Well, dear readers, yesterday became a do or die day. Not a Sadie Hawkins Day or a Derby Day or even a Doris Day, but a do or die day. I’d slept a little more than eight hours when I was awakened by a telephonic call from Doug Haverty telling me Kay Cole had quit the show. I was surprised that she hadn’t called me first but as it turned out she had but the phone was on silent. I’ve been fearing this was a possibility for some time now. I know that certain aspects of what we’re doing were really fun for her – the character, the tons of comic bits I was giving her – but I also knew that the chaos we’ve been going through was wearing on her and causing negativity and on Thursday night we had something go on that just pushed her over the edge, having something to do with someone who, as it turns out, also quit. But I also think this may have been too soon for her after losing her husband of many years only a few months ago. So, I think it was a confluence of all those things. She was very terse about it with Doug and in an e-mail she sent. But I called her and had a chat. I tried to tell her that the annoyance of the other night was now no longer an issue and that I had a plan to get us through the next two weeks. I told her that whatever decision she made was hers to make and that it wouldn’t hurt our friendship. I got her to say she’d think about it for a couple of hours, but it only took about forty minutes to make her quitting final. I was of mixed emotions about it, just because I’d worked so hard on those bits and her staging and I knew it would be hard on the company but I can’t tell people what is best or not best. So, Doug and I had to have a very long conversation about options. The big option would be to cancel the show, but I was not for that at all because I am not a quitter. In fact, this type of thing, this being put in a corner like this, only makes me dig in my heels and want to get us through, to soldier on, to make everything work. I have never ever quit on a show – not as an actor, not as a director, not as a writer. The trick would be how to present this to the company in a way where they’d not want to walk out. The big problem for the theater is that our leading lady cannot do weeks two and five, so we’d only have a four-week run. I think we’re going to see if there’s any way she could rearrange whatever’s happening on week two. But I came up with a solution to only miss three shows even if she is gone for those two weeks, which is to add either a Thursday night or Sunday night performance. In fact, if we did that for the entire run, we wouldn’t miss any performances. It’s a big change to make in terms of the box-office and ticket sales, to get the word out that we’re adding those shows, but it’s A solution. I think we’ll definitely do it for one weekend, but if we do it for two, then we get our full number of performances.
The first and biggest problem was who to get for Kay’s role, but that turned out to be the easiest of solutions, which was to move one of our other actors into the role and I knew the perfect actor to do it, since she’s been doing the roles of anyone who missed rehearsals and she knows all the blocking and ography. I called her and she was fine to do it. Then I called one of our other older actresses and she was fine taking over the stuff that the other actress was doing. The one other slight problem we had was easily solved. So, that was that. I spent the rest of the day figuring out the plan of letting everyone know and how I wanted to proceed. And so, at seven, we gathered the cast together and I led off with the news about Kay. I told everyone to let their gasps out and then to let me explain the why. Explaining the why was easy and they completely understood that. When I told them who’d be replacing her, that made everyone very happy, because that actress is one of the most loved in the entire cast. That plan worked perfectly. Then I said stuff about the chaos and negative energy that we all had to get rid of, that I’d let that negativity get the best of me, which is why I’ve been terse and loud for the past week and I apologized for that and said from here on in, happy rehearsals no matter what. I said we were going into summer stock mode for the next two weeks – summer stock was simple – put on a show in two weeks. I said we’re Mickey and Judy and we’re going to damn well put on a show. I think in that moment the attitude in the room brightened considerably. Doug said stuff about the theater and how canceling the show would be financially devastating and that we all just needed to soldier on. I then began act two and we ran the entire act, stopping and starting, drilling a few things, and it was a whole different and positive vibe and I think everyone felt it. Some people stayed after we finished to run music. I left right at ten because I was both physically and mentally exhausted. I even made the mistake of stopping at McDonald’s, which I haven’t had in months now – got a fish sandwich and a cheeseburger. I came home. The fish was okay, not great like it used to be. But the cheeseburger was completely rank. Their meat no longer bears any resemblance to actual meat.
Otherwise, I’d had Dino’s Pizza – small pepperoni and a small salad – for food. The pizza was great. But even though I specified that I didn’t want their avocado dressing for the salad, I wanted their Eyetalian, they gave me the avocado and blecch. Thankfully, I had some Eyetalian dressing in the fridge and that worked fine. But basically the day was dealing with all the drama. And out of the do or die day came the do – we will do, we will work our butt cheeks off and we will DO.
Today, I’ll be up when I’m up, I’ll do whatever needs doing, I’ll have something to eat, I’ll relax, and then I can stop at the mail place to see if anything’s there, after which I’ll mosey on over to the theater at four. Most of the actors are coming then to run lines, to run music, and to run ography. Then at six, my hope is that we can actually get through both acts. I’ll either stage the one remaining number at six, or after we run the show. I’m going to keep it pretty simple. After rehearsal, I’ll come home and relax.
Tomorrow is more of the same, Cheryl Baxter is coming to finish up the last ten seconds of three numbers, then we’ll run the show start to finish. If there’s time left, we’ll drill the problem stuff. Monday is off, and then it’s going to be an intense run-up to tech the following Saturday.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, be up when I’m up, do whatever needs doing, eat something, relax, hopefully pick up some mail, and then have a rehearsal. Today’s topic of discussion: When did you have your first McDonald’s. What were your favorite things. Do you still like it? Has it really gone downhill? Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, happy that the do or die day turned out to be the Do Day.