One thing that has remained constant all throughout my life is that I almost never get sick. I may develop a few sniffles here and there, but I've usually been able to go to school and work without any problem. When I was in the fourth grade, I came down with Scarletina and had to stay home from school for two days. When I was a junior in high school, I was really worn out from all the extracurricular activities I was involved in and simply needed a day off to rest. These were the only three full days of grade school I missed due to not feeling well.
I was working my regular overnight shift at the station. The first couple of hours went really well. I had given away concert tickets and had recorded the conversation with the winner. I sounded just fine. Then all of a sudden, I felt something just come over me and I was very cold and tired. I struggled to keep warm and didn't feel like talking on the air. I was doing everything I could to stay awake and keep the station on the air. I'm guessing I had the flu.
It didn't help that the morning guys decided to come in a half hour late. I was completely miserable. On top of that, I had to sleep on the floor. After I got home, I spent the rest of the day in bed. A few hours before, I felt like I was going to have another rough night, so I scrambled to see if anyone could fill in for me. We had just hired this new girl who was a student at ENMU. I asked her, but she said she didn't have a ride up to the station. I told her I would drive her up there and drive her back. I would sleep at the station and she just had to work the shift. Fortunately, I only had to do that once. I'd gotten the worst part out of my system and could work after that. However, I didn't have a voice.
So for the next week, I just played music on the station and never talked. I had actually lost my voice for that time. This also caused a problem at rehearsals for "Anything Goes." When I got sick and it affects my voice, I can't project on the stage. Attempts to speak louder make the pitch in my voice go up so that I'm just barely squeaking. One nice thing was that I got to lip-sync the production numbers, but it was noticeable anytime I had lines.
I shortly regained my voice, but it never felt quite the same after that. However, that was not the end of my troubles in the production. During the "Blow, Gabriel, Blow" number, I was supposed to bring in a platform that the actress playing Reno Sweeney would perform on. Every night, I rolled in the platform from off-stage and put it in place at the beginning of the number.
During one rehearsal, Dr. R stopped the number and said, "Fayd, that platform is in the wrong place."
"Well, that's where I always put it."
"That's not where it's supposed to go."
"I've been putting it in the same place every night."
"There are supposed to be spike marks on the stage."
"Well, there are spike marks."
"Then put it in the spike marks!"
"It IS in the spike marks."
"THEN WE HAVE TO CHANGE THE SPIKE MARKS BECAUSE THAT PLATFORM IS NOT WHERE I WANT IT!!!!!!!"
Backstage crew members IMMEDIATELY ran out on stage with masking tape. Dr. R told them where to put the platform and they spiked the new marks. I was rather taken aback by Dr. R yelling at me. I always thought he'd get on my case about my acting, not semantics. I put the platform in the right location after that.
The next night before rehearsal started, Dr. R talked about being on edge the closer that we got to performance. He said, "...and yesterday, I yelled at an actor for something that clearly was not his fault." It wasn't really an apology, but after four years, I knew what to expect from Dr. R.
But it felt a lot better than being sick.
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