BWW Blog: No One is Alone

There's a lot going on in the world right now - and with social distancing, it's easy to feel alone. But as Sondheim taught us, No One is Alone. Everything is kinda crazy - how do we, maybe the touchiest and neediest kinds of people, manage being away from our theatre family for God knows how long?

We need to maintain our connections with one another to keep sane - from a safe distance of course (we don't want to be apart of the problem). So why not take a stroll?

Ah, memory lane - a place so close to my heart (yes, I know that was cheesy, just go with it). Since we all have a little time on our hands, I'm just gonna share some of theatre experiences that make me laugh.

The first musical I was ever in, The Addams Family, has this great big number, One Normal Night. In my production, some of the ancestors were chosen to waltz. The director chose my two left feet to be apart of this particular dance. The curtain was about to rise when I grab my partner's hand, and we smile at one another. Before I say this next part, I do want to preface that this guy is super sweet and we're still good friends to this day and he absolutely did none of this on purpose...our hands are folded in one another when I start to feel a pain in my palm form. My skin was had a red glow and became itchy as I began to blow up like a balloon WHILE WE WERE DANCING! Before going on for the number, my dance partner had some unknown reason felt he could cure his backstage boredom by pouring liquid latex all over his hands - not knowing I have a pretty bad allergy to it. So there we are. Dancing, inflating, and there comes a point where we separate and during all this, I'm just doing my best to just not pass out. I guess our Caveman noticed my woozy condition and he caught me just as I was about to fall. He held me up for the rest of the number. Then after we left the stage, a few of my cast mates helped me with getting water and Benadryl and finding a place for me to rest for a bit.

Fast forward a few years to my senior year in high school. I was the lead in a play called Love of a Pig. I played a woman named Jenny who just loved a good chart - pie, bar, you name it. In the last act of the play, I was supposed to grab a large Sharpie off of an easel and write out some internal thoughts on a large foam board. Someone had been messing with the props and had broken off the end of the pen's clip and I didn't notice until I grabbed it...(if you get queasy easily you may want to skip onto the next paragraph...) I pricked my finger and it just started to gush blood. I pressed my finger on the end of the board as long as I could, but eventually, I had to let it go. The play ends with Jenny holding up a load of different books...I, unfortunately, was still bleeding and ruined some of the props. As soon as the play ended, my love interest in the show ran off and came back on with some paper towels so I could continue and do our little closing night speech.

Last summer, my college put on Little Shop of Horrors and I had the amazing honor of playing Audrey II. As this man-eating plant, I so badly wanted to make all these cool weird noises and such. Mostly, I wanted to burp real loudly after scarfing Orin down, but alas, I cannot burp on command. Try as I might, I only can muster up a pathetic "uup." Pitiful. I know. Lucky for me, my best friend, Ian, can. Every night he would come into the prop room (I had a nice set up there with a mic and a monitor - thanks tech crew! You guys rock!) and he would come in and burp for me after I would chomp onto carrots and chips and laughing maniacally into the mic. That was the end of act I - we would sit in there and talk and laugh for a bit. We really grew closer as friends in that Little Room.

The point is - we all have each other's backs. Theatre people form families quite easily. Don't let this quarantine stop you from being there. We need one another more than ever, even if it's behind a screen. Check in, text, call, video chat. Laugh together and look back at your old show memories with one another. Times are hard, but they're a little less hard with family by your side.

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