Crushing Krisis

Comic Books, Drag Race, & Life in New Zealand

theatre

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Every day is a day that your whole life has been leading towards; each step is the step that all of your life has been preparing you to take. Until the next one.

Two years ago i auditioned for Hair. I had so far only had a bit part in a main stage show, and i had never sang on stage before. But, i had the most hair of any of the boys who were auditioning. This, i was sure, was my shoe-in.

Our director asked who would sing first, and a hush fell over the room packed with aspiring tribe-members — no one wanted to set the bar. So, i did… with assurances that i could get up and try it again later. It was one of the most terrifying experiences of my life: my arms went numb, i forget my lyrics, and i couldn’t understand the piano arrangement. I barely remember the act of singing so much as i remember the lights blinding me as i wandered off the side of the stage, knowing that my second try would not make much of a difference.

When i didn’t get a callback, i was not entirely surprised.


Everything between then and now has been my stumbling rehearsal for tonight’s audition for Fiddler on the Roof. Every failed audition, and every successful one. Every note i’ve hit and every note i’ve missed. Every smile, every tear, everything. Yes, it’s about whether or not i can hit my E, as i am acutely aware. But, it’s also about who i was when i took the stage 730-odd days ago and who i can be tonight.

It’s not about hitting your stride in the moment, every moment, living for each. It is about sustaining through them all, stringing them together like a legato string of pearls.

Not coincidentally, that’s what my voice teacher keeps telling my about hitting the high notes in my audition piece. Maybe after i get it right in my singing i can manage to apply it to life.

https://crushingkrisis.com/2002/02/9888146/

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And the play is over.

Striking the set of a play is always a strangely emotional exercise — like tearing down the house you grew up in. Though a set is really just an artifice built to house the illusion of theatre, it’s also the place where you became a part of the company of actors and crew that you’ve spent the last weeks or months with. These people are your adopted family for that time… you work beside them, go out together after rehearsals, confide in them… and then you come together with power drills and crowbars and crescent wrenches to tear it all apart. And, though you always hope that you’ll see everyone again, it never works out that way. There are people you might never see again, people that might never get into another play. On the other hand, there are people you’re destined to live, work, and play with — though you hardly suspect it at the time.

The first time i struck a set at Drexel it didn’t seem like such a big deal. I didn’t know what it really meant; it was just artifice, just an illusion. Months later i helped strike Hair… tearing up the floor panels and repainting walls. It was then that it hit me — that we were really destroying our home as a family, and it would never physically exist again. Seeing the stage bare black tonight i just wanted to go back to the bare kitchen and parlor we had been living in and around all week. Back to the magic that came with it. But, before that feeling could even crystallize we were all downstairs, merrily chowing away on our deli spread, laughing about the mistakes we had made and whispering about the auditions that await us in nine short days.

Even if all nine of our cast, all four of our running crew, and all six of our booth crew wound up involved in the next production, it couldn’t be the same. The energy we had as a family was dissipated as we rollered flat black over the vibrant colors we had painted onto the floor barely a week before. Hugs goodbye were long and meaningful, even though some of us see each other in class every day; it wasn’t really a goodbye to each other, but a goodbye to the place where we had become as one.

Nine days until i stand alone on that same flat black stage and open my mouth wide enough for all to hear. Nine more days until our next surrogate clan begins to form.

I’m not sure if i just want to sit here and rest, or not set foot back in my room until then.

https://crushingkrisis.com/2002/02/9600110/

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And, damnit, despite making it through Madonna’s greatest hits unscathed, i sprained my freakin’ ankle backstage tonight running around like a maniac. This will definitely effect my choreographed sing-a-long walk to the show tomorrow in a negative fashion.

https://crushingkrisis.com/2002/02/9570058/

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Cast Parties are always an experience that involve nearly as much drama as the show they are celebrating, and last night wasn’t an exception. What was an exception was that i didn’t drink; i’ve never drank at a winter show party, and decided to turn the trend into a tradition. It was interesting, if only because everyone finally got the point that i am really a fucking lunatic whether or not i’ve got a couple of drinks in me. There was simulated sex with multiple cast members. There was a contest to see who could grab the most genitalia, both male and female. There was me singing along and bopping around to the entire Immaculate Collection.


Oh, and i might have attempted to kiss someone.

When i’m drunk i flirt, but i’m usually doing it in a generic drunken way. Being sober, last night i was flirting with some amount of purpose. And, oddly enough, i was being flirted back at. I still don’t quite understand what was going on, personally, but apparently Laurel knows the whole story and will explain it to me before the show tonight.

See, i’m a stupid fucking lunatic who can’t even manage to lean in for a kiss whether i’m sober or trashed. Don’t you love the consistency?

https://crushingkrisis.com/2002/02/9552150/

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I sit just off the set on Stage Right on headset, right at the foot of the stairs that the actors use to get up to the second level of the performance space. I have the perfect profile shot of them as they aim their intentions at the audience, so that i catch the tiny flinches and thrusts they are making that don’t ever make it out past the lip of the stage. Tonight Gina climbed the stairs to close out the first act with her a cappella lullabye, and there was something about it that just sent a hush over our typically active end-of-act headset conversations. At first she was unsure and fragile, but as the chorus rose her voice did too, until it crested as it poured out of her in waves of perfect vibrato, only to slowly fade away again afterwards.


The first thing i said on headset when she closed her mouth was “And that, ladies and gentlemen, is what convinced me to do theatre.”

https://crushingkrisis.com/2002/02/9508190/