The final curtain

11th December 2019 0 By Allergendad

And that’s a wrap…

The run of Seussical the Musical has come to an end. Five performances in four days. I am shattered. Shattered, but very, very proud. Proud of myself, proud of my Piglet (he absolutely stole everyone’s hearts with his cameo at the end of each show); proud of my family (getting through a show week is tough for anyone but add in a three year old staying up till 10:30 every evening and staying sane for the two hours of the show back stage before he comes on and that’s a completely different kettle of fish – my wife has been amazing this week); finally I’m also proud of the cast and crew of this show who put smiles on so many faces young and old. A cast that had seasoned am-dram pros, newbies treading the boards for the first time (a particular shout out to the magnificant Gertrude who saves Horton every time!) and lots of kids who kept the energy of the show every night.

It’s a very intense process putting on a play. It’s an emotional roller coaster both individually (you’re putting a lot of yourself out there whether for praise or criticism) but also for a cast overall. Every show I’ve ever done has moments when you think ‘it’s never going to happen’. But it also sees people pull it out of the bag through tremendous effort driven by little more than self-pride and an underlying professionalism to the cause. There is a huge amount of camaraderie that comes from the shared jeopardy of putting a show on together. You need to be good in your own right but you also rely hugely on others to make the whole thing work. I have said many a time that if I could create the teamwork and unison that gets created by a show into any other area of work team management I’d be an excellent manager!

I have loved this show. Particularly for having a small child who has watched in wonder as the world of Dr Seuss has come to life in front of his eyes over the last few months. But also because it’s been a real step out of my comfort zone. I’ve only ever done one musical before and I didn’t really have any solo lines in that so to be a main principle in this has been a huge step up. I know that I’m not necessarily the strongest singer but I’ve been really touched by the comments that I received on the back of the performances. I have always loved music and as a teenager I got to experience being in bands so I’ve felt the kick of live performance before. But it’s so very different performing music as an actor (I mean that purely in the sense that I was trying to act, rather than I see myself as an ‘actor’ per say). As terrifying as it is – and I really do find that the nervousness stopped me from enjoying it, particularly in the first two shows – I don’t think I’ve ever felt more alive than in those key moments of the play when the entire audience is watching and listening to you and engaged in the plight of your character. It’s utterly addictive. Every moment is filled with the euphoria of being such the centre of attention but also, because there is so much to consider, there is always something you wish you’d done differently or better.

I’m not sure whether it’s just me or whether anyone else feels like it but there is also a sort of ‘super-human’ element to those key moments. Time seems to slow down and your brain processes so many things simultaneously (some useful, some not!) that you feel like you’re operating on a higher level than normal everyday life. I’ve never felt that more than during this musical. You are concentrating on the lyrics, concentrating on the tune, on the accompaniment, on the other cast members, on being ready for the next line/action but also being in the moment enough to react to what’s going on around you. But on top of all that you see yourself almost in third person: you can hear yourself singing, you can see (although not clearly, the lights are bright) the audience, you want to make sure you know what the next line is but you also have to trust yourself enough to know that it will be there when the line comes. I have caught myself in a blind panic in the wings about to walk onto the stage and join/start a scene because I can’t remember what I say three or four lines into the scene, even though I did it without fault the night before. I’ve learnt (or taught myself, I don’t know which) just to breathe deeply in these situations and remind myself that I know the lines even if I can’t remember what they are out of context in that moment. In nearly all cases the lines come once you get the right cue line or contextual prompt from the scene and the performance is far better for having relaxed into it than forcing yourself to remember in a panic.

The full super-human feeling kicks in when something goes wrong though. It’s amazing how quickly your brain starts firing once you’ve got a problem to solve in that environment. Luckily in this show that didn’t happen many times. I was momentarily left on stage up a ladder at the end of one scene but it was corrected so quickly that I didn’t have a chance to think up anything in response. There was one moment in the middle of my first song that I realised that a handful of props weren’t on the stage which I was going to need later in the show. My brain started going wild with all the things I might need to do to resolve it (while singing and trying to be an elephant washing in a pool and looking for a dust speck). Luckily someone else had noticed as well and was in a better position to bring them on than I was but I still had to get them all in position in a later song. When it works, that feeling having solved or adapted to a problem in a way that still works with the story and the technical requirements of the play is the most satisfying feeling in the world.

It’s quite a feeling when it all comes to a close. I was happy with my performances, especially by the end of the run when it felt like it had all fallen into place. But there are always bits that you feel you could do better and it’s sad to know that I’ll never get that chance. To fully see the scale of that post-show come down you only need to look at my son. I’m not sure he’s fully understood yet that there will not be another performance but he has loved the show far more than I could ever had imagined. To put that in perspective: today is the first day where there have been no performances. He’s woken twice from sleeping since the curtains closed and both times has started talking about something from the play that he has clearly been dreaming about. Earlier today he picked up the house phone and wanted to call Mayzie La Bird (one of the main characters I’m on stage with) to ask where she was/check was she at the rehearsal. When sat up at the dinner table he was in hysterics pretending to play the table as a piano and singing the Cat’s lines from one of the songs which are done in the style of Louis Armstrong. Whenever he’s stepping down (either from steps or having purposely constructed a stage from bits of his toys and furniture) he pretends to be the Wickershams shouting ‘ha’ and the proceeds to steal the clover from me. When walking down the corridor he demands that we line up so that he deliver General Genghis Khan Schmitz’s lines to the cadets with me replying to the call and response lines. At random other moments across the day he has recreated multiple scenes purely from his memory. This kid has lived and breathed this show! It’s simply quite remarkable to see how much of it he has digested. Scenes that I didn’t even know he’d seen are etched into his mind and come blurting out at random moments.

I have no idea how long this memory will live with him for but I am so proud of him for running out on to the stage smiling, show after show. He might have been shy and nervous but he was desperate to perform in front of everyone. The last night was to an audience of 120 people surrounded by stage lights, his dad in a funny outfit and face paint/makeup that clearly unsettled him, and a cast of 20+ recently made friends for the pinnacle resolution point of the show. There wasn’t the slightest hint of reluctance and he was absolutely desperate to come back on again for his bow just a song later. I can’t imagine what it must do to his confidence to get comfortable showing off to that many people at such a young age. I certainly was not as bold at three as he is!

That said, it’s also been a tough week for him. Multiple late nights, huge adrenaline spikes and overstimulation have left him a bit all over the place. Luckily today wasn’t a nursery day and my wife doesn’t work on Mondays so we had a chance to re-acclimatise him to a normal routine but I don’t think it’s been easy for either of them. Piglet has been notably frustrated and angry at times today in a way that I don’t usually see from him. I think he just doesn’t know how to process the emotions of it all. That said, I’m not entirely sure I do either.

It’s not been the easiest week for food either. Being out the house so much makes it hard to stay on top of cooking. I’ve eaten more takeaways and supermarket dash meals in the last week than in the last few months previous to this, I suspect. It’s slightly easier for me as when I’m on my own I only need to cut out milk so I find that things like Sushi (a new addition to my go-to list of tasty foods to get on the go. Thanks, Alex!) work well but nearly all contain soya. Trying to find options for my wife and Piglet on the days that they’re with me has been difficult. A combination of well prepped lunches and good research into the local restaurants have got us through. The other challenge was there being lots of other kids around with chocolates and sweets. We had to step in a couple of times to refuse a well meaning Smartie or biscuit but actually a lot of other people were looking out for him as well.

One of the meals I was particularly worried about was the cast’s traditional Friday night curry. We’ve done it for years and we turn up to Delhi Spice in our masses just about 11pm. As a result it’s a bit of a hurried process with 20+ orders being taken simultaneously. They do a great job but I knew it might be difficult to get allergy information through all this, not only because struggling with an allergic reaction would have made the remaining three performances pretty hard work! Being told that ‘the curries would be OK’ did nothing to alleviate this but actually when I placed my order and asked them to check they did a really good job. The meal was checked with the manager in front of me and I then I noticed that he personally brought out each of my portions directly to me. Considering I was one of just 24 people ordering in one group I think they dealt with it really well. Another positive experience was dropping into the local chippy in the gap between the two Saturday shows. It turned out that they used milk in their fish batter but they were very helpful in going through their allergen documentation and finding me something. Their breaded scampi was dairy-free, it turned out. What I feared at first might become an awkward interaction turned out to be incredibly helpful in the end.

So with the show out of the way it suddenly seems very close to Christmas. I was hoping that would mean lots more time to focus on the blog and catching up on various other bits that have fallen to the side over the last few weeks. Foolish really, the rest of December looks bonkersly busy still! We’ll be doing an 8 hour round trip over Christmas to get to family in Somerset and Norfolk before coming back home for New Year. Lots to look forward to.

Thanks to everyone who came to see the play. It makes it so much more rewarding when you know you’ve got people in the audience (even if you try desperately hard not to spot them during the performance for fear that it will put you off!). I think this play was probably the best supported show I’ve done in terms of my own friends and family coming. It feels crazy to think that it might be next December before I’m next involved. What’s even more crazy is that Piglet will be at the end of his first term at school by then! Arghhh! Where have the years gone?!

The final curtain closes. Well, at least I did it my way (thanks, Frank)