Tell you all my secrets

I really enjoy house managing, but Friday night at the Opera, something special happened.

Now, the ushers are always nice and very understanding. They are, by and large, retired ladies and gentlemen who do this for fun and the thrill of seeing the shows. I get along with almost all of them but Friday 6 of my 14 ushers came up to thank me for doing the show or to tell me how nice it was to work with me.

The thing is, it wasn't a hard show. I didn't solve any great problems. What did I do? I taught them something.

As part of my orientation I always welcome them to whatever show we are doing and mention the name of the promoter, just so they all hear it at least once before they face the public. I don't always know the exact name of the shows I have signed up to work and I imagine there are a few ushers like me. Friday I simply said "Welcome to MacBeth by the Opera. Now, if you notice my eye begins to twitch every time I say Macbeth, it's not any of you. I come from a theatre background and it is bad luck to say MacBeth in a theatre, so I may twitch a bit every time I say MacBeth." There was a polite ripple of laughter, which was all I expected, and then one usher said in a very demanding tone "Why?"

So I explained the history of the curse of MacBeth. I briefly mentioned that some people believe the spells are real or that you can raise the Devil if you follow the incantations exactly. Then I told them the "really real" reason as someone explained it to me - MacBeth is a very popular play so, waaaay back in the day, if a theatre was in danger of going under they would often perform it as a last-ditch effort to raise the money to stay afloat. If that didn't raise enough money, well, then they would burn the theatre down and start a new one. Theatre historians started going through the records and noticing a pattern of a theatre doing The Scottish Play and then burning to the ground and leaped to the obvious conclusion THE PLAY IS CURSED!!!11!!!

The ushers loved it. One of them came up to me right before the show just to tell me she is on the board at the PAC and at the meeting the day before they were asked to consider what Anchorage would be like without the PAC. "And then you talked about it burning down and it was all 'I was just THINKING about that!'"

I've been smiling every time I think about it. Something so simple, and it really made their nights. I made my mark on them.

Ghost_Light:  ASM, can you take care of this request from Rodney for me?

 

Rodney:  Oh, I didn't mean for someone else to do it!

 

ASM:  It's okay, I'm not doing anything but killing birds.

 

Rodney:....birds...Oh!  Angry Birds!  You mean killing pigs!

 

ASM:  I WISH I was killing pigs...

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So. At intermission for the Fur Rondy Melodrama, The Monsters of Matsylvania, they had a little contest to pick the best costume of the 6 people who dressed up for the show. There were two in the kids division. One looked about nine and was dressed something like Pugsly Addams.

"Oh!" exclaimed the MC in one of those tones usually reserved for very small children and puppies. "Are you an evil little monster?!?"

The nine-year-old gave her a skeptical look. "Actually, I'm more of a neutral Goth."

So.

Saturday afternoon one of the Gang of Four (year olds) had a difficult show. His mum is usually the minder of the Gang but she, and all the other mums, planned to see the show that night. I was supposed to mind the Gang, but I ended up just being in charge of the one.

He plays a teddy bear, a boy, and then the teddy again. We ended up making a deal: I could do his make-up if he could do mine...

There is a gang of 4-year-olds in the next youth theatre show. One of the backstage jobs I've assigned myself is waking them to and from the greenroom.

Last night, out of the clear blue sky, one of them looked up at me and said:

"When I grow up and lose my job I'll lose everything, but I'll be okay because I won't be a doctor anymore but then I'll be an ice skater."

I love working with this director.

We had our final dress tonight. At intermission, I told her I knew cue 18.5 had an issue but we'd get it fixed.

"Hold on," she said, raising one hand. "I don't understand you. You're speaking Techie."

Last night I was house managing an event at the PAC. One of my theatre-friends is being trained for catering, so I got to talk to him for a bit.

As I finished my usher briefing, I came out of the theatre just in time to catch a horrific crash from the catering area. I waited and gave them a couple moments, then headed over to check. The catering staff was already, hurriedly, sweeping up bit of pot and throwing out plastic fern fronds from the plant that usually sat on top of the beer fridge.

My friend came over to me. "That wasn't an accident," He told me earnestly. "That plant was suicidal. It threw itself off that fridge. We saw the note."

I told him that if he brought me the note, then we could talk.

A few minutes later, he came back with a piece of paper stained with that foamy/gritty stuff they put in planters to hold the plants still. It read:

Dear PAC,

I cannot take this life any longer. I feel like such a fake. I have to end this now.

Goodbye, cruel, dark corner.

The Plant.


So I did what any sensible house manager would do.

I wrote it up in my report and attached the note as evidence.

Last night was the big Wild Berry event.

I turned up around 6 to help set up. I walked into the theatre as normal and there were all my coworkers.

One dressed as a panda and the rest as giant Fruit-of-the-Loom style berries.

As soon as they saw me, they let out a great cry:

"ghost_light is here! ghost_light can be the other blueberry!"

And I was immediately hustled into a giant Mossberry costume.

There was one coworker and one costume left - Oompa Loompa. She correctly identified the fruit was much less silly and exercised her 'I was here first' rights to reclaim the Berry costume.

But I was a cute Oomp Loompa, dammit.

Yesterday was fun. We were at sea all day and saw the Hubbard Glacier. I missed the approach to the glacier because yesterday was also the tour of the ship's theatre and my mom and I talked the technical director into giving me a private tour of the booth (heh. He was a nice guy, I heard all about all the technical elements that don't really work anymore and then we digressed into telling theatre ghost stories with the lighting designer.

They had the second round of the joke contest. I told my favorite blonde joke, but the Penguin Joke would have been more appropriate for that crowd. Most everyone brought the raunchy. lonelydumptruck told the ice fishing joke and we even got mom up there to tell one of her brother's favorite jokes.

We're in Juneau today. It's pretty grey and dull. lonelydumptruck hurt his foot a bit, so we're not up to walking the whole town the way we did in Sitka. We did go to the Capital and took the 'self-guided' tour. I liked some of the small touches. We went into the Speaker's office and there are 2 signs on the desk - one says 'Boo/Hiss' and the other says 'Don't Pick Your Nose'.

Right now we're enjoying a breakfast beer while I type this and we're hoping to hit the Alaska Brewery a little later in the day, then it is off to Ketchekan. If anyone would like postcards from our fabulous trip, the place to comment is a couple entries back. Seattle folks, the entry to meet up with us this weekend is there as well.

That's all I can think of for now.

I was reading old entries and found this quote about the Scottish Play:

"Bad luck. Some crap about witches or something."


Care to amend your views, sir?