We spent 6 long hours driving to Kamsack from Dodge this past weekend for the "One Act Festival". The weather was fantastic and traffic was tolerable. Of course the driving was done by someone other than me...thanks BamBam and Pebbles for letting me hitch a ride!
The scenery was flat as usual [for Sask] and the trees had lost most of their leaves but going through the different towns and hamlets, made for interesting viewing. There's even a town that has a huge Santa statue in it!
We finally got to Kamsask and the first thing that I had to do was buy a bathing suit! It seems everyone else was told that there was a pool and hot tub in the place where we were staying at, but me? Alas, there was only one shop that sold clothing and naturally, a bathing suit wasn't one of their items. I settled for a tank top and shorts [cost me 28.00]! With that out of the way, we found that the 10 minute drive OUT of town to our accommodations, turned out to be 20 minutes instead! I do have to admit the place where we were staying was quite picturesque!
We stayed in what they called "Condos" at Duck Mountain Lodge located in a Provincial Park at Madge Lake. The first thing that greeted us, when we arrived, was a deer near the Lodge...great advertising shot if I had, had my camera ready! We got settled in quite nicely! Upon checking out the pool and hot tub we found a gift shop next to the registry area and guess what? They sold bathing suits! I picked one up for 16.00!
That night we attended the first 3 plays and I was not impressed. I'm not a big fan of dramas and the one that was a comedy wasn't very funny to me...others might have enjoyed it but I didn't! I judge a play by it's interest and if I fall asleep during it...it definitely doesn't get my vote!
Lets say I did a lot of sleeping that weekend!
After the plays are over, we usually attend a get-together party called the "Green Room", that usually means there's dancing and such. Upon entering this room, one noticed that it was wall to wall tables and chairs, with absolutely NO room for dancing! The only table that was left, was right next to the DJ's speakers...ear damage! Great music but I get frustrated when I can't enjoy it by not dancing! I was NOT IMPRESSED! Happily we didn't stay very long!
I have to add that our beginning of the the fun filled weekend was marred by that fact that our outfits for the "themed" green rooms were stuck in a post office somewhere [had to order late due to poor planning on hosting town] so we missed out on the fun of "dressing up"!
Anyways...
The next morning, upon waking early [my usual time, 6:30 am] I was greeted by the site of snow on the ground! I went for a walk in this wonderful stuff and took some photos of the area...
The above shots are of the "Condos"...ours being the two end ones [the lit window was the one I was in]...the next shots are of the walkway to the main lodge. It was very windy out and cold!
Our condos had kitchen facilities which included a coffee pot...but no filters or coffee grounds to fill it! I need coffee in the morning! So my walk was for 2 reasons...mostly for the coffee! The next shots are of the Lodge...
The snow melted later that day and we had beautiful weather for the rest of our stay.
The rest of the day, for me, was spent relaxing in the hot tub and swimming in the pool until it was time for us to go in for our practice time [2:00 - 4:00].
Some of us had come early and others joined us later [they had to work]. Our set had come later and we received distressing news that it was damaged from the trip! Frantically [with the help of the festival stage manager] we were able to locate tools to fix it and we were able to have time to practice! The other problem that we ran into was the size and layout of the stage we were to perform on...it didn't match with how we ran our performance and we had to do some major changes on how we entered and exited! The set had to keep kept outside in the lumber yard at the stage exit for our turn to set up for the play. Thankfully we had 3 strong men to accomplish this!
Other than that the practice went well!
Another disaster that we had to contend with was trying to find 2 new T-shirts that were the same color because one of the actors had decided to wash their shirt and the dyed color had ran and faded. Thankfully, I had thought to make-up new lettering, just in case of emergencies!
Then some of us spent the rest of the day relaxing in the pool and hot tub.
The craziness started when we arrived to get ready!
The changing rooms [for the actors] were located in the spare rooms of a Real Estate Office...two doors down from the theatre! The make-up room, in the back of the theater, didn't really have any room to change and NO WASHROOM!
I had some stomach problems [nerves] and fifteen minutes before we needed to go on...I was desperate to use the washroom! This meant going out the back [in the dark...the light was burnt out] and make a quick trip around the building next door in order to get to the front of the theater where they HAD washrooms! I was being very careful but ended up stepping into a hole making me fall on my knees!
I had twisted my ankle...actually felt like I had broken it! Luckily it WAS only twisted and I was able to hobble to the washroom and back to the waiting area backstage. All of the movement made it throb worse!
The SHOW MUST GO ON!
This is the motto that theater people live by and my accident wasn't about to keep me from going on. Luckily the others did most of the set-up when it was time for our performance and I could stay off of it as much as possible.
We were perfect in our performance and the audience just loved us! We got laughs in areas that were never laughed at before!
Wilma and J-Rod can be proud of their wonderful script writing!
I didn't freeze once...no stutter...nothing! I was proud of the fact that I didn't screw it up for them! I hardly noticed the sprain until it was time for me to storm off the stage...that part hurt! I hardly helped at all for the take-down! My fellow actors were so good that they didn't even need me!
The green room that night was crowded as usual and it was "Karaoke" night. Luckily for me Wilma and Bruno both hate it also and we went back to the lodge early. I took two pain killers and all my agony went to sleep!
Saturday morning [10:00 am] was our adjudication time slot. The adjudicator had some valid points to add to the script and comments for the actors. For mine she thought that I walked funny and that maybe I should have worn different shoes, until I told her about my mishap. Her comments included the fact to all of us is that...the show MUST GO ON!
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