Final Performance, Sordid Lives

According to Jamie, we could still have done several more performances and sold them out. But alas, last night was our final show, at least for this year. (I've already blocked my schedule for the 2012 revival!)

The show went well. Similar to opening night, and in the same spot, April went up on one of her lines. She recovered last time, but I had to ad-lib last night. If my actual line had been on the tip of my tongue, I could have simply gone on, filling the space. But I needed April's line to prompt mine. My cover sounded contrived, at least to my own ears. Still, the audience probably never knew.

Also in that scene I caught myself planning out how I was going to vary my delivery to a set of repetitive lines. My planning worked, the audience collectively laughed. But thinking about it took me slightly "out of the moment" and I didn't work up to my usual power ending. Again, the audience never knew the difference.

The audience did, however, see the curtain fall off the window and onto a small table during the funeral scene. GW (Don) drunkenly proclaims that "Life is a big ol pile of shit, Latrelle", exits slamming the door behind him. The force of his slam caused the curtain to fall, pretty much right in front of me. The audience started tittering, and in the two seconds it took me to decide whether to put the curtain back, the tittering became infectious. Remaining completely in character and with a slight nod of my head toward the fallen curtain, I delivered my next line "Well, he's right about that" directly to the audience. They laughed, and I continued on with the scene, choosing to leave the curtain over the table. The audience "got" my intention that it was just one more thing poor put upon Latrelle had to deal with.