Other than hectic, busy lunches during a work shift (which were handled in the usual way: just keep moving like a shark) the one time which springs to mind as to being completely and totally overloaded was quite some time ago.
I had just finished up playing Nugget in a four week run of EQUUS, when I began my next project. The theater company which produced EQUUS, Laurel Highlands Regional (with whom I had a three year working relationship) accepted my proposal to stage Harvey Fierstien's SAFE SEX with my fellow actors Denise Pullen and Mark Calla. Our intent was to each direct one of the one-acts and give the box office take to the Pittsburgh AIDS Task Force. The theater agreed to a 70/30 split of the profits and we were set to go for two weekends in August.
At the time, I was working at Carnegie-Mellon, as was Denise, and my job involved walking around the campus as supervisor of dining services' Mobile Carts Units. I was in before seven and out just after four, Monday through Friday AND I had just begun a live-in relationship with someone I had met on the closing night of EQUUS. For safety's sake, I'll call him Greg - the name which I used for his character in my play THE END OF THE WORLD ON NEW YEARS' EVE. Greg was a skilled carpenter and worked on several films (THE DARK HALF, CREEPSHOW) which were filmed in Pittsburgh; he asked to be a part of SAFE SEX as designer and construction foreman.
As part of his plan, discussed with the theater, Greg also took it upon himself to redesign the theater's auditorium - a converted church sanctuary - by building seating platforms, creating a more indoor amphitheater feel to the place, with three moveable levels of seating platforms, reconstructing the sound/light/stage mangement booth, as well.
So in those fateful days in the 80s, I roamed the campus, went home to dinner, then off to rehearsals. After rehearsal (I was directing "Manny & Jake") I'd arm myself with a powertool and go to the theater's basement and help on the construction of sets and platforms. On weekends, it was more building and getting the pieces into the theater proper, as it was when I wasn't rehearsing my two actors.
At the end of the day, a quick stop at a bikers' bar for a brew was in order.
Don't even go there! I didn't survive through the drinking, but, from an offshoot of that drinking: POOL. I learned to play a nice relaxing game of pool. I didn't know that pool could be such a savior. Thinking, skillful and sometimes arguementative, the game captured me and let me take the worries of the day out on the cue stick and the balls. Pool also brought my first soulmate to me, for when I declared that I was tired of going to str8 bars to play and that I knew of other bars in the city with pool tables, our little troupe trooped over to The Norreh. A private club -open all night. Those pool sessions led to a couple of singing gigs at benefit performances. It was during one of those gigs that I finally noticed The Norreh's bartender, John, who had certainly been noticing Greg and I. Not only was John an incredible person and a great bartender - he was a mean pool player, too.
So now, whenever I know that I'm about to be inundated, I find the nearest pool table, grab a partner and have a nice relaxing time.
There's so much more to this tale, but, the important parts concerning the TOPIC OF THE DAY have nearly all been told.