Tech Week with Benefits

Nothing quite makes the tech week experience complete like getting your period, getting an almost migraine, and getting the flu. Combine that with half of the female cast and crew also getting their periods and the emotional tension of tech week being upped significantly by that and then the fact that I’ve spread the flu around as an early Christmas present, and you have the recipe for a smash success on your hands.

Yes, ladies and gentlemen, tech week for “The Way of the Wolf” is in full swing, which for this particular show means that we have one more two-hour rehearsal, another run of the show with a preview audience and a notes session and then we open. It’s actually not that bad except for the added bonuses mentioned above. This show is a lot of firsts for me – my first student show without production elements (yeay!), my first show with idiotically fast costume changes (gah), my first time singing solo in a show (which I like), the first time doing rehearsal with the flu (which I didn’t like), my first experience doing fight work (cool), and my first time of getting my period at intermission during a rehearsal run (not so cool). Also, I’ve never played a raccoon or a nighthawk before. It does seem like every show I’m in my character has either a near-death or full-death experience, so the fact that the raccoon dies isn’t that new to me…but getting shot and falling off the mezzanine is a new, cool thing I’ve never done before.

I’m probably so chipper about the whole thing because I’m actually pretty much over the flu, and getting my period doesn’t really phase me that much – and the almost migraine is a thing of the past. I’ve opened shows before, and I’m not worried about this one. We’re ready. Whether everyone else in the cast feels that way is open to question, but I know that we are and if there are some opening week hiccups, I’ve had those too. They come, they go and the show goes on.

Having the flu was actually not that bad of an experience this time. I never did throw up, and being achy and feverish wasn’t so bad with S. there to make me tea and watch movies with me, and shower me with concern and tenderness. My mother will be happy – every time I get sick she wants to come and baby me until I’m better, so the fact that somebody else did will be music to her ears. All the TLC may have actually gotten S. sick, in which case I intend to reciprocate the attention and make him tea and tend to his every need – where my schedule allows. I got sick on a weekend, so that made things a little easier. I suppose I could always get my mom to come down and take care of him.

There is an old superstition that bad things come in threes. I just realized that I got all of my opening night bad luck out of my system already. If that isn’t a good omen, I don’t know what is.

Benefits, indeed.