So this morning I'm sitting at Coffee on the Corner, a little coffee shop right around the corner from the theatre. It's a great little place; the coffee is just OK but you get a big mug for 83 cents, and Dave (the owner), Mike and Sarah are wonderful people. The tables have chess boards on them, and most of the company comes in here at some time during the day to get their coffee and bagel. Three other coffee shops have better coffee, but none has the homey atmosphere of COTC. Yesterday brought the news that Daniel has the chickenpox (should you want to familiarize yourself with the cast of characters, check out the ASC website and peruse the cast lists and bios). There seems to have been some sort of small curse placed on the company in terms of injuries (rumor has it that people quoting the Scottish Play is the cause, even though I personally have purged two of the troupe members after doing so). To date: Olivia has a severely sprained ankle, possibly a stress fracture, and is still in a leg boot; Alyssa broke two toes while preparing to take a shower;Kevin sprained his ankle simply out on his running hitting a small bump; Andrew contracted shingles; and now Daniel has the chickenpox as a result of Andrew's shingles (which can give someone chickenpox if they haven't already had it). This has shoved our rehearsal schedule back a week, as today we were scheduled to do runs of Planet and Much Ado. Not possible without Daniel. There's one other guy who hasn't had chickenpox yet, so we are waiting with bated breath.
In addition to that, one of the resident troupe members, Eric Shoen, who plays D'Artagnan, broke his ankle during a performance of Three Musketeers. I was actually at that performance and saw it happen. He was being lifted down from the balcony level when he lost his foothold and fell unexpectedly, landing wrong on his foot and breaking his ankle. He actually tried to continue with his performance for five minutes until he finally sat at the edge of the stage and said "I'm in a lot of pain." They finally stopped the performance and got him off stage. The audience waited for about 30 minutes before another cast member came out and cancelled the show. The Rez Company then had to spend a week re-casting all their shows (Eric also played Horatio in Hamlet and one of the Antipholuses in Comedy of Errors). It was one of the worst accidents I've seen on the stage, second only to watching Sean Sheilds almost lose his eye during the fight in King Lear. They did one performance of Comedy with Matt Sincell on book, the book cleverly covered with a makeshift Fodor's Guide to Italy, making it look as if Antipholus was a tourist. Very clever.
Anyway, all this has made everyone cautious. The company used to play volleyball on Sat. mornings; no more. We are discouraged from any "unnecessary" physical activity. I had a bit in Planet where I made an entrance leaping over some boxes; not any longer. I did hurt my back a bit doing a forward roll in Much Ado (in which I double as a member of the Watch), but I didn't tell anyone and kept it in. I was actually planning a day of hiking in Shenandoah Nat. Park this past weekend, but when the heat advisory came out I bagged it. The last thing that needs to happen is to find the old guy passed out from heat exhaustion on some little-traveled trail in the park. I haven't even done my bike riding/walking this weekend because of the heat advisories this weekend. But today is a pretty beautiful day, so I have to back on the bike this evening. Use it or lose it!
I am in the midst of preparing a vodcast which will take everyone on a small tour of the facilities and such, and perhaps part of a rehearsal. That will be experimental vodcast 1, so look for it in a few days. Enough for now. -TWL
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