Illness of the Night

A few days ago we realized that we had only 24 performances to go and decided to do a Father Martin Illness-of-the-Night Alphabetical Countdown.

Yes, yes, YES! We know that there are 26 letters in the alphabet. We’re just a little addled from the heat.

Y’see – during the second act Father Martin gets ill and falls down during Yule and continues to deteriorate for the rest of the show. His illness is never specified so we supply the subtext each evening. He has had a wide variety of complaints this summer, most of them grotesque and of a blatantly sexual nature (or gastric – sex and shit are the foundations of Comedy).

So anyway we started the alphabetical countdown on Monday. The Illness-of-the-Night Committee consists of me, Lindsey Lou McKee (Dame Coleman), Pyro Stephanie, Michael Murray (The Good Pilot Fernando), and whoever happens to wander by.

Monday the Father had Anthrax (at least that’s what we think the white powder was).

“B” was a hotly debated letter on Tuesday. Entries included Botulism and Bronchitis, but I ended up with a Broken Heart. Poor Father Martin will never love again.

Wednesday I was afflicted with Carbuncles, a nasty skin disease common in the 16^th century involving oozing pustules.

Last night we considered Delirium Tremens, Diphtheria, and visiting alum Clark Nicholson helpfully suggested Dropsy. But the good Father just ended up Drunk.

Tonight it was Epididymitis, which I actually had a few years ago. It was a rare treat.

Any suggestions for our countdown?

Heat 'n Deet

What to say about doing the pageant when the heat index is 102 at intermission?

It really sucks, that what we say. But we do it. It just becomes this endurance test.

We were on Heat Protocol 2 this evening. All hats, coats, capes, gloves, furs, extra petticoats, etc. were cut. It gives the company this half-dressed look.

It is an endurance test for the audience as well. The mosquitoes were on Feasting Mode.  Clouds of Deet-based insect repellent drifted through the house as well as back stage.

I remember in the years I played Old Tom, before they ripped the theater apart to put in the stadium seating (1998), when there was a decades old shrub between the Queen’s Stage and the audience with a carefully maintained hole in it that the audience couldn’t see. At the end of the Tavern scene Old Tom would jump into the hole and lie there all through Queen’s Garden and Crossover; so long, in fact, that the audience would forget he was in there and be surprised when he jumped up at the second volley of fireworks.

I would lie in those bushes for the twenty or so minutes of the scenes and listen to what the audience (just about three feet away) were saying about the show.

On high heat nights like tonight their talk was al about the heat and how it was affecting the actors.

“Oh, look at the sweat dripping off the Queen’s nose,” they would say.

“I don’t know how they stand it.”

“I bet they’re about to pass out.”

Etc.

See, they’re not watching the show, they’re watching the endurance test.

I also remember when the house staff would pass out “Lost Colony Air Conditioners” to the audience. These were little white cardboard fans on a popsicle stick with the Swirly Girl logo on them. On hot nights when you looked out at the audience you would see hundreds of them fluttering. Hundreds, say we? Nay, thousands!

I’ve lost a solid 10 pounds this summer. Hooray for me! But on nights like this one I lose more. Every evening before I go to work I weigh myself naked (just picture it!) and I weigh 162. Every night when I come home from the show I weigh myself again and I am consistently 159.

Tonight I was 157.

Some Video

I took a video camera backstage. Obviously I need to figure out the "zoom" feature!

I can't tell if this is working or not because my internet provider is Charter and it sucks big time. Probably the least reliable utility I have ever paid too much for.

Let me know if it plays for you.

Press "Play."

We’ve reached that point in the run where it doesn’t matter if we’re paying attention to doing the pageant or not. We just do it.

Press “Play” and we do it.

Rain, wind, lightning, heat, humidity, insects, smoke, love, hate, sex, jealousy, indifference, PTW, path, kid’s shows, what-the-hell-am-I-going-to –do after-August 20, my-dog-died, my mom’s sick, I’m broke; the smells coming from: the giant septic gizmo behind the women’s dressing room, the women’s dressing room! Eau de colony (bug spray), the MEN’s dressing room! The smells from each other and of course ourselves.

A dancer hurts herself in the Plymouth dance and an ambulance comes to pick her up? Keep going.

Press “Play” and we do it.

It starts – goes – ends.

You’re not thinking about what you’re doing or saying? It doesn’t matter – you do it and say it without paying attention. We run on pure muscle memory.

This is my routine. This is my track. I do THIS right now, I talk with whosis for ten seconds at THIS point in the show. I catch a cig with THESE people every night at the same time. I sit on the bench and flirt with THIS person during Ralph Lane, I have a hard drink from the water fountain now, now, now and NOW. What are you doing sitting there – this is MY spot for these three minutes.

You’ve hurt your back/neck/ankle? Forget it. We do it. You’ve got a cold, a stomach virus, a broken heart? You do it. You cut the end of a finger off – OK – one night off. Bandage that sucker and do the pageant.

Rain delays? Don’t want them. At 8:30 press “Play” and move that mother through until it ends at 11.

You’re miffed with yourself because you’re having trouble focusing and are just going through the motions? Forget it, it doesn’t matter. Your motions are just as good as the real thing. OK then try to focus – yes – and suddenly you’re walking off stage and realize you were a thousand miles away. Time to cry? You cry. No real emotion or thought required, it just happens.

You have family/friends in town – great. Sorry – my routine doesn’t vary. I sleep till this hour, I do this in the afternoon, I eat supper at this time.

The crushing heat we’re experiencing? All we ask for is a breeze.

We hear the show through the monitors in the dressing rooms and backstage. It is the soundtrack of our evening. We don’t really listen to it unless something different happens. Whups! The Queen’s microphone is out. Old Tom’s mic is intermittent. Sing out, Louise! I don’t notice the dialogue unless something is askew. It is bizarre. “Hey he said ‘great’ instead of ‘mighty.’” “Why is he pausing? What’s going on?” It is so strange – I know the lines so well that I don’t hear them – I only hear mistakes!

Whoa! Something is wrong with the sound system and the pre-show announcements are speeded up almost to Alvin & The Chipmunks level? Oh well – places please and hope that the music is normal. Got that back-up CD?

We know which part of the week it is by which group of kids are in the show. It’s Ian! Must be Thursday!

There was some talk the other night about “virgins” and one of them pointed out that the whole “virgin” thing is over. They’ve been through Slaughter and that’s that. Right?

Wrong, although I didn’t bother to chime in. You ain’t really truly been slaughtered until you’ve been through the entire summer with all of the phases that come with it. And this is one of the phases. Regardless of anything we’re just Doing the Pageant.

Press “Play.”

Nature's Special Effect

There is an owl that lives in the trees over or behind the Queen’s Stage. I’m not sure what kind of owl it is since I’ve only seen it briefly in flight. It is brown and white.

I first noticed it during the rehearsal period in May. It would appear from over the Indian Stage trees and glide perfectly across the very lip of the green and into the Queen’s Stage trees right next to the lighting instruments that are there. It always happened just as the sky was reaching full dark.

I guess the cycle of the sun is back to where it was in May because for the past couple of performances the owl is back. During Amadas and Barlowe, as the English explorers greet and exchange gifts with the natives, as the sky is just shy of full dark, this beautiful owl, wings fully spread, glides through the scene about ten - fifteen feet over the jetty. It swoops directly into the light over the Queen’s Stage.

It is a perfect moment. The audience must think it is part of the show. But it’s nature’s special effect.

What must this creature think about the lights it dives into? Does the loud music and gunfire alarm it? I wonder if it has young in the nest. Do they miss us on Sundays?

My Track part 1

On a typical show day I wander into the theater at about 7:20. Principal call isn’t until 7:45 but microphone check must be completed by 7:30. Go figure.

When Lisa, Max, Alice and I lived in the Bee Hive in the 90s I would walk up the path behind the Prince House (alas!), through the big parking lot and down the main path to backstage. Later, after we moved here, I generally parked at the Park Ranger building and walked down the other path by the Visitor’s Center. Now I park at the LCB and walk  down the side path that goes through the woods. Variety is good.

I wave at asst. stage manager Simmons Falk on my way in to indicate that I’m there. He is parked on the costume shop deck checking off the roll. We don’t have a gatekeeper anymore. Then I walk through the men’s dressing room and into the scene shop which is part of the same building, across from the stage right props cabin. Sound Engineer Kevin Nissley is generally in there farting around with the mic packs and he’s usually the first person I say “Hey” to. Kevin is a local and was brought in at the last minute to take the job when we had the great quitting/firing/WTF upheaval of the sound department during the rehearsal period. I didn’t tell you about that? Oh well…

Often while I’m putting on my mic pack Pyro Goddess Stephanie Sexton (Just Friends!) will be in there loading shells in to the live shotguns we use in the show. I give her a polite, friendly greeting. “Always be polite and friendly to women with shotguns” is one of my mottos of life.

From there I proceed on to the stage. The Actor Techs have already set up the stage for the first act. I walk in to the sand beside an Indian hut and cross to center on the top of the Green (because the sand has already been raked). Stand on the jetty. Up in the sound booth at the top of the hill I get the “Whenever you’re ready!” from the board operator who is also named Stephanie but I don’t know her last name because she isn’t in the program due to the previously mentioned coming-in-at-the-last-minute-sound-department snafu. We have to do our mic checks at full show volume. I warm up by coughing a big smoker’s loogie and cut loose:

“ALMIGHTY GOD OUR FATHER – WE THANK THEE FOR THY MERCY AND COMPASSION ON US. YEAH! IN THY GREAT WISDOM…”

“Thank you,” says Stephanie, and I’m done.

I head in to the dressing room, turn off my mic and park it on the little 2x4 beam above the dressing table. I don’t speak in Act I and don’t put the mic on until intermission. I check my costume pieces (“that, that, that, that, that, shoes, hats”)

That’s how I start my show day on Tuesday – Saturday. On Monday we have full fight call at 6:15. On Mondays I arrive, wave at Simmons and go in to the house and hang out until everyone is there. I usually shoot the shit with Robert Midgette while we wait. I still call him “Chief.” This dates from my early years in the show when I was Old Tom and he was Chief Manteo.  Every night during Christening Dance he and I would have a few seconds of time to chat and Old Tom always greeted him as “Chief.” It stuck.

The Dancers have warm-up at 6:00 and then wander in to fight call when they are done and we proceed. The Chief gives us notes or a pep talk, as does asst. fight director Jimmy Lee Brooks. Then we run Big Battle followed by Small Skirmish, which used to be called Little Battle, which is why Big Battle is called Big Battle (as opposed to Little Battle) but now Little Battle is called Small Skirmish. I don’t know why. Alliteration? Probably.

When those two fights are done I sit in the house while they run the Borden/Simon fight that’s part of Plymouth. I always watch this because I’m offstage at that point in the show and don’t ever get to see it. It really is well done. I recall years ago (under a different fight director) when it was so over-choreographed and long that it became unbelievable and frankly tedious. But now the Chief has it just right.

When they proceed to running the Ralph Lane Massacre I head into the scene shop to get my mic and do mic check at about 6:45. Ditch my mic in the dressing room and usually leave for an hour because I have nothing to do. I always tell Simmons that I’m leaving the premises and will check back in before 7:45. I go home. There’s nothing to do there either but it beats hanging out backstage for an hour.

Either way I end up at about 7:40-ish hanging out backstage. I read the Company Notes (“don’t clump up - spread out!”) and check for anything concerning me in all the other stuff posted there. There’s never anything concerning me.

I chat with random people, hang out in the Miss Laura Long Smoking Lounge (so named in honor of Laura, although she never sets foot there), wander backstage, sometimes I’ll go up the stage left wooden path into the breezeways and people-watch (which is against the rules but that’s the kind of rebel I am). Often I’ll shoot the shit with Juliet Eden, who is from my other life in Moore County NC. She is a dancer and gets painted early. We chat about this and that and what’s coming up in the theater world for each of us when the summer ends. Three nights a week she dashes off for Path Activities which this year has been scaled back tremendously and consists of random Indians operating giant puppets and generally harassing the audience on their way down the path. Path activities are mandatory and there is no extra money in it and it is greatly loathed by those who are required to participate.

I usually lean against the rail and kill zombies for awhile. Back to the smoking area. Kill zombies.

If it is late in the week I get to talk with Valerie Chappel Medlin. The children in the show work a split week, one group Monday-Tuesday-Wednesday, and the other group Thursday-Friday-Saturday. Valerie’s daughter Kate is in the second group.

Valerie came to the Colony my first year as Old Tom (1992) as a dancer. At Slaughter that year she twirled and twirled and was dubbed The Slaughter Princess. The following year we had Brendan Medlin in the show as goofy Ananias (later he would be John Borden). He met Val and it was True Love. I attended their wedding in the Elizabethan Gardens one spring and later that summer Val was put on “light duty” which meant she wasn’t in Indian Dance. It wasn’t until the season ended that we learned that she was pregnant and there were worries that constant exposure to Indian paint could be damaging to her little guest. Bren and Val’s son Shep was born a few months later. Conceived in Morrison Grove!

Now Val is a Colony child wrangler. She and Melissa (last name unknown – if you’re not in the program I’m clueless although she said to me a couple of weeks ago “I just realized that you had that toy store where I spent all that money on Beanie Babies!” and I said “Thanks for the money!”) Melissa and Val sit on the benches backstage and make sure the children are dressed and where they are supposed to be and generally gossip and make lewd comments about the buff male Indians.

But I digress…

So I get to hang out with Val if it is the second half of the week.

At 8:10 I head into the dressing room.

Apparently there is a show and I’m in it and have to get ready.

The Zombies Ate My Brains

There is plenty of time to kill backstage. Louis Butelli (our first Old Tom of the season-now departed and replaced by alumnus Brian Rooney) introduced us to a massive time wasting game we play on our phones. “Plants vs Zombies” it is called and I have wasted enormous amounts of time on this game. I’m not a gamer, either, never really have been. But now I am addicted. The zombies attempt to invade your house and you buy plants which repel them. Fail to kill them and they get into your house and eat your brains.

So everywhere you go back stage people are hunched over their phones killing zombies. When we have a rain delay most of the guys in my dressing room are playing it. I have to admit that my playing this game is not confined to back stage. I play it at home, too. It is a major reason I haven’t been writing as much as I should.

The night before last we had The Heat. You know – the crushing, energy-sapping, sweat-drenched Heat. Technically it was only 85 degrees but the humidity was near 90% and there was not a breath of wind. When we went in we sat huddled in the shady areas and just sweated. Then – into the sweat lodge dressing rooms and into costume. Joy. Once the sun went down and the dressing room temperatures went down I found myself hanging out there because there are fans – a breeze! – in the dressing rooms.

Brendon Ragan plays The Historian and Sir Walter. We make our Prologue entrance from the Queen’s Path. I remember during the first dress rehearsal, a million years ago, he complained how hot he was. He is fully dressed in Raleigh’s costume and then wears a massive robe over that as Historian. During that dress rehearsal it was all of 75 degrees and low humidity. When he complained that he was hot I said: “Just wait. We’ll be wishing for this weather soon.”

I reminded him of that conversation two nights ago as we waited to go on, sweat already so heavy that I was soaked through. He just gave me a look. One of the Red Soldiers who is with us – leather uniform, armor, helmet, hair plastered and dripping, just nodded wearily.

It was the kind of night where you could see great clouds of humidity drifting in the stage lights. Ice chests with rags were deployed on both side of the stage. Some Principals had ice packs strapped on under their costumes.

Oh – and mosquitoes just love hot humid weather.

Last night was a relief. It was still humid but overcast skies lept the heat down and there was a light intermittent wind. It’s funny – when a breeze comes up everyone on stage cheats to put their faces in to the wind.

The clouds and breeze heralded a “cold” front that came through early this morning and today is a beautiful day; temps in the high 70s and a 15 mph wind from the northeast. Perfect weather for a pageant!

Of course we are all glued to the Weather Channel (and it’s derivatives on the net). I used to call The Weather Channel “The Oracle” because we plan our lives around the information it bestows on us.

The Oracle says we are in for at least a few days of nice weather.

Well – gotta go. These zombies aren’t going to kill themselves, y’know.

A Weepy Mess

I know you are all on the edge of your seats waiting to find out if I still fall apart into a weepy mess during Final March.

Of course as time goes on and doing the pageant becomes rote muscle memory it is difficult to keep up the committed emotional level necessary. Sometimes it is there when I need it and sometimes it isn’t. If it isn’t there I fake it even though I’m really thinking about how the thing is almost over and within fifteen minutes I’ll be at home shedding my sweat-soaked underwear, jumping in the shower, and popping open a cold one.

But sometimes…

The other night I was delighted that backstage I found Jimmy Darmo. Jimmy was Father Martin for years during the 1990s and is one of my role models for the part. He is the same – a little older, a little grayer – but then who isn’t? He was sitting chatting with the eternal Miss Laura Long when I spotted him. Hearty greetings ensued. In the middle of that up walks Gina Hays who was first an assistant stage manager and later the big boss stage manager during the Terry Mann years 2001 – 05. More hearty greetings followed, introductions were made. We visited for awhile until it was time for me to get dressed and them to go into the audience.

Press “Play” and we do the pageant.

During my cabin time – from Pot Scene through Small Assembly, Parapet into Large Assembly I lie on my sick bed and try to hold still, ignoring the sweat pouring down my face and the mosquitoes chomping on me – I have lots of time to think.

I was thinking about Jimmy and Gina. Jimmy only knows me as Old Tom from the 90s. Gina only knows me as Governor White from 2003. They had never met before but they are linked through their mutual experience at The Colony.

And that got to me. Jimmy and Gina’s presence sent me into time travel mode, remembering all the people I knew and loved over the years, so many of them never seen again. And even the people I was indifferent to, mostly forgotten. “The guy with the dark hair and the beard.” “That Dancer girl.” “What’s-her-name in the Choir.”

And that night during Final March I totally lost it as the ghosts crowded in on me. The sweat rolling down my face was mixed with tears.

But sweat is dirty, and tears are clean.

 Gina Hays, Laura Long and Jimmy Darmo.

Pole Jokes

No, not the ethnic kind of Pole jokes...

So the scenery for the Plymouth scene is supported in part by these enormous metal poles that fit into slots in the deck. During the intermission scene change the poles are struck along with the rest of the set.

Except that the other night the pole in front of Eleanor’s cabin was stuck. The tech crew and ATs spent an extra ten minutes trying to get the mother out of the slot while we held the show. No go.

So we did the second act with this fifteen foot tall metal pole on stage.

How many pole jokes do you think can be made on stage without breaking character?

A lot, that’s how many. Even Father Martin’s Illness of the Day was influenced. Something to do with poles and holes and being stuck and….well, you get the picture.

Storms

Our show cancellation count stands at four. Early in the season we had two days of cancellation because of the smoke from the wildfire nearby at Stumpy Point. That fire has been fully contained and is mostly extinguished (underground peat still smolders but recent rain has mostly put it out). We still get some smoke from a fire way south of us but it is not that bad.

We had one full rain out about three weeks ago. That storm was so enduring that we didn’t even get into costume, we just sat around and waited for them to call it.

It has been a very dry spring and early summer here and we are (or were) under extreme drought conditions. But for the past few days there has been a system feeding warm moist air coming up the coast from the Gulf and we’ve been having tremendous storms with torrential rain daily.

Two nights ago we all got into costume, Indians fully painted. All was set to go. Five minutes, please! Then a brief hold was announced so that the sound system could be re-booted (huge trouble with the sound equipment this year).

You know what it is like when storms are approaching and the wind kicks up and the light show with air-to-air lightning and the air-to-ground lightning hitting the water. We all watched that while we waited. There were oohs and ahhs when it stuck nearby and those who are afraid of lightning (like me) stayed near to cover.

Ten minutes after we should have started they called a hold for weather and we all retreated to the dressing rooms. Well, not all of us – when a weather hold is called the most of the sound equipment must be struck. Also much of the pyro. Because of lightning the main light towers are powered down.

I suppose in the early decades of The Lost Colony they just waited to see if the rain would pass. When I started in 1992 those in charge would phone the weather service at the airport to get the official forecast. They had radar!

Nowadays we all sit in the dressing rooms and look at the radar on our smart phones. We trade weather apps. Here’s one that shows real time lightning strikes! We parse the nuance of the storms – if it a drifts a little south it might clear up! There’s a break in the rain in Wanchese!

We sat there in costume for thirty minutes and they called the show. We made our way to the parking lot in the drizzle with lightning crashing nearby. It actually seemed to be clearing up!

But no – about twenty minutes later all hell broke loose with heavy rain, scary lightning and thunder booms and the wind blowing so hard that the rain was going sideways. It lasted until nearly midnight.

Then yesterday we had daytime rehearsal. It was muggy enough to cut with a knife. We broke at about three o’clock just in time for more major storms and heavy rain. Fight call was cancelled, but the storms stayed to our south and we went through the show with no stops.

It was a humid wet muck of a show.

The storms continue to funnel up the coast this evening. We'll see.

The Maw

My apologies for my hiatus from posting here. I've had lots of friends - and Lisa! - visiting lately. Funny how when you live at the beach you suddenly discover how many friends you have.

We’re in the vast gaping maw of July.

The season at The Lost Colony can be divided into three parts.

At the beginning there is rehearsal and getting acquainted. Life at The Grove settles in – who-hates-their-roommate – early summer romances commence. Rehearsal work is all-consuming and exhausting. The show opens on adrenalin, everyone is sharp-focused and excited to be going to The New World every night.

In August the awareness begins that the monster will end. The days are counted down. Post-Colony lives are discussed and worried over. The weekly theme parties at The Grove are semi-forced and summer-long repressed romantic attractions are suddenly acted upon because soon it will be Goodbye.

In between is July.

We do the Show nightly but it is very rote. We’re not excited about it anymore. It is just our job. This is not to say that we aren’t putting on a good show. We are. Audience attendance in high season is way up. It does give one a little kick to peer through the bushes before we start and see Waterside Theater nearly full. But half of the kids are hung over. Many of them have part time jobs and are exhausted. The PTW Monster is in full swing (more on that later) which keeps many of the company rehearsing until two or three in the morning. Things in The Grove are changing. Some early romances have faded and the July Jump is ongoing. Change partners!

As is traditional we had the 4^th of July off. Since the 4^th was a Monday this year we had two days off in a row. The fireworks in Manteo went on despite the drought conditions and they didn’t even set the marsh on fire! Most of the Company was in downtown or at Festival Park, here and there in little clumps. Lisa was in town and we staked out the side patio area at The Full Moon Café and attracted quite a few Colonists as well as some local friends. When the fireworks started the staff sat out with us as well. We sang patriotic songs led by power soprano Lindsey Lou McKee (Dame Coleman).

Into the yawning rote maw of July here comes The Director! Having him in the audience really snapped people into focus, let me tell you. The show picked up a lot of energy.

The reason Mr. Director is in town is because he is rehearsing in a new Old Tom. This has been planned since the start, we knew it was coming. Louis Butelli has been doing a fine job with the role but is off to another contract. He is being replaced by Brian Rooney who played the role in 2007 and 08. They have been rehearsing during the daytime and it is hot humid midsummer. Good times rehearsing in the noonday sun!

Well – off to extended fight call. The whole battle depends on Father Martin screaming in his cabin!