Travis
keeps me under control.
Weâre all hungry, so we use 50 of our 90 minutes getting some food across the street from
the convention at the Hard Rock Hotel. I order a sandwich, but donât eat a single bite. Iâm
way too nervous.
We race back to the convention, and gather in a suite thatâs being used as our dressing
room. We all clean up, make sure that we have our costumes and props, and run a few of our
scenes. There is genuine excitement in the air. We are in our element: actors preparing to
take the stage.
We are expecting to be let into the theater at 7:30, so we can have a quick run-through of
some blackouts, get our props set, and have five minutes to catch our breath . . . but the
clock says 7:45. The show before us has run long, and weâre not even going to get into the
theater until 8:30. The audience has been lined up for over an hour already, and I know from
experience that an audienceâs willingness to enjoy your show is inversely proportional to the
amount of time you keep them waiting past the time on the ticket, which is, in this case, 8
p.m.
Iâm pacing the dressing room, running my hands through my hair, occasionally swearing, and
stressing myself out.
My friend Travis asks, âWhy are you so worried? Trekkies are the most supportive audience
in the world! They will love anything you put up there! All we have to do is show up, and
theyâll go nuts, right?â
âWrong.â I tell him, gravely. âThey can be the most hyper-critical audience in the world.
Theyâve booed me off the stage. Theyâve marched up to me at conventions to tell me how much
they hated me. Some of these people have a sense of entitlement that youâll never see anywhere
else. This particular audience will be filled with people whoâve paid lots of money to see our
show. Some of them paid as much as 1500 dollars for âall accessâ passes to the convention. So
they expect, and deserve, an amazing show.â I pause. âI also have a lot to prove to them, you
know?â
âYeah, I know,â Travis says.
I donât say it out loud, but I have something to prove to myself, too.
There is a knock on the door, and the stage manager tells us that we can get into the
theater.
We get our props set backstage.
We find an appropriate lighting level.
We give the list of blackouts to our tech guy. [ 3 ]
âThe last line of each scene is on this list,â I tell him.
âAnd the lights come down right after that line, right?â he says.
âYeah.â I say. âDo you have our body mics?â
âBody mics? Nobody said anything to me about body mics.â
Oh shit. We have no body mics. This means we donât have any mics at all. This means itâs
highly unlikely that the back of the house will be able to hear us. This means we are
screwed.
I call a huddle of the actors. Jim, the sound and light tech joins us.
âGuys, we have a situation. There are no mics.â
Travis, who was just trying to calm me down, freaks out. âThere is a full house! Itâs over
500 people! How are they going to hear us?!â
Maz is calmer, âI think we should just project like crazy.â
Tracy agrees. âYeah, weâre all good actors. Weâll just play to the back row.â
Kristen nods. âWhen you introduce the show, just mention that we have no mics, and
encourage the audience to keep it down . . . and weâll just have to project our voices.
Pretend weâre in Ancient Greece.â
âHow Greek is this show going to be?â Kevin asks, saucily.
âNot that Greek.â We all laugh. Crisis averted.
We are going to run through our blackouts, but itâs now close to 8:30. I can feel the
audience outside the theater trading their âWe love you, Wilâ signs for torches and
pitchforks.
I decide that weâre not going to keep
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