Last night the cast and crew of Incorruptible: A Dark Comedy About the Dark Ages by Michael Hollinger gave their final scheduled performance (see “The Play’s the Thing”). We performed four shows on two weekends, twice the usual run of a community play in Haines.
Curtain call of Haines Community Theater production of Incorruptible final night (l to r: Dave Routh, Madeline Witek, Suzanne Newton, Judith McDermaid, John Hunt, Mark Zeiger, Riyan Stossel, Ronnie Bradley (Photo: Curtis Holmes).
What a great experience! We took an excellent script and made it our own (not always intentionally—one of the other main characters and I coined a rallying cry for the production: “Off book by June!”). The players had fun, and the audiences did, too.
Scan from a recent issue of The Chilkat Valley News.
As I predicted, warm, sunny weather cut our audiences this last weekend, but many people, including friends from Juneau, braved the broiling theater to see the show (see Heatwave!). The venue’s new technical system includes temperature monitors. Our techs informed us that the stage reached 100.6°F Friday night. Imagine how that felt in heavy monk’s robes, a full nun’s habit, and medieval dresses, one of them accented by burlap sacking! We watched each other for signs of fainting, but everyone pulled through, including the woman who had to pretend to be a corpse through most of the second act. Oddly enough, when I went out to greet the audience after the show, people commented that my hands felt cold! I, at least, didn’t swelter, for some reason, for which I’m grateful.
We held a cast party on stage last night. Afterward, Michelle and I slept on the fold out couch in the green room so we didn’t need to drive home, or show up at friends’ houses late at night. Michelle had work at 7:15 a.m. today, but we got up early enough for her to drive me out to the bay.
Now, it’s time for me to leave the “life” of a medieval Catholic abbot, and return to normal life. I took great joy in plugging into an audiobook this morning, something I’ve avoided since Easter in favor of cast recordings of the script. I will become more productive on the homestead, now that I’m no longer trying to make my morning shower linger into the evening’s rehearsal. I can fish again, and bake my catch in time for Michelle to come home and eat. No more tag teaming the car!
On the other hand, I’m going to miss my friends in the cast. In the process of bringing the play to life, I really enjoyed interacting socially. Now, I’ll return to my life as a hermit.
For now. I’m hoping we might travel somewhere with the play, possibly Juneau, maybe Skagway, or perhaps into Canada. That’ll have to wait for a while at least. And, talk began back stage last night on a new play sometime in the coming winter. We will see. Right now, I need to get going on that winter’s firewood, try to catch some fish, maybe look into this year’s rhubarb wine.