The Injury Adventure, or, Why RED NOSES Should Be Called THE CLOWN PLAY

As promised, here are the adventures of the many injuries and bad times sustained during this rehearsal/preview process of Red Noses.

Let's not forget, #1, how this show came into being. We had another show (Romans in Britain) and lost the rights to that show a couple of weeks before rehearsals were scheduled to begin. After a little scrambling, Chris and John Geoffrion came up with Red Noses.

Then actors started dropping out because it was no longer RiB directed by awesomeness personified John Vreeke (is my theory), and some might have had some trouble with the subject matter... although the subject matter for RiB isn't all sunshine and cherry bombs...

Then we hired pretty much the worst TD ever to build our set. This guy makes Jan look good. And since none of you know what that means, Jan was TERRIBLE. Sets were never even or on time, and things were often unsafe. This new guy WASN'T ever THERE. It was lucky that his assistant carpenter used to work for big-bad houses! After the stair incident, you'd think things would get better... NO! And he never even apologized! When I told him I was the one who fell through the stair ON ONE LEG he laughed. HE LAUGHED. Fucking meth addict. ALSO, he hung blacks so close to some of the lights that they could have caught on fire! Dumbass.

THEN everyone started getting sick. One by one we all caught a cold, or sniffles. Worst of all, Heather almost lost her voice completely the week before previews. It even spread to the designers and director! Bad cold.

AND THEN Tom fell off of the platform backstage and jammed his big toe. A hospital trip after the preview confirmed that it wasn't broken, just jammed. So he's fine.

AND THEN Melissa leapt off the stage during the crazy-ass rehearsal on Saturday.

insert: Crazy Ass Rehearsal Explanation: instead of following blocking we've set up, Saturday's rehearsal was a Lee Mikeska Gardener exercise in cue pickup and inner monologue becoming exterior action. So whenever you're on stage, you're MOVING. Whenever you're moving, you're LISTENING for your cue because if there's any air at all we go back and do it again. Naturally, we were all going FULL OUT because we were TIRED and so it didn't occur to us to reserve strength and energy. Just as naturally, as Melissa's character ONLY speaks in movement, she went even fuller out. endinsert

So she leapt off the stage just a little more forcefully than she usually does and landed badly. She felt a kkk and heard a chkrch and her foot began to swell. She couldn't walk without limping, and it only got larger. With a performance (preview) at 8pm, she felt obligated to cover for what she thought was a stupid mistake by performing anyway. We wrapped her ankle in my spare ACE bandage and painted it blue to match her bodypaint. Our SMs and Directors were informed, as well as all of the actors so they would give her appropriate space. After the show, which went pretty well until we all energy crashed in Act 2, I drove her in her car to the hospital where an X-ray confirmed that she hadn't broken it (thank GOD) only moderately sprained it. So after Sunday's rest she should be fine. However, she was given percoset, which made my night with her MUCH more exciting. I loved it, honestly, it was a fun night despite the injury. I mean, all of the nurses and doctors she saw (with the exception of the x-ray technician) asked her why she had blue streaks on her body, one nurse was even forewarned so we heard her exclaim "what you mean 'blue?' Is she breathing?"

It seems that many actors have been throwing the word macbeth around. Those actors have NOT been injured or put upon, but many apparently have. If this sort of thing continues I'm calling this THE CLOWN PLAY to avoid further suffering.

Meanwhile, we open TONIGHT!!!