A Glass of Whine

Sometimes, I have discovered, a drink really DOES make it all right. Stunning, isn't it? I have been in a tailspin recently, as we're rehearsing Cats, which (see below) I am not in. I expected to at least get some time off, but it was not to be. I am assigned to understudy someone, so I have been at all the rehearsals anyway. Except that I am in the current kids show.

I'm not sure I can even describe the isanity that is trying to rehearsal and put on a children's show on TOP of the 8 show per week and rehearse the next one scehdule. But I can tell you that we lose a series of dinner breaks because we're having rehearsal. The theatre then buys us pizza as recompense. Then you get the run up: on Thursday, you miss rehearsal from 1pm to 4pm to do all your technical stuff. Then that evening, after a three hour performance, you slap on your kids show costumes and do your dress rehearsal - a dress rehearsal that doesn't usually begin until midnight. THEN, when you finally finish the dress and gets notes, and drag home to bed, you have to get up and be at the theatre at 10 am for an 11 am show. You then rehearse from 12:30 to 6, and go into your hour call for the Friday show, which ends by about 11 pm. Then on Saturday, you do the kid's show again, rehearse 12:30 to 4, and go straight to call for the first of your two shows on a Saturday - a 5pm and an 8:30pm. So Saturday you're called at 10 am and you're there until midnight, a day full of fourteen hours of rehearsing and performing. Then what is funny is that on Sunday, when you finally don't have a kid's show, you actually still have rehearsal at 10 am, and your day runs all the way through strike, which for actors lasts until 1 am.

You can try the math any way you want, but it's not really possible to get enough sleep on that schedule to make it possible to get through a rehearsal of Cats.

Last night I got back to the incredibly hot house at about 1:30 am (we have no air conditioning, and we've had a series of 90 degree days - it's hot), someone had made margaritas for a birthday girl (not me, I didn't tell anyone when it was my birthday, a stupid move, let me confess), and offered me one.

I had been on the phone the entire trip home, crying about how I lack any kind of talent and no one likes me and I should just give everything up because what I've learned is I am incapable of being entertaining. "Oh," I sniffled at last, as I came up to the steps, "They made margaritas."

The wise boyfriend, a better drinker than I, said, "Go drink one. Now. Get off the phone and go drink a big one. I'll talk to you tomorrow."

An hour later, things were looking rosy, and indeed, I newly loved everyone in the house, especially the birthday girl who had me polish off her drink, too.

Apparently, much of my anguish over the years comes from not drinking often enough. And the lovely boyfriend may be right after all - this may be the summer I learn to drink.