Thursday, December 17, 2009

Festival of Lights

Nine years ago I performed in a holiday show that performed at elementary schools.  The show was about all the December holidays.  I sang a Hannakuh song.  In Hebrew.
 
The show was terrible.  It was poorly written.  Under rehearsed.  It was bad. 
 
The very first show we performed was out in the desert east of Los Angeles.  It was a long drive.  I remember carpooling with other cast members, and that the driver referred to driving with a tire going along the reflective bumps on the dotted line as "driving by Braille."
 
We had two shows that first day: one in the morning, followed by a lunch break, then a show in the afternoon.  After the first show the cast went to a local restaurant to eat.  We still had time to kill before the next show so another cast member and I decided to take a nap in the car in the school parking lot.  We leaned the front seats back, rolled down the windows for the fresh breeze, and set the alarms on our cell phones.
 
Some teachers came out to the parking lot on their break.  We heard them complaining about the show.  About how bad it was.  And of course, they were right.  The other actor and I just looked at each other.  We never spoke of it.  Then we went inside to do the show again.
 
I have done shows before that I haven't been proud of.  Shows that I have told my friends "eh, don't make a big effort to get to this one."  But that show was the only one that made me truly embarrassed.  I tried to put on a good face and do the show the best I could. 
 
When the show was over I never put it on my resume. And when the company called me the next December to see if I was interested in doing it again?  I was unavailable.

6 comments:

Kat said...

Oh dear. It had to take everything in you to get back up on stage and do that show again after you heard that. Man. That is rough.

alejna said...

Oof.

I love it that you are sharing the bad as well as the good about your life as an actress.

thailandchani said...

There are bound to be some that don't work out. Were the teachers complaining about something specific or just kvetching? (No answer needed. I think I can guess which it was...)



~*

Furrow said...

Ouch. Sucks to do something that you know is unwanted and ineffective. Sadly, I feel like that a lot of days at work.

kayerj said...

oh sad! I'm glad you went on to do other more fulfilling roles.

Aunt Becky said...

Ouch. Just. Ouch. That always stings. There's a REASON I do not have an alert on "mommy wants vodka." Truly, I don't need to know who is trashing me.