A Jinx, a few hormones, and a coloful mime

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An email I sent out to fellow tour actor directors of our recent adventures:

I've been wanting to write for all the past few weeks, but Megan and
my stories really don't seem to compare to what's been flying around
the tadster board. Sure we had the week of the missing Kaa, where all
of Kaa (save for the head) decided to not show up for their rehearsal.
(Quick side note: We've started casting the head of Kaa as age 13 and
up, and calling them to the first rehearsal, with the leads, so that
they get a heads up before the rest of Kaa arrives the next day. Works
miracles. Highly suggest it.)

And of course there was time we jinxed ourselves, by remarking how
amazing our tour was going and how lucky we were nothing had gone
seriously wrong yet, only the next day to have a monkey, who had been
amazing all week long, go psychotic on us backstage (my diagnonsis -
turrets, schizophrenia and mulitiple personalities, all mixed up
together with a twist of lime). And of course when one monkey goes
crazy, it's contagious and all monkey (all 17 others of them) go
crazy. Monkey See, Monkey Do. I had to literally hold him like a baby,
cradled in my arms, for the entire show. I know, I know, against MCT
policy, don't touch the kids. But had I let him go, he would have
brought the set crashing down on the rest of the cast. And I don't
think MCT thinks to highly upon smashed wolves either.

For those same three performances, the week that would not end,
(luckily the monkey was only in the first show, after we talked with
his mom) we had at least two bloody noses, one Kaa and one Hathi
throwing up, one wolfy hyperventilating, and Megan, playing Baloo this
week, feeling ill herself- throwing up 10 minutes before the show. We
made it through the shows, thinking we were safe. But just as I began
to take down the set, a wolf comes running up on stage saying
something about another bloody nose. Turns out, a cast member after
changing out of her costume decided to jump to the horizontal pipes in
the middle of the dressing room, missed, and smacked her nose on the
counter top or some other surface. She ended up going to the emergency
room with her mom, though we never found what or how serious the
actual injury was.

And after all that, driving quickly as we could away from the cursed
town (under the speed limit of course) we still couldn't
help but say, "Could have been worse." Hows that for a positive
attitude- as well as not learning from recent experience and knowing
when to leave our luck well enough alone.

What amazes me, is after those three insane performance (backstage),
having audience members come up and say how amazing the shows were.
I'm blown away by how behind that thin layer of curtain can be utter
chaos. But the audience, sitting naively in their seats, has no idea,
and to them the show went off without a quirk. Crazy. It's a mystery.

During another recent week we've had to deal with something we
haven't dealt with yet: Hormones. I don't know how we've avoided it
for so long. Our 14 year old Akela, macking on the entirety of the
wolf pack (all girls...oops) and Megan as well. Even though his
girlfriend is also in the cast. Such drama. Reminds me of high school
theatre.

Thats all for now,

Excited to see you all in a few weeks,

-Zachary (and Megan)

P.S. Ah yes the quotes of the week:

The scene: Megan and I doing Creative Dramatics for a preschool class
Zachary: Does anyone here know what a mime is?
Kids: Red! Blue! Purple! Green!
Megan: No no no, a MIME. It's not a color.
Kids: *pause*
Kids: Yellow! Pink!

Same workshop, kindergarden class:

Megan: We're going to put on a play with two things you have with you
all the time. What do you have with you all the time?
Kids: Pencils, my teacher, my clothes, my baby blanket
Zachary: No... something you have with you aaall the time...
Morose kid: Your SOUL.

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Comments

[CK]

HAHA. I can just picture the little 5-year-old sitting on in the corner whittling sticks with which to poke the other children at recess...