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The Good, The Bad, and The Damned Ugly
Nov. 4th, 2006 03:30 pmSo, we opened Temptation on Thursday night. It went okay. Lots thrown at the actors at the last minute that they handled, but the whole thing didn't have the energy it needs to work completely right (what I called in my notes to them "a jittery, caffeinated energy;" they seemed rather relaxed). The pace didn't lag, but the INTENSITY was down. Still, it worked. A good start to actual performances. Yes, GOOD.
I expected yesterday to be a day of rest and getting more things ready for tonight, but I wound up busy with a number of unexpected things. BAD.
First, I didn't break down the whole set, etc. at The Brick after the show Thursday, as I was exhausted and it would have taken me another 90 minutes or so. And I just wanted to get home. Most of the actors had left as there were service problems on the L Train, and if they hadn't left, they'd be screwed on getting back to Manhattan at a reasonable time. So it was me and Danny Bowes and Aaron Baker breaking down, and I was near useless with exhaustion. So we left, and I planned to come back yesterday and finish. BAD, but necessary.
Second, Berit sprung on me when I got home that The Ohio needed refills on some of the concessions, so she and I had to go out the the BJ's Club near us Friday morning to pick up water and soda and deliver it to the space in SoHo. A pain in the ass, especially as BJ's was really crowded, but while I waited there, Berit went and got the pillows we needed for the show at Bed, Bath and Beyond (which we had done without opening night). So kinda BAD, but ultimately GOOD.
Third, and worst, oh, god, worst by far -- on the way to The Ohio from BJ's, we get a call on my cel from Edward Einhorn, Havel Festival producer, who has just got a call from Actors Equity. They have no record of my Showcase Code application. And we opened last night.
Oh. My. God. This is NOT GOOD. This is very VERY NOT GOOD. This is an absolute fucking disaster, pardon me for saying. UGLY. (I apologize to those of you outside theatre who don't quite know the horror of this -- my show is operating under a code that allows me to use union actors without paying them under VERY SPECIFIC and VERY INFLEXIBLE conditions, which I have now not met, at all, and we could ALL be in big trouble with the union) I immediately start panicking. This could end the show right here and now, and prevent me from working with AEA actors for some time. I faxed the materials in to them on October 6, but they were incomplete -- long story, there was a whole magilla with Samuel French about the discount we were getting on the rights, so we didn't have the actual document that AEA needs to approve the code application; they got a blanket letter from Havel's agents around October 20, but they still need the Samuel French document -- and I was under the impression that I was just waiting for the signature page to come in (which the actors have to sign and then is returned to AEA for final approval), and that everyone was having delays.
Once upon a time, there were ALWAYS delays with sig pages coming from AEA -- back at NADA in 98-99, there were several occasions where I did everything right on time, and got the page THREE WEEKS after the show closed. And while AEA has, in my experience of the last two years, been MUCH more on top on things - I usually get the sig page the same day as I send in the app - with the weirdness on the rights, I figured it might take a while to sort out, and I had a lot to do with the show as it is (being the only "production staff" for the whole thing most of the time, Berit now working on the Fest at The Ohio), so I let it slide, figuring everyone was still waiting.
Nope. Just me. And not a delay, really, they just never got my stuff. So, trouble. Big trouble. UGLY TROUBLE.
Now, big trouble, yes, but I overreact to it even so. I'm seeing my whole life coming apart here. Berit is trying to calm me down and convince me that this HAS to happen to them - a bureaucracy like any other - all the damned time and they must be used to dealing with it. Doesn't help. I'm freaking out big time. I feel lightheaded, and like I'm going to vomit. I start to call the Equity actors in the show to tell them, and get a call from Tim Cusack before I get to him myself. He is actually calming, assuring me that we can almost certainly fix it, but I need to call Nancy at AEA right away. I call and get her voicemail, and leave two messages, as I keep calling the AEA actors -- I get two voicemails and two in person, who are worried, but also sure we can fix it.
We drop the supplies at The Ohio, and I drive off to The Brick to clean up, but get a call from Nancy at AEA before I get a block. I pull over and talk to her -- she's upset, and scolds me, quite rightly, for not being on top of this, no matter how reasonable my assumptions (which go from "reasonable" to "I should have damned well knew better"). Being an AEA member myself doesn't help -- I REALLY should have known better. But she is also calming, and we discuss how to make things good -- she'll let tonight's performance go forward, but I MUST have everything settled on Monday, or that's IT for this production. As I have the application sitting here at home still (or so I think), I should just be able to refax it and be set -- though she says I should actually redo the application to add the two AEA actors added to the cast since October 6 (I was just going to write them in on the sig page, as I'd done in the past with no problems). So, fine. Easy enough. NOT GOOD BUT NOT BAD.
I'm moderately better as I clean up at The Brick, still worried that SOMETHING is still wrong, or going to go wrong, or whatever, and trying to make my set pieces fit backstage reasonably. I can't calm down. I just want to go home and get the materials and fix things. Then I get a call from Berit . . . I had signed up to run box office at The Ohio tonight as part of my duties as a board member of Untitled Theatre Co. #61. Dammit. LOUSY. I now have to rush myself in my cleanup at The Brick, and drive back over to Wooster Street.
Luckily, there's parking right in front of the theatre, and I wind up talking to a couple of other directors who had the exact same thing happen to them, and for whom everything worked out okay. GOOD. Feeling somewhat better, but not great.
I do the box office and come home, and try to relax, without success. I go to where I think I have my materials to send Equity again, and can't find them. Not really a problem, as I have to redo most of them anyway, so I don't worry about it. I go online and find two webpages that make me laugh and calm me down:
A Silly Interview with Richard Foreman
A Silly Page of Cats and Captions
And that helps. GOOD. I write a comment on a post at Matt Zoller Seitz's blog, and that makes me decided to put on Citizen Kane as I sit here. The cinematic equivalent of "comfort food" for me. I start to write some more notes to the cast, but fall suddenly asleep without warning before the "News on the March" scene is over, and wake up just in time to see Charlie Kane destroy his wife's bedroom. I needed the rest, I guess. Berit came home immediately after the closing credits, and we commiserated about bad days past and to come (She's going to have a pain of a day today at The Ohio -- the first show of the day is running long. Really long. As in past the start time of the following show, which has a long and hard set-up to do. Not a great situation for the house manager. She's probably beginning to have to deal with it right about now as I write.) I finish the notes. Then bedtime. GOOD.
This morning I get up and look more seriously for the AEA application I sent in before. Now, since I'm going to redo the whole thing (as I've added two AEA actors since sending it in, and my budget and schedule - also required by AEA - have changed extensively), it wouldn't be that important except for one thing: the only copy of the certificate I have proving I have insurance for the company and actors was with that application, and it's now missing. I have another page from my insurance company that seems to be okay, but I'm not sure, I don't think it's the one AEA accepts. And I don't know if I can get another copy of my insurance page for AEA on Monday. I should be able to, but of course, I'm worried beyond what the problem deserves, as always. I can't find it. But I'll figure a way to make it work out somehow.
I spend too much of my life in a state of being sure that the worst will happen. Sometimes that's good, and makes me work hard to cover all possible bases, but other times, it's nearly paralyzing. The production of Temptation has been one of the easiest of the 49 shows I've put up (if far more expensive than I had figured by far), and I should have been able to enjoy it more. But I just kept waiting for "the other shoe to drop," and yep, when it did, it dropped hard, and right on my head. BAD. UGLY.
So, even though all looks well now, I'm still upset and worried, positive that what has dropped is just the first shoe, and a REAL "other shoe" will hit soon. But I have a show to do tonight. I have to go shower, make up some signs for the box office and front door (some credits for my show didn't make it into the Festival program, so I'll post them, and there's no way I'll be able to set up the whole show in the half-hour I have for the changeover tonight, so I'll make a sign apologizing for the delay), and get to The Brick silly early to see if there's anything I can set up in advance that will make the change go faster -- we're already scheduled to start a 2.5 hour show at 9.30 pm, I don't want to start much later than that. That would not be GOOD, maybe even UGLY.
So, tonight is tonight. This performance is all that matters now. The rest will be settled later. In six hours we'll be running (hopefully). That's all that matters. That's all that matters. That's all that matters.
I expected yesterday to be a day of rest and getting more things ready for tonight, but I wound up busy with a number of unexpected things. BAD.
First, I didn't break down the whole set, etc. at The Brick after the show Thursday, as I was exhausted and it would have taken me another 90 minutes or so. And I just wanted to get home. Most of the actors had left as there were service problems on the L Train, and if they hadn't left, they'd be screwed on getting back to Manhattan at a reasonable time. So it was me and Danny Bowes and Aaron Baker breaking down, and I was near useless with exhaustion. So we left, and I planned to come back yesterday and finish. BAD, but necessary.
Second, Berit sprung on me when I got home that The Ohio needed refills on some of the concessions, so she and I had to go out the the BJ's Club near us Friday morning to pick up water and soda and deliver it to the space in SoHo. A pain in the ass, especially as BJ's was really crowded, but while I waited there, Berit went and got the pillows we needed for the show at Bed, Bath and Beyond (which we had done without opening night). So kinda BAD, but ultimately GOOD.
Third, and worst, oh, god, worst by far -- on the way to The Ohio from BJ's, we get a call on my cel from Edward Einhorn, Havel Festival producer, who has just got a call from Actors Equity. They have no record of my Showcase Code application. And we opened last night.
Oh. My. God. This is NOT GOOD. This is very VERY NOT GOOD. This is an absolute fucking disaster, pardon me for saying. UGLY. (I apologize to those of you outside theatre who don't quite know the horror of this -- my show is operating under a code that allows me to use union actors without paying them under VERY SPECIFIC and VERY INFLEXIBLE conditions, which I have now not met, at all, and we could ALL be in big trouble with the union) I immediately start panicking. This could end the show right here and now, and prevent me from working with AEA actors for some time. I faxed the materials in to them on October 6, but they were incomplete -- long story, there was a whole magilla with Samuel French about the discount we were getting on the rights, so we didn't have the actual document that AEA needs to approve the code application; they got a blanket letter from Havel's agents around October 20, but they still need the Samuel French document -- and I was under the impression that I was just waiting for the signature page to come in (which the actors have to sign and then is returned to AEA for final approval), and that everyone was having delays.
Once upon a time, there were ALWAYS delays with sig pages coming from AEA -- back at NADA in 98-99, there were several occasions where I did everything right on time, and got the page THREE WEEKS after the show closed. And while AEA has, in my experience of the last two years, been MUCH more on top on things - I usually get the sig page the same day as I send in the app - with the weirdness on the rights, I figured it might take a while to sort out, and I had a lot to do with the show as it is (being the only "production staff" for the whole thing most of the time, Berit now working on the Fest at The Ohio), so I let it slide, figuring everyone was still waiting.
Nope. Just me. And not a delay, really, they just never got my stuff. So, trouble. Big trouble. UGLY TROUBLE.
Now, big trouble, yes, but I overreact to it even so. I'm seeing my whole life coming apart here. Berit is trying to calm me down and convince me that this HAS to happen to them - a bureaucracy like any other - all the damned time and they must be used to dealing with it. Doesn't help. I'm freaking out big time. I feel lightheaded, and like I'm going to vomit. I start to call the Equity actors in the show to tell them, and get a call from Tim Cusack before I get to him myself. He is actually calming, assuring me that we can almost certainly fix it, but I need to call Nancy at AEA right away. I call and get her voicemail, and leave two messages, as I keep calling the AEA actors -- I get two voicemails and two in person, who are worried, but also sure we can fix it.
We drop the supplies at The Ohio, and I drive off to The Brick to clean up, but get a call from Nancy at AEA before I get a block. I pull over and talk to her -- she's upset, and scolds me, quite rightly, for not being on top of this, no matter how reasonable my assumptions (which go from "reasonable" to "I should have damned well knew better"). Being an AEA member myself doesn't help -- I REALLY should have known better. But she is also calming, and we discuss how to make things good -- she'll let tonight's performance go forward, but I MUST have everything settled on Monday, or that's IT for this production. As I have the application sitting here at home still (or so I think), I should just be able to refax it and be set -- though she says I should actually redo the application to add the two AEA actors added to the cast since October 6 (I was just going to write them in on the sig page, as I'd done in the past with no problems). So, fine. Easy enough. NOT GOOD BUT NOT BAD.
I'm moderately better as I clean up at The Brick, still worried that SOMETHING is still wrong, or going to go wrong, or whatever, and trying to make my set pieces fit backstage reasonably. I can't calm down. I just want to go home and get the materials and fix things. Then I get a call from Berit . . . I had signed up to run box office at The Ohio tonight as part of my duties as a board member of Untitled Theatre Co. #61. Dammit. LOUSY. I now have to rush myself in my cleanup at The Brick, and drive back over to Wooster Street.
Luckily, there's parking right in front of the theatre, and I wind up talking to a couple of other directors who had the exact same thing happen to them, and for whom everything worked out okay. GOOD. Feeling somewhat better, but not great.
I do the box office and come home, and try to relax, without success. I go to where I think I have my materials to send Equity again, and can't find them. Not really a problem, as I have to redo most of them anyway, so I don't worry about it. I go online and find two webpages that make me laugh and calm me down:
A Silly Interview with Richard Foreman
A Silly Page of Cats and Captions
And that helps. GOOD. I write a comment on a post at Matt Zoller Seitz's blog, and that makes me decided to put on Citizen Kane as I sit here. The cinematic equivalent of "comfort food" for me. I start to write some more notes to the cast, but fall suddenly asleep without warning before the "News on the March" scene is over, and wake up just in time to see Charlie Kane destroy his wife's bedroom. I needed the rest, I guess. Berit came home immediately after the closing credits, and we commiserated about bad days past and to come (She's going to have a pain of a day today at The Ohio -- the first show of the day is running long. Really long. As in past the start time of the following show, which has a long and hard set-up to do. Not a great situation for the house manager. She's probably beginning to have to deal with it right about now as I write.) I finish the notes. Then bedtime. GOOD.
This morning I get up and look more seriously for the AEA application I sent in before. Now, since I'm going to redo the whole thing (as I've added two AEA actors since sending it in, and my budget and schedule - also required by AEA - have changed extensively), it wouldn't be that important except for one thing: the only copy of the certificate I have proving I have insurance for the company and actors was with that application, and it's now missing. I have another page from my insurance company that seems to be okay, but I'm not sure, I don't think it's the one AEA accepts. And I don't know if I can get another copy of my insurance page for AEA on Monday. I should be able to, but of course, I'm worried beyond what the problem deserves, as always. I can't find it. But I'll figure a way to make it work out somehow.
I spend too much of my life in a state of being sure that the worst will happen. Sometimes that's good, and makes me work hard to cover all possible bases, but other times, it's nearly paralyzing. The production of Temptation has been one of the easiest of the 49 shows I've put up (if far more expensive than I had figured by far), and I should have been able to enjoy it more. But I just kept waiting for "the other shoe to drop," and yep, when it did, it dropped hard, and right on my head. BAD. UGLY.
So, even though all looks well now, I'm still upset and worried, positive that what has dropped is just the first shoe, and a REAL "other shoe" will hit soon. But I have a show to do tonight. I have to go shower, make up some signs for the box office and front door (some credits for my show didn't make it into the Festival program, so I'll post them, and there's no way I'll be able to set up the whole show in the half-hour I have for the changeover tonight, so I'll make a sign apologizing for the delay), and get to The Brick silly early to see if there's anything I can set up in advance that will make the change go faster -- we're already scheduled to start a 2.5 hour show at 9.30 pm, I don't want to start much later than that. That would not be GOOD, maybe even UGLY.
So, tonight is tonight. This performance is all that matters now. The rest will be settled later. In six hours we'll be running (hopefully). That's all that matters. That's all that matters. That's all that matters.
