The first weekend of Wage Warfare went well. We had a decent audience for all three shows (they might have been larger had Winter not decided to rear her cold and snowy white head again) and there were no major flubs onstage. Honestly, I think I might have been part of the worst one.
In the program, I’m credited as “Creative Coordinator/Swing.” What those actually mean are 1) I made various suggestions to the director and he used about three of them; and 2) the musical theater term for “understudy.” The title I really wanted, the position I’m most proud of, is that of “Smoke Machine Guy.” And that’s where things got a little messy on Saturday night.
During one of our final rehearsals, I showed up late, but early enough that I was there to push the button and send fake smoke shooting out onto the stage (the first of five times). I heard my cue and pushed the button. Nothing happened. It made a nice clicking noise, but that was it. The director told me later that the machine takes seven minutes to warm up, so since then, I’ve always plugged it in as soon as I get to the theater. I figured I’d reached my quota of screw-ups at one, so I better get it right from then on.
Fast-forward to Saturday night. The smoke always accompanies a change in lighting… I like to think that the lighting change accompanies me, but I usually wait for the lights anyway. When I heard that first cue—the same one when the smoke machine didn’t work before—the lights didn’t change. I had one of those oh-crap-nothing’s-happening-the-lights-haven’t-changed-should-I-hit-the-button-anyway moments—I’m sure you’ve all had a few yourselves. (There was one person in the audience who saw the Friday night performance and had more of an oh-crap-nothing’s-happening-should-I-run-backstage-and-tell-them moment instead.)
I’m not sure if the actors onstage paused at that point or not. After hearing the cue and the lights stayed the same, I was too busy trying to decide if I should hit the button right away and let the lights accompany me for really real. Thankfully, they changed a few seconds later. I think it was a few seconds later. It might have been just one or two, but after getting the timing down during all the rehearsals, it felt like a long time.
But like I said, that may have been the biggest screw-up over the entire weekend, which I think says a lot about the actors and the play as a whole. For those of you who are interested in seeing a really funny show this weekend that has several bursts of fake smoke in it thanks to yours truly, you can still come to one of the remaining performances:
WAGE WARFARE
April 19-20 at 7:30 p.m.
April 21 at 2:00 p.m.
Lakeville Area Arts Center
20965 Holyoke Ave., Lakeville, MN 55044
The official Facebook event page
The official website to buy tickets online ($14.50 for any seat in the theater!)
