Playing Vegas

My first tour!  We’ve been in Las Vegas for most of a week already, doing school shows and workshops for the kids…that was a long three days.  All kinds of wonderful stories from those shows, kids coming up with brilliant answers, the one girl who wanted to play Feste in the summary because "he’s the only one in the show who has a brain," very good times.  Although I’m quite sick of the other two people in my group by now…I was paired with the difficult ones on the theory that I had the temperment to handle it.  Almost, almost true.  By the third day it was getting to be a bit much.  But that’s over now.

Our Thursday show for the kids got kinda screwed up when we found out *during the performance* that the schoolbuses had to leave, with the kids on them, at 11:30.  We’d started at 10:00.  So we only did Act I for them, which was quite sad and made the whole thing something of a non-event.  But Friday was a very good day.  I went to the bookstore and coffeeshop with Lisette and Armin, and we had good conversations about Elizabethan history, the book he’s writing, and the nature of genius.  Armin was pretty much only here yesterday…Thursday night we had a rehearsal in the new space (we have several different venues) and he was there for that, but we were all tired and cranky and the wind was intense and apparently he will only fly drugged so he wasn’t quite himself.  But after the rehearsal we all went to a local pub and had a good time.  I was very upset because my flute won’t sound in the wind — who knew? But I guess I should have thought of that — and I had to keep turning around to different angles to find one where I could get the most sound.  And I thought that all my work, writing the music and brushing up an instrument I haven’t played in 6 years, would all be for nothing.  So I was upset.  But I went and hung out with everyone anyway, and the people I am here with are so wonderful that I was cheered up in spite of myself 🙂

Anyway, yesterday, Friday…it was so windy that we had to strike the set, which was two giant paintings hung from the ceiling, because they were blowing around dangerously.  So we had no backstage.  We had to sit in chairs in the back in full view of the audience.  Which meant that we had to watch the show — no talking, no moving around, no reading, we all had to be involved at every moment.  And it made the show excellent.  Armin came to the dressing area (a boat — the show was on a lake) at intermission and told us that we were losing some of the audience because it was sooooo cold, but everyone was adoring us and it wasn’t our fault.  I was able to play a lot of the music, though not quite all of it, and at intermission Debbie told me she needed filler, so while everyone else got to drink coffee to warm themselves up, I went back out onstage and improvised on the flute, which went surprisingly well.  I was shivering through most of the show — my costume has a fairly heavy skirt, but the wind goes right through the arms and the bodice, and it was very cold; Lisette and I had it the worst for cold last night.  But the point is, the show went well.  My parents were there, which was good, they saw a good show.  Armin was ecstatic.

He told me that I had taken a lot of very small moments and made them beautiful.  And that Debbie has big plans for me.  And that I’ve got a great career ahead — he said that four or five times.  And that next time, he’ll give me more lines.  There’s a next time.  I couldn’t have been happier.  And he was wearing my hat — he needed a hat while the sun was out, and I gave him mine — and he was saying that I’m extremely talented and that I did fantastic work for him and that he’ll cast me again, and he was Armin Shimerman and I respect this man and like this man and trust this man so much.  I told him that I hoped to have the chance to work with him again, and he said that he would make that happen.  What more could I ask?

We all went to a bar after the show, where my parents were already, and had much revelry for several hours.  I got to introduce my parents to everyone, including Armin.  He asked them if they were yet used to the fact that I’m going to be an actor, and my mother said, almost, but I still worry about the uncertainty.  And Armin said, Stephanie’s not going to have much uncertainty.  She’ll have some, because everyone does, but not much.  She’s got a great career ahead of her.  And he said that he still can’t get over that one day in the workshop when I wound up singing, that I’m not just a good singer but a great singer (which doesn’t really mean that much coming from Armin, because he’s not musical at all, but was still wonderful to hear).  And that he looks forward to seeing what I will do, and that in time to come, he’ll be sitting in his octeganarian years saying "I remember when…"  As though working with me before I’ve really gotten started is going to be something that Armin will look back on with excitement.  I was so happy.

I wrote him a thank-you card, it was a good card, I think it said everything I wanted to say.  And on the left flap of the card I wrote a number of the quotes I took down during rehearsals, mostly his but a few other people’s as well, and it was a good card.  He asked if I would be embarassed if he read it then, and I said no but that I had to go return my mic, and then I went straight to the pub so I didn’t talk to him about it.  But when we were all sitting together around a couple tables, I saw it on the table a little way away from him — still in his sort of area, but far enough away that he could forget to take it with him — and I was wondering if I should remind him to take it if he forgot the way I had to do for Geoff all that time ago.  And then, maybe ten minutes later, I saw him slide it toward himself and careful put it between the pages of the book he bought at Barnes and Noble with Lisette and me, and put it away in his bag.  And I was so pleased.  It was something to keep, and to keep carefully, made safe.  I felt…loved.

–Stephanie