The Night in Which We Did Not Have an Abundance of Good Luck
Picture a faded greenish-brown textured stage with pieces of carpet interspersed among the traditional paint to give the setting a more lifelike quality to represent the boundless American west. Add two representations of log cabins, 6 painfully obnoxious (from a tech’s perspective. They were actually very visually pleasing) ground rows, and a cyclorama flanking upstage to represent the expansive western sky. Add one director, 5 actors, 8 crew members, and 4 ushers and you are caught up to where our story begins. To give you a brief description, Abundance details the lives of two young women, Bess Johnson and Macon Hill and their husbands, Jack Flan and Will Turner and their journey through hardship, prosperity, and the underlying truth of friendship. I, Shannon, will be telling this story from my perspective on that one fateful performance when everything just seemed to go wrong.
The point of attack occurs at 6 pm on November 15. The crew is setting up the stage, my co-stage manager is meticulously organizing her prop table, and the actors are perfecting their make up, costumes, and hair, and, every so often, interjecting with comments about the day, the costumes that tend to pose problems, and how they wish they could skip the last scene before intermission (for reasons that will only make sense to those involved). Everything appears to be going perfectly. I am constantly pacing back and forth from backstage left, down the hall, out to the lobby to the box office when I quickly turn around and retrace my steps while the house manager asks me for the 5th time why I am in the lobby. And then I repeat this. I appear more nervous and excited tonight because my parents are coming. 7:30 approaches and we open the house. I am not the only person nervous tonight. Macon’s parents are coming as well and she is concerned that the fires California always seem to be plagued with will prevent them from arriving. Her parents arrive well before the curtain goes up. I am happy for her. However, mine do not. I do not like this and become more agitated each moment. At 7:53, 5 minutes before places, I receive a phone call telling me that my parents will be late. I instantly become frazzled and disappointed but am aware that the show must go on. Minutes pass and soon the clock strikes 8. I know I must start the show. I slowly climb to the booth and join my two comrades who live in the lighting booth with me. Sounds go, lights go, and…I miss my cue. The very first lighting cue. Here comes the climax of the show. Although a missed lighting cue should easily be forgotten, the sense of tension in the booth leads us to believe that this is just the beginning of something. Per usual, Bess comes on stage with her characteristic frightened but curious look and takes a seat. Soon after Macon enters. She is empty handed. This is not supposed to happen. Suddenly everyone on headset goes wild because we are full aware that she is supposed to carry on a plate of biscuits which are really the beginning of their friendship. In essence--no biscuits, no friendship, no play. I then spend the next 5 minutes sending as many good vibes to the actors and constantly talking to myself telling me that they are extremely capable and will find a way to improvise this scene. By this point, the light operator and sound operator are looking at me like I am crazy and have stopped responding to anything I say. I am flustered again because not only am I concerned that my friends are terrified on stage but I also have no idea where my next light cue is going to happen. While on this is happening, the actors are successfully continuing onstage. By some miracle the scene finishes (with plenty of improvisation, random entrances, and powerful good luck chanting happening in the booth). The overall feeling is that that was certainly a terrifying moment for a theatrical production but we survived and the show went on. Little did we know that there was one more trick to completely throw us off guard. I call for the lights to come up for the next scene. We see Jack cross upstage towards stage right and reach out for a rope which will pull on a set piece that represents his cabin (it connects with a small platform that expands their playing space). Halfway through pulling the cabin on, it suddenly stops. I can see a panicked, yet masked well, look on Jack’s face. He is aware that this piece is essential for at least 3 scenes in this show. Once again every goes crazy on headset trying to solve this problem. He makes the wise decision of leaving the set piece halfway. Stage hands are trying to figure out what happened, I am once again praying that the actors aren’t losing their minds, and the poor guys in the booth with me are shaking their heads and trying not to get caught up in the pandemonium. The moment of release comes when we finally reach intermission. I am able to go backstage, give hugs, tell the actors I am extremely proud of the work they did onstage and glad they remained composed. We then continue the show with no mistakes.
(If I actually directed this show, I would also include numerous flashbacks to rehearsals to give context and backstage. It would also provide for some entertaining moments).
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