When I was a kid I used to get bad motion sickness and did actually turn a pale shade of green from time to time (which is not why the play is called Green Girl, by the way, so don’t read that in). There’s a story my mom likes to tell about two-year old Sarah puking on Papa’s fancy shoes while trapped on a moving sidewalk in a Hong Kong airport. Had mortal fear of roller coasters till age 15. I’ve thrown up on four continents.
I tend to puke less these days but it’s still my first impulse in stressful/exciting situations. Just that easy seasick green. About this time three years ago, I was sitting on a bench in the lobby of the Magic Theatre in San Francisco, knees hugged up to my chest, biting down the vertigo, waiting for my first public reading of Green Girl in a place that wasn’t my hometown or my school, with fellow Bay Area Playwrights Festival playwright Mickey Birnbaum sitting next to me talking me down.
However, the prelude to SPF is so blustery and quick and high-pressure, that there was no time to feel motion sick before we opened, not a second to spare for nerves. I spent the day rushing. The morning of our opening, in a flurry of what-was-she-thinking I dumped my last pair of contacts down the sink. Meanwhile, frenzied, packing a dress and heels-I-never-wear, late for an interview with yahoo broadway, didn’t make it to pick up the last-minute prop I was supposed to pick up, hauled ass to that $99 vision specialist on 42nd street, panicked, explaining “I have my first New York City show opening tonight down at The Public and I need to be able to see it and I kind of blinded myself this morning, uh, can you, uh - ack! – can you help?” Eye doctor’s all “you have a what? what’s a what? what? what?” But he took care of me in a zip, even gave me a secret free pair of lenses in case something went wrong at the show, and it turns out, this crazy cosmic conjunction, the prescription I had been wearing before the sink mishap was the WRONG ONE (I’ve been blinking away double-vision all year but thought that was normal since it’s my first year of contacts), and I actually walked out of that appointment with 20/15 vision, better than before. Good sign, yes? Good karma, not bad. Yes? Yes? And the show was lovely. Couldn’t have asked for more soulful performances from our beautiful ensemble. They left it all out on the floor. Sound of Campion screaming “Attila!!! Attila!!” on her entrance to the climactic scene is going to echo at me in dreams years down the road, and what Will and Keira do with that last scene is flat out electric.
Lucky, grateful, humbled. Happy playwright gets seasick. My stomach’s still turning over from the nerves. Opposite of that reading in San Francisco. Goodness if the vertigo didn’t wait to wallop me until after the show was over this time. I had to hide backstage for five minutes to chill out. I’m still all butterflies. It’ll be August before the moving sidewalk ends. Bring me pepto bismol when you come to the show. Thanks.
Posted by 39 at 11:17 AM. Filed under: General • Production • Green Girl •
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