Frailty, thy name is 'voce'

It's been a week since the show opened and we've got our third show tonight.  I've still got some lingering throat crud from the crazy weather changes, but I know it will be gone by 6:30pm when the curtain goes up tonight.  More reviews have come in, good and bad alike, and I've come to the conclusion that I will not wake up with another voice inside my throat simply because someone gave me a review.  If only it were so!  How many times have we wished for the ability to take that pesky little mechanism out of our throat, take it apart and clean every corner, tweak it until it runs like a NASCAR racer, and put it back in, better than it was before.  Well Virginia, there may indeed be a Santa Claus, but anatomy don't lie and you only get the one larynx so just deal with reality.  Some things, many things actually, are beyond our control.  Like illness.  

I'm not actually talking about my own illness, I'm talking about the illness of one of my colleagues that caused the artistic director to pull her from the show at intermission the other night.  Poor darling, she's got a nasty bug and even though she made it through the first act beautifully, her cover was put on notice and sent onstage to do the second act.  It's every young singer's secret and unspoken dream, and every other singer's secret and unspoken nightmare. What do you mean, she's sick?  Like really sick?  And I get to put on the costume and perform the role that I've been nurturing all this time?  I really get to do it?  

I'm sick.  Yes, I know.  But I can still get through this, I can I know I can.  But you're putting on the understudy.  Oh God, please don't let this be happening.  

This is my soapbox for the moment: supporting your colleagues.  Really supporting them, not this false show of kindness and collegiality that only lasts until the other person is out of the room.  We are all vulnerable to this kind of incident.  My husband and I recently signed up for life insurance, for both of us, and disability insurance, just for him.  Why just for him, you might ask.  Because the insurance company doesn't see not being able to sing as "disability."  

They can't qualify exactly what that means, so they won't insure it.  Have you ever met a singer who can't sing anymore?  I'm not talking about the ones who retire.  A singer who's on vocal rest because they've got health issues.  It's like a caged animal living behind those eyes, terrified that they will never be able to open their mouth and make that noise again, terrified that they will open their mouth and the noise that comes out will not even remotely resemble the sound that they spent years and years of lessons and coaching and education honing into a sound that would pay their rent.  Every time a singer cracks a note, or feels that tickle start to come in, the terror stirs and asks, "will this be the last?"  Dramatic, I know, but bear with me here - we live and work in wigs and dresses that require three people to get through the door.  The incredible frailty of those little muscles that live inside the throat of every singer should inspire the utmost compassion and sympathy, especially from their colleagues.  So I tell you this now: every time you think bad thoughts about that singer who's in your cast, the one who really wish would come down with a terminal case of bad hair and retire, every time you talk about another singer being a drama queen because they won't go out the night before a performance, or mock them for drinking water when everyone else has a cocktail, ask yourself this question:

Who will hold my hand when they tell me I'm not going on for act II?  

I'm really lucky right now.  I've got wonderful colleagues.  WONDERFUL.  And I'm relishing it because I know it will not always be this way.  So you double up on your vitamin C and say your prayers and give thanks for whatever gift the good Lord gave you.  Be kind to one another.

I'm off to the theatre.