Cranky Actress Blog

Had a performance last night with the FACHADICK COMPANY. They asked the actors to be ready and dressed in costume by 5:30pm so they could take cast pictures. So I would have to get there at 4:30pm to put on makeup and squeeze into my skintight gown and then sit around until 7pm with the spaghetti straps boring into my shoulders. And then do the show. Do the SHOW. After hanging around in my costume for two and a half hours before the show.

The director said, “These pictures are for you people! We’re doing this for you.” Oh really? Really? They’re for me? Just what I always wanted! Pictures of myself with the FACHADICK COMPANY that I can look at for the rest of my life and reminisce about my mini nervous breakdown at the Westway Diner. So my answer was, “Too busy, can’t make it.”

I walked into the theater at 6pm yesterday and everyone was sitting around the stage and in the audience. I ask the director, “Are you done with the pictures already?” “Ah, no,” he says, “the photographer never showed up.” Ha Ha Ha Ha Ha. I got that wonderful feeling inside, when you trusted your gut and you were right. Etta, my husband’s grandmother would have said I was QVELLING. Yes, yes, I was QVELLING inside.

Then he said, “But he might show up, so if you want to hurry and get your dress on you can get in the pictures.” Cranky had no intention of hurrying. Cranky just gave him a blank stare. When he didn’t show up for tech he lost his director status in my mind. So I go to the powder room. And when I come back the stage manager says to the director, “Did you tell Cranky the photographer isn’t coming so she doesn’t have to hurry?”

We had a very kind audience. They were laughing, laughing, laughing. You gotta love that. During the performance a couple of us were hanging out on the fire escape stairs waiting for our entrances and two people from the show in the theater two floors above came walking down the stairs. They went right to the entrance to the stage and mouthed, “Is this the bathroom?”

Was Cranky tempted to say yes.nWould it have hurt the play if two strangers wandered onstage? We will never know because Cranky did the right thing and directed them to fly hallway, where now half the lights are burned out, so you can’t see the flies coming.