Name of the Game: Thespian Perils

"I went the the chiropractor today/yesterday/going tomorrow..."

"Rolled/twisted/broke/sprained my ankle/foot/hand/. It's now elevated."

"Muscles hurting. Hooray!"

"New muscles discovered. Now hurting. Hooray!!!"

"Just got stabbed/shot/kicked/smacked/punched/for real. No big deal."

Yeah. Stuff like that shows up on my newsfeed, nearly every day. No, it's not because I'm friends with klutzes, and hunters, and maniacal crazy people--ok, maybe some of those are true, but the main reason is because I have friends who are thespians. 

And guess what? I can always tell when a show is going on, even if I haven't seen all the publicity and stuff, because of the social media posts like those above. In theatre, you don't have  stunt doubles--most of the time. 

Yeah, I can see in shows like Beauty and the Beast you kinda need one for the Transformation, but most of the time it's you, onstage getting beaten to a pulp or attacking someone with whatever weapon is close at hand. 

And when you're not doing that(cause not every show you're ever in will have a fight) your running the backstage marathon to get from one side of the stage to the other; and change costumes in sixty seconds or less sometimes--in the dark(or the semi-dark depending on where the dressing room is and the size of the theatre and all that).  

We do this by choice. When BYU did The Count of Monte Christo a lead actor broke his foot on opening night and performed the rest of the run.

 I was in a production of The Scarlet Pimpernel and Percy Blakney cut his hand open on the guillotine(why we had a real blade, I'll never know; none of my business; moving on...) and still finished his epic fencing match;

Right, so that's just SF make-up, but that's what the guy's hand looked like AND HE STILL FINISHED THE FIGHT. And the show!!!!!!!!!!!!!! And showed up the next day with thirteen stitches and finished the run.

 Last year, I got a blinding migraine mid-stunt and by some miracle was able to finish my fight without killing anyone.  

I have now seen three separate actors walk into three separate stage weights, get various injuries and still finish either the performance or the run--depending on the gravity of the injury. 

Guys. We do this for fun. Not on purpose; stuff happens, it's bound to.  You know what the upside is? For one thing, we could get awesome scars and stories to talk about later("yeah, I sliced my hand on a guillotine while I wielding a rapier and stuff"); but we also get an idea of how committed we are to a project. 

Yes, there are sometimes extenuating circumstances where we need to call it quits; but we hate doing that. We put so much effort into our art, we hate backing out and letting people down. 

We put one hundred percent effort into everything we do. We get cut; we get bruised; we pull muscles; life happens. And when it does, we take it in stride. 

Artists do crazy stuff, and crazy stuff happens to us. But sometimes, we get dang good stories out it!