaller (par for the course; they'll pick up again for the final two weekends), while I have felt my performance get more comfortable and "on."

For now, I'm looking forward to a solid final couple of weeks of the show and a little more recreational discretion in my remaining decades of This Life.