The drama backstage

It's a theatre maxim that there is always more drama backstage than there ever is on stage. That is so true of this show. What a weird week this has been. So, in order of least dramatic to most dramatic, I'll start with the actors being "out."

This show has so many actors out every show (sick, tired, "over it," hungover, whatever...) that the first thing we - the dressers - do is sign in for our shift and then wait around for stage management to show up with The List. The List - called "On the Rock" - has all the actors that are out for that show and the names of all the actors who are filling in. The longer we have to wait for The List, the more names we know will be on that list. If it takes longer than 2 minutes for the stage manager to show up, we know it's going to be a long night.

This swing actor situation can get quite complicated, as evidenced this weekend. On Friday night we had a dancer - Geoff - leave in the middle of the second act with a knee injury. Much like last week, his dresser scrambled around at the last minute to find all the appropriate costumes for the swing actor - Jose - filling in for him; and also like last week, Jose came backstage, got into his costume and walked on stage in about 5 minutes and his first number was the flying ballet number 40 feet above the stage. Sound familiar?

So for the Saturday matinee, Geoff is still out but now Feliciano is filling in for him. This means that in less than 12 hours, we've switched out costumes for one actor 2 different times. For the Saturday night show, one of the principal actors - Robby - was out. This means that an ensemble understudy actor gets promoted - in this case, Omari - and now Omari's role in the ensemble needs to be filled so Feliciano filled in for him. However, Geoff is still out and Feliciano danced his part during the matinee so Jose is back to fill in for Feliciano who was filling in for Jose who was filling in for Geoff. Got all that?

it's annoying but we're getting used to the "outs" and the actors who threaten to be out. We had an actress last week who had trouble getting into her grass skirt. The skirts can get all tangled up and we have to careful about how we lay them out on the floor or the actor can't get into it. The actress tried to get into it and couldn't, a dresser tried to help her and made the situation worse and while another dresser joined the fray to help, the actress, panicked that she had spent so long talking instead of getting into her costume that she was now going to miss her cue, grabbed the arm of a Wardrobe Head and said "Miss Harriet my skirt is upside down, I can't go on. I'm going to be out."

Watch me roll my eyes. My skirt's upside down, I'm out. Are you kidding?

She made it on stage and finished the show, but that's the mentality. My skirt is upside down, I'm out.

Anyway, to add to the prima donna aspect of the backstage drama, we had a show stopped last week. I know it's a casualty of live performances that occasionally things happen and the performance has to halt mid-show, but I've never actually seen it happen. On opening night last Saturday, the actor playing Simba thought the microphone in his headdress wasn't turned up enough and he was having to project his voice too much to be heard. Midway through the second act - and right before the flying ballet number, which appears to be the breaking point of the show - he walked off stage and told a sound guy that he wasn't going back on stage until they figured out what was wrong with his mic. We actually heard the dreaded words over the loudspeaker - known as the God mic - "Ladies and Gentlemen, we are having technical difficulties. Please be patient and the show will resume as soon as possible." It took them 5 minutes to fix it while about 15 actors stood on stage waiting for the number to resume, and the audience gradually grew more restless, got up, went to the bathroom, talked amongst themselves etc. Finally the sound guys gave him a body mic, the actor refused to put his headdress back on and he went on stage and finished the show. We in the crew were stunned - none of us had ever seen a show stopped, much less for a weak microphone - but the rest of the acting ensemble just shrugged and said "Never a dull moment..."

Indeed.

So now, the corker of the entire week. One of our regular ensemble actresses is on vacation and several swing actresses have filled in for her. On Sunday we had a swing actress named Shameika fill in. She has a wildebeest cosume that consists of a long sleeved body suit, pants, a cape and a hat. All of the dancers wear this costume and manage to perform in it. But this actress complained to the Wardrobe Head that she got hot in the body suit; so, for the Sunday matinee they found her a short sleeved one. Keep in mind that all these costumes were designed by Julie Taymor and they belong to Disney, the corporation. They are designed so that in certain scenes where there are packs of animals on stage - like wildebeests- they all look alike no matter what the size or shape of the actor wearing the costume.

She was also on for the Sunday night performance and when it got the wildebeest part of the show, her dresser handed her the clean body suit and it had long sleeves. Shameika started to complain, said she wanted a short sleeved one, long sleeves are too hot, etc. Her dresser said that she would go downstairs to check the clean laundry and see if she could find another short sleeved one. Just wait, no problem, I'll take care of it, etc.

Shameika says "It's ok, do you have a pair of scissors?"

Her Dresser says "no! Are you kidding?!"

Another dancer - Wilia - sitting next to Shameika says "Oh, I do. Here you go." and hands her a pair of scissors.

Shameika looks at her dresser, says "Don't worry baby, you won't get in trouble." and proceeds to CUT OFF THE SLEEVES OF HER COSTUME. She then puts it on and goes onstage.

I thought her dresser was going to have a heart attack.

SHE CUT OFF THE SLEEVES OF HER COSTUME! An actress. Backstage. Property of Disney.

I'm stunned. I can think of many shows where the actress would have been summarily fired for doing something like that. And I can think of many Wardrobe Heads who would have lost their minds if they had ever heard of an actress doing something like that.

In this case, her dresser immediately told the Wardrobe Head who very calmly said "ok, I'll take care of it."

You know what that means? That means that this is not the worst thing she's seen on this show. I can't even imagine what the next 4 weeks are going to be like.

Oh, and I almost forgot. One of the actors wants to hire me to beat up another actor. For real.

But I don't think that story has completely played out yet, so I'll save it for my next post.

I swear I couldn't make this stuff up if I wanted to.