Tale #41: The Pillar Stays

A community theater is not truly whole without the existence of a particular group of people. These people directly contribute to the soul of community theater. As much as they annoy us, we can’t deny our theater lives would feel a little less fulfilled without their presence. They are a stubborn energy that gives us something to push against.

I’m talking, of course, about your community theater divas.

Historically, they have also been referred to as Prima Donnas.

We love our community theater divas. Their antics give us endless bar conversation and their behaviors continue to shock and amaze us. The adrenaline that comes from ranting about a specific instance of diva behavior gives us community theater volunteers energy to push through.

We’d frankly be at a loss without our divas.

Now there are the obvious divas and those are going to be your talented leads. We tolerate them a little more so because 1) if we want to have a quality show we do need people who can sing and 2) they are learning an entire show on top of having a job, family, life outside of your production. It’s a lot of work.

The second type of lead-diva is going to be your less-talented leads. These are people who get leads not because they are exceptionally talented people, but because they got lucky in the circumstances. There weren’t enough men to play the parts, they had a more flexible rehearsal schedule, etc etc. We still tolerate them a little more because they do still put in a lot of hard work memorizing the show and performing to the best of their ability.

The third type of lead-diva is going to be your call-in lead. While we try to avoid this at all cost in community theater, sometimes you just don’t get the talent you need at your open auditions. Therefore, you bring in a ringer. The ego boost from being personally called by the director to play a part in a show can make even the kindest person behave like a brat.

Diva behavior is not just limited to your leading lads and ladies though. Think of divaness as a virus. If these past few years have taught us anything, it’s how viruses work. It can infect any susceptible host. Even if you think you are strong enough to avoid it, it can still get you.

I’m big enough to admit that I have behaved like a diva when I’ve been in ensemble or dance roles. I’ve gotten snippy with cast members who are in my way for a quick costume change. I’ve gotten irritated when someone moved my makeup bag away from my favorite mirror. I’ve self-inflated my own ego when I’ve gotten a specialty role over other members of the cast.

And while some may obviously point out that nepotism explained a lot of the special parts I got, we can just leave that aside for now.

No matter what kind of diva you are dealing with (a lead-diva or an ensemble-diva), you are always going to find that they have a problem.

Boy do divas have problems.

“This costume just doesn’t work for me.” “The tempo is too slow.” “I feel like my character wouldn’t take the chair off stage with them.”

Problem after problem after problem and they have no filter and no reservations. I cannot tell you how many times a pit conductor has vented to me that a performer was bold enough to give them notes on their performance, how many costume people have been offended that a lead thought their costume was ugly, and how many directors have almost lost their cool because a lead was refusing to follow directions they didn’t agree with.

Oh you silly divas.

Now, please remember that I do not speak in absolutes. Not all leads whether talented, less-talented, or called-in behave this way. Not all performers are bad. We love performers. We need performers.

However, I think we can all suck it up, set aside our pride, and acknowledge our diva behavior and the ridiculous requests we’ve made while in diva mode.

Like asking to move a twenty-foot pillar because it makes your transition a little less convenient.

The Billy Elliot set (aka the World’s Cheapest Carnival) was massive and most of it was meant to be rigged up and flown in and out (like the Newsies world gates ended up being).

Therefore, it was impossible to rehearse with all of it at our pole-shed rehearsal building. The cast didn’t work with the full set until dress rehearsals at the Performing Arts Center. Even then, it wasn’t until the final dress rehearsal that the full set had been put together.

We moved Billy Elliot into the PAC on a Friday night and we did light hang on Saturday. We got as much done as we could before our first dress rehearsal on Sunday. However, there were components that didn’t get finished and would need to be finished on the Tuesday tech night.

The pillars were on the list for Tuesday tech night.

Now, Billy Elliot was a tough show to cast. It requires a lot of men. Therefore, we recruited the dads of the Ballet Girls to join the cast and play the miners. Most of these men weren’t exactly performers. They may have dabbled in music, singing, etc, but they hadn’t necessarily done a full musical production.

The diva virus was floating around backstage as it always did, and it started to infect some of our new dad cast members.

There is a song that opens ACT II of Billy Elliot called “Merry Christmas Maggie Thatcher”. The full ensemble is on stage for this holiday party scene. They a do a little diddy bashing their prime minister Maggie Thatcher. Part of that performance includes some of the miners getting up from their seats and putting on a little puppet show.

Now, one of our miner dads had his transition from chair to puppet show down pat. He got out of his silver chair, went right around the back of it, cut behind the other seated cast members, and got his puppet.

Remember the part about how the cast hadn’t rehearsed with the full set?

Sunday night dress rehearsal, he went chair to puppet with no obstacles.

Monday night dress rehearsal, he went chair to puppet with no obstacles.

Wednesday night dress rehearsal, there was an obstacle: the new pillars.

From my seat in the audience, his shock at the pillars appearance caught my eye. He had gotten up, gone around the back of his chair and was stopped dead in his tracks by the pillar. He didn’t know what to do. He just stood there staring at it.

He could have just gone around the pillar but that would have been too logical.

He missed his puppet show cue.

After rehearsal, he stopped me and asked what he felt was a very reasonable question but what I recognized immediately as a symptom of the diva virus:

“Would it be possible to move the pillar? It’s in my way to get to the puppet show.”

Now, I personally have a hard time hiding emotions on my face. My face will respond instantly with a smirk, a confused grimace, an angry stare, etc. So I’m pretty sure my face contorted into a mixture of shock and pissed-off-ness.

However, I simply said, “Nope. We cannot move the pillar. The pillar stays. Just go around it.”

Our set crew and tech staff laughed especially hard at the bar that night.

Now, before we end today, I will leave you with a list of strategies to manage your diva virus symptoms:

1) Don’t ask a question in group notes unless you are 100% sure that it truly applies to the entire cast. 99% of the time I can assure you, it doesn’t. You just want to sound important, get attention, prove a point, and/or feel special.

2) Bring any music issues to your music director. They will assess whether or not your concern has validity then they will bring it to the pit conductor. If the pit conductor approaches you directly, do not vent your issues to them. Simply answer their questions and let them work out a solution if one is really needed.

3) If you don’t like your costume, suck it up. You don’t always get to wear a pretty costume. Costume people are volunteers! They work very hard and it is a damn-near impossible job to costume 100+ cast members. If your costume fits and isn’t ripped, stained, or causing indecent exposure, it’s yours.

3.a) Do not bring in alternative options from home unless specifically asked to. That’s just rubbing salt in a wound.

4) Just be nice. If you can’t be nice, just be quiet.

If you do exhibit symptoms of the diva virus, apologize when needed or just be better next time. If you constantly find yourself re-infected, maybe talk to someone about that.

And finally, always remember, that when you behave like a diva, you get laughed at. It’s the price you pay to maintain equilibrium in community theater.