Acting is my Crack!

Three performances in one day! The morning started off with my alarm going off at 6:30AM so that I could get dressed and to the theatre by 7:30AM for fight call. We ran fight call, got our makeup, hair, and costumes on and then ate a great breakfast provided by the Guild, and we were off and running. We had to cut down the show so that it wouldn't run over 2 hours, so that was a challenge, but the pacing of the show was great because of it. The two day performances were back to back, and full of Jr. High and High School students. I have to say, they were the two best crowds we've had so far! What a rush to perform in front of them. What's even better for me is that my first experience with live theatre was when I was 15 years old at the old Hale Centre Theatre. I saw "See How They Run" with my peers from High School and was never the same since. I can only hope that our performance has inspired even one of those kids to dream about performing on stage someday.

We had an hour between the first and second show to eat lunch, and then we were back at it. My step-son Dante was in the audience for this one. It was his first time seeing me perform on stage, and he LOVED IT! (I have to say, I love text messaging. During intermission I was backstage sending texts to him and my wife about how they were loving the performance so far.) That audience was by far the best! They cheered at all the right places and laughed and clapped in spots we didn't expect. One thing we knew for certain, they loved the kissing and stabbing. We were going to try to put a kiss and a stab in every scene, but that just didn't work out. Didn't matter, they still loved it, you could tell by the loud ovation they gave at curtain call.

After that we had a break from about 2:30 to 6, so I went home, ran some errands with the wife and then took a small nap. When I got back to the theatre, the gal in the picture above (Rosalie Bertrand) was just buzzing. I'm not sure if she had too little sleep, or too much caffeine, or was overdosing on adrenalin, but I can honestly say I've never seen her that way. She wasn't the only one either, I'm just glad I got in a nap!

The third performance, we found out that one of the major cuts we made is going to remain throughout the run. It was kind of a bummer because it contained one of my favorite fight scenes, but I can see why they decided to keep it cut. It really does slow the show down, and it's kind of redundant. So if you saw the performance before Wednesday, then you saw it all! If not, you really didn't miss too much, it was really just to show the audience how cool our stage is. (just kidding Kacey)

My wife's Grandparents were in the audience for the evening show. Of course the crowd was less energetic than the day shows, but that was to be expected. I think it kinda slowed some of us down because we finished the first Act 7 minutes later than we usually do. We managed to pick it up in Act 2 though, and finished ahead of where we normally do. (a big chunk of that time was because we cut the montage out of Act 2) A great performance nonetheless, and my Grandparents enjoyed the show!

When I got home, I was buzzing from all the adrenaline my body had endured throughout the day. I was literally shaking until Midnight. It was like telling a junky that they can have 3 free hits of smack, and then they take them all in the same day. I have to admit, Acting is my Crack! I'm addicted to performing! That was just AWESOME! It definitely goes up there among the best days of my life.

Today I'm experiencing a kind of hangover. I've had a headache all day long. Not sure if it's from lack of sleep, or my body just sapped from the adrenal glands riding overdrive, or if reality is setting in on the two latest losses of life in my family. I dedicated the second performance to my Grandma Lovato before curtain. I would have loved for her to see it, I'd like to think that she did.