The show was going along pretty well, considering. We added as many rehearsals as we could. Walt and I visited Chris in the hospital and shared what I had of the script so far. He laughed as I read it and said it sounded like something he would have written. That's what I wanted to hear. As I was writing it, I really had his voice in my head. Walt and I were happy and relieved after our visit with him. The path was clear and we were confident about how to proceed. A few days later, Chris left the hospital and is now recuperating at home.
I had the completed script and now I needed to get a copy to the woman who plays the queen for the Faire every year. The email address I had for her was an old one so I wasn't getting any replies. Also, for some reason my Word files weren't sending correctly, so when I sent the script to people it came through in pieces. I eventually got the "queen's" phone number. I texted her and said I'd like to deliver a printed copy to her so she could have some time to practice. This was the Monday before the show. No reply. More texts were sent. I told her I really wanted to meet with her and go over the lines because this year things were different. No reply.
(About the queen's script- I had gone through the whole thing and made her lines in bold print and colored dark blue so she could easily see which lines were hers. I also included the page with the pre-show stuff so she would better understand the whole story line.)
Wednesday evening she finally wrote back. She asked me to deliver the script to some woman named Antonia. I told her I didn't know Antonia and that my only affiliation with the church is through the Queen's Tea show. Then she asked me if I was staying at the Mission Inn (?). Um, no. That was when I figured out that she doesn't live in Riverside. Then she said (all texting here) she would be at the Mission Inn on Friday at lunch time and we could meet then. She asked me to leave a copy at the front desk. Ok, Friday is cutting it a little close, but all I need to do is go through it with her. She didn't need to memorize anything, but I wanted her to be familiar with the story line. I was planning to be at the church all day to decorate the room. I could leave at any time and pop over to the Mission Inn, which is only a block away.
On Friday morning I left a copy of the script at the front desk with her name and phone number on it. Lunch time came and went with no text, no phone call from Janet, the queen. So I called her. I asked her if she got the script. She said no.
No???
I said, "I left it for you at the front desk."
She said, "They didn't give it to me when I checked in."
Ever get the feeling that things are about to go terribly wrong?
She said she was having lunch with friends and that when she was done she'd go to her room and call me and we'd go over the script on the phone. Ok. So we did that. She liked the story line. She thought it was cute. Oh, such fun.
Saturday morning! We had two Jeffrey shows, 11:00 and 2:30. After the first show, one of the queen's ladies-in-waiting (Yeah, she has an entourage. For real) found me and told me that the queen has lost her script and do we have a spare one I could give her. WTF??? Lost her script? No, I don't have a spare! After a short but circular conversation the L-I-W said that the script wasn't lost, but it was locked in the queen's hotel room. Again, WTF??? I told her the queen's show wasn't until 4:00 and that there was plenty of time for someone to get into that room and get the script. Oh, and by the way, the queen has more than the agreed upon number of people in her entourage. We told the L-I-W the queen can have five people total, including herself. The L-I-W said, "I will convey that message to Her Majesty."
WTF????
So, at about 3:30 the whole entourage shows up. Queen Janet made a bee-line for the bathroom. The L-I-W I had spoken with earlier pulled me aside and told me the queen needed to leave the show early because she had to go to the closing ceremonies. I told her no, the queen CAN'T leave early because she's part of the show. She has lines! She's in the freakin' show! I asked the rest of the entourage if the queen had found her script. Blank stares all around. When Janet finally came in I asked her if she had her script. She and the others started rummaging around in their tote bags. Then she grabbed a script that was laying on a table and started leafing through it. I said, ok, fine. We'll just high-light her lines and use that shitty, dog-eared script. Then someone found the queen's script. It had been folded in quarters and jammed down into the bag. Oh my god.
She and I sat down and we went through the script together. She seemed to understand it all. Oh lordy.
(Here's some more goofy shit that happened- We had her long table set up in the back of the room. There were some pretty Victorian-looking chairs set up for them. One of the chairs had arms, which wouldn't work well for the ladies because of the hoop skirts, but would be just fine for Prince Albert. We had them arranged so the women wouldn't have to deal with the weird chair. Usually, the queen's entourage traveled with a Beefeater dude who would come in and announce them. This year there was no Beefeater, so one of the guys from the church (name's Dick) said he'd announce them. I didn't want him to mess around with everyone's name, so we said just introduce the queen, the prince and Princess Alice. So he did just that. And then the queen, prince, princess and the rest of the entourage very obediently trundled in in that order, completely getting themselves tangled in the chair with arms and ending up with the queen sitting all the way at the end of the table, instead of in the middle like she was supposed to.)
So then it was time to start my interaction with the queen. I said my first line.
"Your Majesty, we humbly welcome you and thank you for once again gracing us with your patronage."
And she said, "You're welcome."
AAAIIEEEE!!!!!! That's not the line! She couldn't find her line! She was on the wrong page!
So, I just jumped in and basically said all her lines and got the show started. Then we left the queen's table and went back stage. Walt, Bethie and I just GAPED at each other! We couldn't believe what had just happened. Oh my god.
By the time we ended the first song she was on the right page and the show ran smoothly.
Until...
(See part 3)
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