Send it up

Every actor's worst nightmare, second to being naked on stage (except if dreaming of roles in Hair, The Full Monty or Equus): forgetting lines.

I'm in Barksdale Theatre's production of Smoke on the Mountain Homecoming now running at Hanover Tavern. We opened last Friday.

I forgot my lines on opening night. 

NIGHTMARE!

Mid-monologue (which I had nailed in dress rehearsal), I got a nice laugh after a line. And then, my brain froze. Nothing. Silence. Pins and needles in my throat, all the way down to my stomach. Fumbling. Sweating. Blinding lights. Slow motion. An out-of-body experience. "This isn't happening. Yes, it is. Oh #%$@! Line, line, line, line.... Help! I need help! $#@%!"

An eternity.

(About four seconds.)

I skipped ahead and got back on track, finished the monologue and got some more laughs.

I was devastated. I cried at intermission.

I was certain Bruce (the director) and others would comment on it at the post-show reception. A couple of my castmates said, "don't say anything, no one will even remember" and reassured me it wasn't as bad as I felt it was. So once the celebratory opening night party commenced with the cast, crew, my coworkers, friends, critics and other theatre-goers, I downplayed it pretty well. Kind of. Ok, not really.

I felt like I had to own up to it, because I did forget. I worried that I brought the show down with my four seconds of silence and deer-in-headlights staring. I cringed at the thought of my stammering ending up in a review and casting a bad light on everyone else.

But then another cast member reminded me of three words:

SEND IT UP. 

Let it go. Don't worry about it. It's over, in the past, the rest of the show went (relatively) well so forget it, get over yourself and move on. Hallelujah for those three little words.

Now that I have had two successful recollections of my lines after the catastrophe, read a very positive review of the show (John Porter for WCVE-FM), and confessed this boo-boo to my vast blog readership (ha), I feel much better about it.

Amusingly, in theatre jargon, the phrase that actors use when they forget lines is, "I went up on my lines."

So, I went up. And now, I have sent it up.

And I'm looking forward to a very successful rest-of-the-run.