Acting in the Rain

We finished up the annual Evergreen Cemetery Walk, in its 20th year, with a wrap party at the McLean County Museum of History and a fond farewell to the retiring director, Judy Brown, to be succeeded by Rhys Lovell, who reprised his role this year as Hoss Radbourn, baseball player, and directed the scene I was in with Jeremy Stiller. We played Asahel and Mary Gridley, a sparring couple who look nothing like these two under their umbrella.

We did stand under umbrellas at times during the week, but cheerfully put them down and acted in the rain. And, briefly, in the snow! The very first Saturday was quite cold, and the earliest precipitation was white. While it soon dissolved into rain, it prompted Judy to recall the past and say, "I came in with snow and will go out with snow!" Judy also went out acting, doing a role she had played before, taking over as a sudden understudy for an actor taken ill. Bridgette returned, and all was well, but it made for some extra cemetery drama.

Today, on a rainy Blue Monday in the blog, I am playing catch-up again, with laundry, editing duties, general clean-up and organization, and possibly some poetry submission. I have finally read all the sweet cards from the cast of The Language Archive, which I was a bit too teary-eyed to peruse closely at the time, even though I was able to enjoy the gifts of fresh bread, kitchen towels, world music, marvelous scents via incense, and various wonderful doo-dads. I was comforted to see that the director of In the Next Room at ISU had the same problem. It's hard to let go of a production we love doing!

I guess it helps if it rains and snows on you, and you are on your feet for 6 hours a day, doing a performance 140 times in one week! But it was great fun!!