Performing At Last!

Well, I meant to post last night about our opening show, but I didn't get a chance...so here I am on Friday night, after two shows, to tell you all about our exciting run so far. :) Yesterday we had a tech run in the morning, mostly involving the lovely Erina doing sound for us (yay for music!), and then we split off for a bit before call. I went to the bank to get $5's to give as change for people buying tickets at the door, and then hit Ben and Jerry's for a smoothie...it's five bazillion degrees down here, especially in the late afternoon. There was a bit of a kerfuffle as we regrouped for call...the gallery where we're performing is in a building that has some businesses on the bottom floor (other galleries, a restaurant, etc) that all face into a lovely courtyard, and the upper floors are, I think, apartments. The landlord of this building is apparently really nutso about signage (I just love that word). We found out, after Gill had made two lovely signs to direct people to the right place for the show (it's hard to find), that we were not allowed to put signs in the courtyard or on the sidewalk outside the building, because the landlord doesn't like that.
So, being the inventive Mawrtyrs that we are, we tried to put the sign in the front window of the gallery, as people began to arrive to buy their tickets. We then got a phone call saying that the landlord had spotted the sign in the window (INSIDE the gallery, mind you) and threw a fit--he was also fit to be tied about the fact that there were people congregating in his courtyard waiting for us to open the house. Not the best way to start out, but ah well. We let the people come in and sit down, and we moved the sign to an easel in the front lobby of the gallery, still within sight of the window, but not really visible from the courtyard. Rats!
We had a crowd of 10, which was rather nice for a Thursday night, and get this--some of them were actually strangers! I think. At any rate, the show went very well, though I got so distracted looking at the audience that I totally forgot that I had a line and was supposed to speak...Becky was looking at me expectantly, or as expectantly as she could with the Venus mask on, and I was thinking, "Hmm, it's awfully silent, maybe someone should be speaking now...." Thankfully, Becky just skipped ahead, and things went on just as well without the missing line. Hooray for quick thinking.
Tonight was a slightly smaller crowd, but they laughed more than the opening night audience did, which was gratifying. Everything went quite smoothly, except for the fact that there was confusion about who was supposed to be in charge of videotaping, so the performance didn't actually get taped. Too bad, it was really great! At least, I felt very good about my bits, which of course were the only ones I could see.
I think that's about all I have to say on the subject at the moment...I'll let everyone else add details as they see fit. Hopefully I'll see some of you in the audience, and I wish the rest of you were here too!

-Rachel