Under normal circumstances, this show would be included in one of my “The Ones that Got Away” posts. But this one is a special case in that it is not a production where I simply wasn’t cast or decided not to go all the way in pursuing the role after all and the story ends there. In this one I was in rehearsals for two months, only for the plug to be pulled one week before opening due to Covid-19.
This production was a remount of the one that had been
scheduled to go on in March 2020. But the very weekend it was supposed to open,
everything shut down due to the Covid pandemic. However, the company managed to
go on with one performance, which was actually a preview. I was in the audience
that night, one of the few people who got to see the show. Theatre companies
were cancelling their shows and what remained of their seasons right and left, but this one, in accordance with
health guidelines in
The director was looking for people to be in the ensemble because most of the main roles would be played by the people who were supposed to have them in 2020. Unfortunately for me, I could not make it to the auditions. I originally could and asked to be in the first slot of auditions at six, but then they asked me to work a private event at my work. It wasn’t supposed to go on too late, so I asked to push mine back to eight. But even that was too late so I sent an email saying I couldn’t make it and I was sorry for wasting their time. I thought that would be the end of it, but I was mistaken.
The director asked me if I could make it on a different day. I was the only one she met with that day. Taking me to the costume and make-up room at the Novato Theater Company, a rather stuffy room on a summer day, I did my song “Almost Like Being in Love” from Brigadoon and learned the short choreography piece. I got the email offering me a place in the show the very next day.
While I was cast in the show, they hadn’t yet decided how to use me. The director sent me the music for ensemble roles which were “Eyesight to the Blind,” “Captain Walker” and “Pinball Wizard.” “It’s a Boy” was manageable, but I took one look at the other two and thought “There’s no way I can sing this!” There simply were no baritone parts in them. On the day of the callback I audition with two other men. I did the best I could with it and, in my opinion, I didn’t do too bad with “Captain Walker” or “Pinball Wizard.” When the full cast list was announced I was not given any of the roles that we were singing. The other two men were, but not me.
After reviewing the rehearsal schedule and sending in my conflicts I began to wonder if I’d made a mistake in signing up for this show. I could tell I was going to miss several rehearsals and a number of them seemed important. I couldn’t make weekend rehearsals and I would miss a couple days before Thanksgiving. But that all changed at the end of October.
A little more than a week before rehearsals began, I left my longtime day job, which was the reason why I would be missing so many rehearsals. The new job meant a small pay cut, but it gave me weekends off, which meant I could do as much theatre as I wanted and never have to ask for a day off. Not only that, but I’d never miss any weekend rehearsals ever again and if a Saturday matinee performance got added at the last minute, it wouldn’t make any difference in my life. All that was not the main reason why I left my job, but it was one of the reasons. Now, with the exception of a handful of dates, I would be fully available for rehearsals.
The first two weeks of rehearsals were music on Thursday, Saturday and Sunday and dance on Tuesday and Wednesday. I was looking forward to getting back into the swing of things. This being the first theatre show I would do since the Covid restrictions were (mostly) lifted, I had hopes of having a good time and feeling the thrill of being back on stage. I thought it sort of poetic: the last show I saw before Covid would be my first show post-Covid. Unfortunately, it ended up being an unhappy experience and I grew to hate it.
To begin, while I had left my job for a new one, the damage was done. After over seven years of having to put up with incredibly idiotic customers, having a boss who never took my side on anything, and having to put up with coworkers who got away with everything and were never disciplined, it left me with a short fuse. While I never exploded at anyone in rehearsals, I could feel anger rising inside me; it didn’t seem to take much to make me angry. It also left me with a very low tolerance for foolishness. And some of the cast really tested me, as well as the directors.
The music rehearsals started a bit haphazardly with a few too many distractions. For example, “How can we follow,” a song that was only eight bars of music, but I swear it took like forty five minutes to teach every part, mainly because the music director (from here on known as MD) was not as focused as he could have been. And some of the music he had, the piano score, was not the same as the vocal books. Not only that, but he used a screen for music instead of printed paper. Admirable to save paper, yes, but sometimes the page didn’t change or he skipped a page and played the wrong thing. Singing the music was exacerbated by the fact that we had to wear masks indoors.
Mask wearing caused problems with singing for me because I could barely hear myself let alone the others in my group. Even though I heard myself making noise, the mask blocked a lot of the sound so I wasn’t sure if I was singing the right notes. Not only that, but when I inhaled, the mask kept inhaling into my mouth. I tried to make the MD see that this was a problem and he’d have to make allowances, but he wouldn’t listen. “Christmas” was a glaring example of the problem. The song starts with the bass section singing “Ah-ah-ah-ah” repeatedly, but the MD kept saying we were not singing or missing our entrance. Well, there were four things he was not taking into account:
- There were only three of us in the bass section and two of us were on the other side of the stage where he would be seated playing the piano.
- He instructed us to sing softly or breathy or whatever.
- We did not have microphones on.
- We were wearing masks which, as I mentioned, blocked the sound.
The group sections in the songs often split into several parts, sometimes as many as six. I was usually in the lowest part and, in the multiple section parts, with only one other man. And this man not only didn’t have as wide a vocal range as I did, but he was also a bit old and not always sharply paying attention. This caused the MD to often say we were missing our entrance or not singing, but, in my opinion, he just couldn’t hear us.
Unfortunately, things never improved with this MD. The cast fell into some bad habits that were never corrected; I think we didn’t dedicate enough time to ironing all that out. The counts on how long to hold certain notes were never quite correct in “Christmas.” The syncopation on a number of songs was incredibly difficult, but the biggest problem was with “We’re Not Gonna Take It.” There are two parts of the song that have the same lyrics, but there are subtle differences. But we all fell into the habit of saying the second section the same as the first. Finally, at one rehearsal toward opening, when it happened again, the MD yelled at us, “NO! NO! NO! This is my biggest pet peeve!”
He also had some things that simply didn’t work or were questionable. First, he asked me if it would throw me off if I sang the upper part. Uh…yes. I couldn't sing it the way he wanted me to. In another time he might have been able to intimidate me into doing things that my voice wasn’t comfortable with, but now that I was many years older and had been performing awhile and I knew what my voice could and could not do, I wasn’t going to cave that easily. Second, during “We’re Not Gonna Take It,” both he and the director wanted anger portrayed in the song (okay), maybe even yelling (not okay). I wasn’t gonna risk anything damaging to my voice.
Things came to a head during the final rehearsal before the holdiay break. The rehearsal itself was a disaster. Mistakes were made right and left. The MD played the wrong thing more than once. The cast was performing the song "Sensation," when a number of people just stopped singing toward the end of it. Then the MD, with an obvious tone of disappointment in his voice, had no good notes at the end, saying that he had been giving the same notes for weeks, but no improvement. I was done with him after that.
The director and choreographer were the same person in this show, probably the first time I’ve had that experience. And the dance rehearsals were not much better than the music ones. It was mainly because the director was one of those people who has a thousand thoughts in her head at once and couldn’t focus on one thing at a time. She always had the papers with the steps on them when she taught the dances, but without them, she would be lost. Just lost. If one piece had fallen out of her hand while she was doing the steps with us- well, it would not have ended well. The first one we tackled was for “Sensation,” but we moved too quickly through it. For example, when it came time to learn a new step, she didn’t walk us through it. She would just go right on doing the next steps on her paper and we had to try to do the best we could. We got copies of her steps and I hoped reading the papers myself would give me an idea of what to do, but I couldn’t make head or tail of them.
“Pinball Wizard,” in particular, was a nightmare. We went over that dance for an hour and I still had no idea what we did. Then, to make matters worse, we didn’t touch on that dance again for weeks and when we did, all of us floundered. When the song ended the director said “What happened?!” And I said “I can’t remember the damn dance!” (Okay, maybe I didn’t say that) Then when we requested a review she wouldn’t talk the song slowly and walk us through them; she played the music, got on stage and danced the routine calling out the steps which I had a hard time hearing since her mask blocked out her voice. And with the music blaring out, it made it even harder to hear her.
Basically it was the equivalent of giving someone one swimming lesson, throwing them in the deep end and saying “Swim stupid, swim!”
Another headache in the dances was the people who had been in the original production. At first I thought since this was a remount, they’d remember it or it would come back to them, but the director updated a thing or two here and there. “We did it this way the first time” or “I was over on that side last time” got old quick. Eventually, the director also got sick of hearing it and wanted to hear it no more. One cast member in particular was having problems. This person had been involved the first time around, but changes were made and she went into a daily fight with the director over where she was the first time and how she kept being moved around and which dance combination she had to do this time.
I wished that the director had put aside her friend hat and put on her director hat. Some of the people in the cast had known her a long time and she let them get away with everything. For example, some people wouldn't be paying attention a lot of the time. At least three people were constantly talking every time they were performing and sometimes when we were supposed to be learning. They could not go one second without having to have a conversation with someone. It might have helped if they said something intelligent to help the process or asked good questions. But no. They mainly had to say something just to crack a joke or say something that had nothing to do with what we were focusing on.
It was a real kick if someone was absent (which was about every rehearsal and usually the same person(s)). The director could never remember who was supposed to be in an empty spot, even when told literally a minute earlier. Hell, even seconds earlier.
“Who’s supposed to be there?”
“Nicole and Bella.”
“Who’s not here?”
“Ben.”
“Who’s missing?”
“Bella.”
“Wait, someone’s not here!”
“BEN!”
I learned the dances better with the two dance captains. In fact, I’d go as far to say learned more from them in one rehearsal than the director in six.
The videos of the dances took over a week to put on line, nearly two weeks. I don’t know why they couldn’t just put them on the Facebook group the same night they were filmed. As such, when we revisited “Sensation reprise” and “Pinball Wizard” I remembered none of it. And to top it off, the videos were poorly done. I barely saw the dancers because the focus was on the director and she was often hunched over reading her paper, not using her arms or going on her knees in those parts, trying not to lose her place and not yelling out what to do next enough. Or if she did she would say things, but not which foot did what. And she often messed up her own choreography.
We had a little trouble filling two of our roles. The original Mrs. Walker from the first incarnation returned, but she had too many scheduling problems and the fact that she had a child in the last year complicated matters. They gave her more chances than she should have had, but in the end, they let her go and she was replaced. The other role was that of Acid Queen. We had someone cast, but she dropped out and the director couldn’t fill the role. The role is traditionally played by a black actress and that’s what the director looked for, but no luck. Eventually, she found someone to do it toward the end after deciding to broaden the casting criteria.
In addition to all the casting problems, the director tried very hard to get people to be the backstage crew for set changes, which proved to be almost as impossible as finding an Acid Queen. I don’t know why she couldn’t just get people in the ensemble to do it. That’s what any other director would have done. It’s certainly the way it’s been in every musical I’ve done.
Eventually my attitude toward rehearsal and this show in general became “Let’s get this over with.” I was in a show that was frustrating me, working with people frustrating me and I did not want to be there. At all. Our holiday break came, after which there would only be two weeks of rehearsals and then the run...Or would it?
As we entered the final stretch of rehearsals, another Covid wave, the Omnicron variant, was in force. First we tried to push the show forward with strict masking and testing every 5-7 days. Shortly before Christmas, we had a Covid outbreak in the company. The director tested positive along with a couple others. I didn’t, thankfully. Luckily, everyone had been vaccinated, along with a booster. After that, the decision was to continue on with the scheduled January 14 opening, while following Covid protocols. We carried on with rehearsals doing what we could, with the director absent. We got as far as the sitzprobe.
Shortly after that, we were told that the show’s opening would be postponed a week in the hope that the Omicron wave would mostly subside by then. By this point I had no expectation that it would open at all. And then someone asked if we were going to do wear masks during the performances. We were told they would be “optional.” Great. It seemed with each passing day that the opening was becoming less likely. Or if it even went forward, there would be mask wearing, making the heat in the costumes, make up and lights unbearable, not to mention problems that with sound that would inevitably come.
Then, two weeks before we were to open on the new date, that’s when signs of panic began to show among the cast. We lost two people, one of whom was the replacement Mrs. Walker. They dropped out because they both lived with their parents, and they were afraid for their parents’ health and safety. But I wasn’t completely convinced that this was true. Both of these individuals had done shows while the Delta variant was raging a few months earlier and while that variant wasn’t as contagious, it was more deadly. One of them even continued live performing after the Omicron variant wave subsided. In my opinion, if you’re that concerned about your parents, then you shouldn’t take any chances as long as Covid exists, or ever again, in other words.
The following night we got an email saying Tommy was postponed to September. You can only imagine how angry I was over it. Two months of rehearsals and then the show pulled at the last minute. In an effort to make it so we had something, the team decided to have a taping of the show during what would have been closing weekend. But during the taping, we would have to wear masks. A large part of me wanted to turn my back on it and just not do the taping. In the end I only did it so as not to throw things off too much, but I honestly didn’t care about the show any more by this announcement.
Some people felt that even though we closed, we still accomplished something or that they still would rather have been there than home. The MD made some speech about how even if we closed, we should be proud that we made something that didn’t exist and that’s what art was. What a load of tripe. All I could think was “Shut up. I just had two months of my life wasted. Fuck you.” My face may have been half covered by my mask, but my eyes were giving him full venom.
The team vowed that Tommy would survive and go one day. At one rehearsal the director said, “I hate Covid.” We all do, but Covid didn’t shut this production down, the people did. In no other pandemic have people shut things down. In the past, if you were “sick,” you went on. Ask any actor if they’ve done a show while being medically defined as sick. I can tell you now that I have. It seemed that, like many theatre shows, this was a crap shoot. Basically, the attitude was “hopefully the show will happen and if another Covid wave hits, then sorry, didn’t mean to waste so many of your evenings.”
The rehearsal before the taping was garbage. We had never had a rehearsal with all the costumes, lights and cues so of course it wasn’t good. But they were only giving us one rehearsal with all that before doing two performance worthy runs? You’ve got to be kidding me.
When the day of the taping arrived, we had to take a rapid Covid test. Unfortunately, one of the core cast members had Covid, testing positive twice. Someone in the ensemble had to step in for him. In addition to that, the actress we had to play Acid Queen decided not to do the taping. We had to do two performances on that day because we had two sets of little boys playing the role of Tommy as a child. As for the song “Acid Queen,” the musicians would play it, but with no one singing.
Since I didn’t have a mic and after listening to the MD say “I can’t hear your part” for two months, I didn’t even bother singing at all. It was hot and I could barely breathe as it was. During both tapings, there was an issue. In the first, toward the end of the show and while the camera was still recording, the director called to one of the little boys to get on his marker. Well, that taping was ruined. Then in the second, my least favorite person in the cast missed one of his cues and just walked onstage through an invisible wall halfway through the scene. He was one of the ones who was always yammering on and on to someone backstage, wasn’t paying attention and had to start a conversation with someone. Or in rehearsals he had to pipe in with a stupid remark that had nothing to do with the subject at hand.
One of the videos made its way onto Youtube after it was finished being edited. You may or may not be able to tell, but I can clearly tell I'm walking through it.
The experience of this show was one of my biggest theatrical disappointments and definitely the one that made me the angriest. It was incredibly frustrating that we put in two months of rehearsal, and I got my hopes up to get to do a live show again only for it all to go up in smoke. After it was all over, I resolved that there was no way I would do this show in September. I could not take another month and a half to two months of the MD saying “Basses, I can’t hear your part” or the director being completely scatter-brained and absent minded. I would go so far as to say the experience with this show soured my love of performing in live theatre for a time.
About four months after it was all over, as luck would have it, I received an email from the director saying that she decided not to go through with staging it after all. It was apparently too big a project for her to tackle again. That saved me the trouble of telling her that I wasn't going to do it.
