Happy birthday to me. I share my birthdate with Mick Jagger and George Bernard Shaw. Not bad company.
Today’s matinee was hard ... well, you know, parts of it were superior to last night, but the bits that weren’t - I mean, I was messing up all kinds of lines, but you know, they’re my lines, aren’t they? I can mess them up if I like.
The real problem is my head. I have this thing, I call it a “Dave Hangover” - I can pretty much assume that any day I have the chance to sleep in (I am talking, oh, 8:00 or 8:30 in the morning) I am going to get an unhappy headache, right behind one eye. The only logical explanation is that, given my daily intake of dangerous amounts of caffeine beginning at 6 or so, it doesn’t matter how much coffee I drink when I do wake up, the damage is done.
So doing a 3 PM show wasn’t something I was looking forward to. That and I knew the house would be smaller than last night’s. But the first thing I encountered when I came to the theater was a very nice card from someone who saw the show last night, along with a very kind check. So things started looking up almost immediately.
Of the twenty or so people who were in attendance was a critic from the Plain Dealer, and one of this show’s benefactors, who chooses to remain anonymous. He’s a local businessman and one-time congressman and I don’t imagine we share many political opinions but he has been supportive of our work, and of this show in particular. I was relieved to see him nodding and laughing at key points. Does that make me a whore?
Several theater people who are currently in other shows attended ... pretty much the only people left from the Cleveland theater community who hadn’t seen it yet.
At this very moment there are friends and supporters scurrying around Dobama, setting up everything for the big post-show birthday party. Though reservations for the show are slight, a number of people have announced they will be coming afterwards for the soiree. I hope they do, and not because we need to money, though that’s important, too. There’s over a dozen people who have worked really hard to throw me a party, and they deserve a crowd more than I do.
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