Letters to Holly

Monday, February 5

Day Thirty-Five: Dinner and A Show

Brick has a line in Act III when he walks back onstage and pours himself a drink. He doesn't realize for a while that everyone has watched him silently. He looks around and says "I'm sorry. Anyone else?" It's a small joke line. Today, we arrive to find he has given us all small Maker's mark whiskey bottles with his line taped to them. It's a good idea.

Your Sis and I eat dinner at The Noodle Shop a few blocks over from the theatre, and I overhear the waiter talking to another patron about Brick. I pipe up to say I'm in the show, and the waiter, it turns out, has worked with Brick and our director at the Asheville theatre. We trade some shop notes during the dinner. Your Sis is catching Romeo and Juliet tonight, and we have a dessert date for after our shows.

I put in my order for the official pictures. Only three: two of Gooper and one cast photo. I brought The Power Of One, a South African novel with me tonight. The stage manager assures us backstage that the stereo feedback problem won't happen again.

It's a big and responsive crowd tonight. Maybe our best yet. One of Mae's real daughters demands I add to the art bulletin board. She's slapped up a dozen drawings, and I only have two. I post up a Spider-Man sketch and given him some Gooper dialogue. She also assures me later that the magnets can count as new art. During Act II, Victoria has to leave suddenly, and she's replaced by one of teh backstage assistants. I show him what page we're on (the first time Ive looked at the script in about a week). About ten minutes later, Big Mama fails to make her third entrance of the act. The offstage managers can't leave to find out what's wrong. I walk around the green room, and I don't hear anything amiss. Sounds like she's in the dressing room. She just missed her cue. The actors onstage handle it smoothly.

Act III goes much better than last night, and the crowd is awfully appreciative during the curtain call. You can tell who has family in the crowd when they take their bow. Maggie, Mama, and Daddy walk out, and the audience seems to double in size. Even if it weren't family and friends out there, they deserve that kind of response. They worked hard tonight. The curtain closes on us, and Mama tells Daddy and Brick how she missed her cue. All I can think of is "just one more time." Then I change quickly to meet my honey for cake and beer.


Previous entires
Day One: Reading It Through
Day Two: Act Two
Day Three: Reading Act Two
Day Four: Talking It Through
Day Five: Blocking Act Two
Day Six: Act Two Redux
Day Seven: Reading Act Three
Day Eight: The Da Gooper Code
Day Nine: The Laying On of Hands
Day Ten: Pictures and Pages
Day Eleven: Onstage
Day Twelve: Memory
Day Thirteen: The Quickie
Day Fourteen: The Lines
Day Fifteen: Act III Anxiety
Day Sixteen: Let's Just Get It Right
Day Seventeen: Molding the Gooper
Day Eighteen: Goopercalypse
Day Nineteen: There Is Not A Doctor In The House
Day Twenty: Back to Words
Day Twenty-One: Getting Technical
Day Twenty-Two: We're Ready When You Are
Day Twenty-Three: Socks
Day Twenty-Four: Our First Audience
Day Twenty-Five: Calamity
Day Twenty-Six: Opening Night
Day Twenty-Seven: Second Night
Day Twenty-Eight: The Show You Saw
Day Twenty-Nine: Brush-Up
Day Thirty: Back to Work
Day Thirty-One: A Spreading Plague
Day Thirty-Two: Cast Party
Day Thirty-Three: The Cast Gift
Day Thirty-Four: Slapstick

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

deleted comments? SPAM?

Gregory said...

Yeah, I'm getting da spams.