The Playgoer: What IF the Rain it Raineth Every Day

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Monday, June 25, 2007

What IF the Rain it Raineth Every Day

In case you ever wondered what goes into making the call at the Delacorte when clouds loom, Playbill takes us inside what must be one of the most maddening Stage Manager jobs in town.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

We had to cancel our production of OFF Stage last thursday because of rain, and let me tell you, it was heartbreaking.

I run around non-stop for an hour and a half every night, distributing set and prop pieces to sites over 8-10 blocks (that's just my half of the show) in the East Village. No sooner had I gotten everything out and our second tour had begun, did the rain begin to fall, hard. It washed the dried sweat from my brow as I kicked into overdrive - getting every actor and set piece back to the holding areas was painful.

The audience seemed to roll with it, the actors were invaluable dolls, but I was a beaten man. Thankfully, the following 2 nights were full of the show that I'd been dreaming of for 3 years.

One more week to go, and I will not be detered by bad predictions for this coming Thursday. I've had too great a time celebrating the plays and playwrights that got me into nyc's indie theater in the first place, but I will continue checking in with the weather channel.

Susan said...

One of my favorite NYC theater experiences was a rainy night at the Delacorte. I went to see Henry V in the Park, and early in the second act, it started to drizzle. When the rain got heavier halfway into the act, they held the show. They held for at least 20 minutes, and many people, including the other couple my boyfriend and I were with, chose to leave. Finally, the SM announced that the only thing keeping them from continuing was that they couldn't use their body mics in the rain. Since so many people had left, they asked everyone remaining to just move down to the front/center section and they would continue without mics as long as we didn't use umbrellas. We all moved down, and the actors took the stage in mid-battle scene, and we all cheered for them. The rain even made the battle seem even more raw, and it felt like a truly New York moment, like actors and audience were all in it together.