4 Shows a day, 7 days a week

It all ended at about 4:15 yesterday afternoon. If you follow this blog, I've written several posts about a show I was doing called "Always, Patsy Cline" with Va-Rep Theater here in Richmond. The first run opened January 20, 2012 and ran until April 29, 2012. Because of the popularity of the first run, the powers that be brought it back, and a re-mount opened on August 10, 2012 and closed after six more weeks running with yesterday's matinee. I have spent the better part of a year adoring "Patsy Cline" through the eyes of my character, Louise Seger, a devout, and by today's standards, maybe even crazed fan of Patsy's from 1957 until Patsy's tragic death in a plane crash in 1963. True to form, I was emotional yesterday. You would think after doing the same part for a total of 21 weeks on an average of 4 times a week I would have been ready to say good-bye. Judging from the tears streaming down my face as I made the final speech about how Louise hears of Patsy's death on the radio, I wasn't. Was this show a good time? Yes. Was it fun for the audience? Yes. Was it fun for me? Yes, but it also made me think. It is no secret that I love performing. I feel honored and blessed to be able to share a talent that I have been given with others. That doesn't mean I don't get tired. That doesn't mean that it doesn't hurt when I miss important family things because I'm performing, (my daughter's college orientation). However, comparing my performing life with Patsy Cline's, mine is a dream. I remember the first time I read the speech that Louise makes about Patsy's death. "...they came on the radio and said that Patsy Cline had died in an airplane crash on her way back to Nashville. She was only 30 years old." I thought, wow, she was only 30? Every picture I had ever seen of Patsy Cline made me think she was older than 30. By today's standards, 30 is so young. She obviously did not have it easy, as was the case of so many starts of that era, Elvis, Judy Garland come to mind. There was no spoiling or pampering. Their managers literally worked them constantly. Patsy makes a speech in the show and talks about going to Las Vegas where she will be doing 4 shows a day, 7 days a week. I have done some 2 show days in my time, and even some 3 show days when I was very young, and I was beat, and I wasn't even the headliner. How does someone sing their heart out for 4 shows and even be able to function? In the play when Patsy and Louise meet at a honky tonk in Houston, Patsy has taken a taxi from her hotel way out to a "big old barn like structure out on Hampstead Highway" She has no entourage, no bodyguards, not even a manager with her. She's working with the house band that she's not even sure knows her music and she's all alone. I've never been "on the road", but I know it's a hard life, especially if you have a family. I never thought about that until I did this show. I never thought about the sacrifices that stars like Patsy Cline made to make a living using their gift. When she died at 30, she left two little ones, a boy and a girl, who probably never really got to know their mother because she was on the road while they were young, and then they lost her. Her music touched so many, but at such a great cost to her. Like I said, it made me think. Mostly how very lucky I am, and the next time I want to whine about how tired I am because I have to do a matinee after getting up early to go to church or go to my real job after doing a show the night before, I'll stop and think what things could be like if I was Patsy Cline in 1961, and be thankful.