There's No Dying In Theatre!

Saturday morning when I woke up, I felt pretty okay. I'd had some breakfast, and was sitting at my desk surfing the internet when I realized I felt kind of dizzy. My roommate advised me to drink some water, but I still felt woozy and out of it. After the extremely non-strenuous activity of playing some video games, I realized that I was feeling nauseous as well, and went to lie down for a while.

On any other Saturday, that would be fine. But on this day I had a 7pm call time for a show in which I have a very high-energy, physical role. And it's a small theater, so there's no understudies. Even in bigger theaters, you don't just call in sick if you're not feeling well. You have to be physically incapable of playing your role (and doing so safely). It's a matter of integrity as much as of convenience.

I knew Saturday would be a challenge--as I pride myself on the ferocity of my performance in this particular production, I wasn't about to half-ass it. I open the show flying on in a rage, and it's my personal goal to resemble a freight train in my entrance as much as possible. Besides that I have two fight scenes and a LOT of running. I would just have to grit my teeth and get through it.

Luckily, my head started to clear up once I'd been up and walking around for a while, and my stage makeup helped cover my zombie-like pallor. I had a couple friends at that night's show, and they reported that they couldn't tell at all that I hadn't been feeling well.

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In other news, I completely failed at seeing the live broadcast of the Met's Die Walküre. After seeing Das Rheingold in the fall, I was really looking forward to it. However, the live screening was the day after my show opened, and I knew I'd be too tired to make it to the theater at 10am. We discussed catching the re-broadcast, which would have been on a Wednesday evening. At which point my opera companion pointed out that Die Walküre is five hours long.

Hell no. As much as I wanted to see this show, I know my own stamina level, and this just wasn't going to work out. *Sigh*. Opera fail.