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The Show Must Grow On: Act I 42/44

The Show Must Grow On: Act I 42/44 published on 11 Comments on The Show Must Grow On: Act I 42/44

Backstage.

[GLUG GLUG]

Actor: Nice job improvising when the pipe didn’t work.

Cedar: Thank you! It just came to me!

Actor (Telga): Where’s the tech crew? I need uncuffing over here!

Opera chair: Actors!

Actor: Madam Chairwoman!

Opera chair: We’re evacuating the building. Most of the crew already left. Come with me.

Cedar: Are we — stopping the show?? But the audience needs to know how it ends!

Actor (Telga): Kid . . . it’s history.

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11 Comments

If anything else, you can’t fault Cedar’s professionalism.

Actually, I certainly can fault his professionalism, as two others already have. OSHA would also fault his professionalism. It’s one thing to want to do a job. It’s another thing to want to do that job in the face of danger to those for whom you are doing that job as well as yourself. It’s true, the danger wasn’t explained. It shouldn’t need to be.

What Cedar is actually displaying is youthful enthusiasm in the guise of professionalism. I think a more honest way for him to express his feelings would be to say, “But I want to show the people how well I can pretend to be someone else!” It’s something that I think the acting business in general would do well to recognize…

by the same token, the sentiment could be expressed as “A ticket is a contract between Audience and Performer. The Audience paid for a service, and we owe it to them to see the show through to the end. ”

Admittedly, I have some baggage about customer-employee relations.

He is honestly trying to be professional, he just has an incomplete understanding of how to carry that out.

You might notice he also hasn’t considered “if we continue the show and keep audiences in their seats, we’ll be putting THEM in danger.”

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