Would it be theatre without a little drama? Our lead female ingenue can not sing. Nor speak. On the day of our preview performance with a paying audience. Her vocal chord hemorrhaged and any sound peeped could leave her facing surgery and an altered career path. What do we do (in the next few hours?!?) with a lead role that can not sing nor speak?!?

The show must go on! That's not a silly, meaningless catch phrase for theatre aficionados, but a very real ordeal that live performers have to face and triumph through in order to see our baby thrive, in order to offer celebratory distraction for the people in the seats, in order to not have to refund five hundred $70 tickets.

In all my years of professional performance, from Detroit to Chicago, from NYC to San Francisco, I have never ever actually encountered this scenario - day of first paying audience, a lead actress can not perform her role - with no swings, no understudies and no plan Bs whatsoever. Seriously: wow.

A woman, living in San Diego was contacted and drove up to LA with only a phone call's notice, arriving at 5pm. Dinner is at 6. Curtain is at 8. With only one hour of rehearsal, this woman familiarized herself with our orchestra, with our staged timing, and sat in the dark on the side of the stage singing and speaking every line while our broken hearted and now mute ingenue mimed - not lip synched, but mimed her show. The audience loved it. And audibly enjoyed their evening at the funniest musical comedy ever written.

It was crazy weird for us on stage, of course! What a stress day, what are we going to do for tomorrow's opening nite when Jason Alexander, our artistic director, is in attendance, along with all our loved ones at the opening nite after-party? What will we do for the rest of the run? Will Annie be replaced? Oh, please let her vocal chords feel better more quickly and effortlessly than expected. Blessed be.

I'm cross eyed at this point, honestly. We've put this show in front of an audience after only 13 days rehearsal. My life exists inside a darkened imagination land. No light enters in and no identity but that of VIBRATA, my character - Tonya Kay, the performer - survives. I do not have time to do my laundry, run my company, chat with my best girlfriend or get a well-deserved massage. I exist only in the Reprise theatre at this point and it's going to get worse before it gets better. There is a day off in sight one week away. It will be my second this month. With a possible new performer entering the production last minute, surely even more rehearsals will be called.

I do what any exhausted, well intentioned triple threat would do: come home, throw down a few lines in my online journal and make myself the one meal I get to eat today: purple kale, parsley, sea spaghetti, local raw walnut oil and pink salt. It is essential that I take excellent care of myself, especially right now. May I wake feeling greened, alkalized, nourished and rested. I've been working on my 6-pack during this run and ... taking excellent care of myself is the only reason I haven't bottomed out, burnt out or phoned in. I'm present, available and my 6 pack is rockin', too.

Thank goodness today was Tuesday, the day of the week ruled by the planet Mars, so full of determination to triumph and win. I seem to always feel really solid on Tuesdays. Something about this triumph works with my outlook on life, I guess. It certainly worked today with the cast and crew of A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum. I still don't know how, but the show went on!

4 comments Links to this post