Lessons from the Theatre in not Being a Whiny Bitch

Last week was hellish. I have the stress tolerance of... I don't know. Which animal doesn't respond well to stress? Whichever doesn't, I am it. My traditional second-night meltdown didn't happen. Still, The King and I has been my worst show so far. I say that about every show, I know. But this one was fraught with battery death and mic malfunctions and oh God Lauren and I nearly killed Skylar, the female lead, in a freak lattice accident. Even Matt, the bottomless pit from sophomore English and now the eponymous King, had to ask Buddha for assistance. Onstage. Because he forgot a line. In his defense, it was hilarious.

First, though, a cute story!

Colby and I were assigned to the right wing: Colby ran the C lightboard, and I stage managed/ran the board while Colby was onstage. This is a great arrangement because Colby and I are best friends, we calm each other and dance around with mustaches backstage. One of the elementary actresses became convinced that he and I were in a relationship because we dance, hug lots, and I... may or may not have told her the first night I attended rehearsal that he and I were in love. We were backstage prancing about to "Hello Young Lovers," and she came up to us, grinning impishly and her little index finger mere inches from our faces: "You two are in a relationship!"

Colby and I gawked at each other in momentary shock. The usual assumption is that we're either in a relationship or one/both of us is/are homosexual, but it was still unexpected. First thing to come to mind: "Colby likes boys!!!"

"YOU'RE GAY!?"

Fox entered the wing at the end of that exclamation, and Colby promptly began to dig his grave.

--

I could list and thoroughly describe every mishap that occurred during The King and I's run, but I don't really want to. The only event worth mentioning was the second night's rendition of "Small House of Uncle Thomas." Colby was in this number, so I ran the light board. I don't recall if the lights had been wonky earlier that night, but for whatever reason, my lights would not come up. Frustrated, I was speaking with my director when my headset died. I frantically changed my batteries, cursing when my newly-cut nails couldn't quickly remove the batteries from the headset. I eventually managed, but one of my lights, a spotlight targeting Buddha (I made Buddha, by the way. 'Mazing stagecraft skillzzzzzz.), refused to function.

Setting up the next evening, my director called me over to the board and mentioned that I didn't have the actual Buddha light plugged in the previous night. But I did, and I tried to explain this. This went back and forth for several minutes, and I was just piiiiiiiiiiissed. I felt entirely responsible for many of the things that had gone wrong the past two nights, but I was certain I'd had the grey Buddha cord plugged in. I have poor word choice when stressed, and I apparently started something with "No, I'm telling you..." which is bad. Very bad. We'll come back to this later.

As the audience is filtering in, I take a playbill from Nina, a lighting technician/the stagecraft goddess. I had forgotten to acquire one the previous two nights, as I leafed through, I noticed two things:

1. BLATANT GRAMMATICAL ERROR OH MY GOD "WIFES." HOW DID YOU COME UP WITH "WIFES." THIS IS NOT OKAY.
2. Emily, the other stage manager and I, were listed as "Assistant Stage Managers" to Damian, who had a minor role and spent most of the time backstage in the left wing with Emily.

I wished to simply rip the playbill to shreds after that. It's nothing against Damian; I do quite like Damian, and he is my theatre superior. I simply felt demoted. Emily, Damian, and I all busted our asses to ensure that show ran as smoothly as it could: I am not a fucking assistant, and neither were they! Contemplating further, though, I felt that maybe I didn't deserve the title of stage manager because I fucked so. Many. Things uuuuup over those three days. So I was kinda bitter and tired. Friday didn't go well for me because I was exhausted and emotionally drained.

I briefly considered abandoning theatre because shows often leave me feeling useless, underappreciated, and exhausted. I felt I'd never receive any recognition from my director, and I'm not close with many of my theatremates. I talked about it a little with Lauren, Tasha, and Fox. Oddly, Fox was the one most determined to make me stay. I made no definite decisions, simply said that I may or may not abandon theatre eventually. Maybe the next show, maybe senior year, maybe never. We'd see. Then this week happened.

--

First off, and this isn't exactly relevant to theatre, I made a 204 on the PSAT. This places me in the 97th percentile of American juniors. My math skills are average, but I had nearly perfect critical reading/writing skills. I may be eligible for a National Merit Scholarship; I won't find out until next September. That is an AWFUL wait.

I talked to my director today, too. She had a couple things she wanted to discuss with me. Firstly, we talked about my breaking point during The King and I and how I need to better cope with stress. I know what I did and that it wasn't necessarily the best solution. Thankfully, I've become gentler as I've become older (with exception. My family members would say I've only become more irritable and bitchy), but I still snap under pressure. I felt responsible for many things that had gone wrong during the show, and I hated being told I had done something wrong that I had actually certainly done right. After that, we moved on to the set model I've been designing lately.

Recently in stagecraft, the nine of us have been making set designs made solely with newspaper and glue (both hot glue and Elmer's glue). Each set design is inspired by a particular emotion. I chose toska, a Russian word without an exact representation that represents varying forms of loneliness.

I first covered the "floor" in crossword puzzles, like an askew checkerboard. Not symbolic or anything, purely aesthetic. Then, I set five trees into a sort of semi-circle encompassing the area where most action would happen. The thinnest, tallest, and colorless one stands upstage center; it possess many branches of varying thickness. Several longer ones reach out to the smaller, colorful trees, only to push them away or strangle their trunks. The tree's shorter, thinner branches droop and weep, aimlessly; meanwhile, its roots fan out across the stage. One root, however, curls up, hugging a fallen, limbless comrade/friend/lover/whyamIgivingtreespersonalities/patheticfallacyftw. Or it could be strangling one that got too close. Interpret it as you will. Finally, I drizzled hot glue across the branches, transparent vines criss-crossing the air. Some newspaper vines drape off and across the surface; regularly, they'd cover the stage's frontside, but I don't have a box to demonstrate that, just a board.

My director said my model was exceptional; it carried wonderful balance and flow and may even be comparable to college work. I could have untapped potential in architecture (doubt it... But that would be nice.) Over the three years that she's known me, I've really "blossomed" creatively and learned to marry my intellect and creativity. She even recommended that I begin taking art and ceramic classes, after school or whenever I can. She said she'd even talk to one of the art teachers about it because I do need some arts classes. My college prospects were also brought up because I could go almost anywhere I wanted to. I still have no idea. She's known this; we had a similar discussion freshman year. Anyway, I was just all

Was going to use regular rainbow puke meme, but this is 20% cooler.

I am very aware this invalidates all the show's AUGH-BLAH-NO-RECOGNITION angst. I'm cool with that... I just.. I don't know. Forget sometimes. My self-esteem, on a scale of one to one hundred, maxes out somewhere around three. Hopefully, though, I can keep my confidence up and continue in my work.

Bouncity bounce bounce bounce,
Andrea! <3