I thought it might be the altitude. It made me wheeze just walking across the parking lot and totally doubt my ability to lift Emilys and Elenas way up over my head. Would I be able to hang from my toes while gasping desperately for breath? “That must be it”, I thought as I heard the crickets chip during our first show. The babies cry. The chewing of gum. Every sound but applause.. What the hell?
First of all, we were exhausted. We'd rigged and teched the show earlier in the day, nourished only by the amazing burritos that Nick Spence had delivered to us. (Nick Spence, who painted our van, designed our t-shirts and posters and postcards and is just a general awesome dude.) I'd taken the van to get fixed. We warmed up acro. We put on make up. We put out fires. I think I'd forgotten to stretch. Basically, we were al frazzled. It was our 3rd city in a week.
The 6PM audience ambled in. They sort of mozied. A bit of a golf clap when Cameron introduced the show. Blank looks for the song and dance. We were deflated.
There are different styles of audience. There are different types of act. Maybe we didn't match the two up well enough. This was the polite audience, watching quietly and applauding only at the end of the act. Some people like this. Some people want the act to be taken as a whole and there's definitely something to that. But when you're up there busting your ass, actually in physical pain and trying to make it look easy, it's nice to get a little encouragement. Even when we did the splits, there was just a smatter of applause. Even after my biggest, craziest most unexpected drom, only the crickets gave it up.
It was a little disheartening. Even more so because we knew there were circus people out there. We just wanted it to end. So it was strange at intermission when we sold a bunch of shirts. Hmmmm...odd.
Of course, when Amanda performed there was a hailstorm of applause. It's her home town and she is loved. It's like everyone was just waiting to see her insane hat manipulation and comedy trapeze.
Then, to our total amazement, as we walked up to take a bow, people stood up. They weren't standing to leave as fast as possible. We were getting a standing ovation! They actually liked us...they were just a quiet audience.
Standing O or not, I didn't know how the hell I was going to get through the next show. I couldn't breathe. My muscles ached and my arms were shaking. I ate a powerbar and felt a little better. I forced everyone else to eat one, too. We had 20 min to the next show and I popped my head into the lobby to see how ticket sales were going. Sold out with the waiting list getting longer by the minute. There was such a buzz of excitement out there that it broke my heart to turn everyone away. So screw it. We wouldn't turn them away. We couldn't let them in the building due to fire code, but they could watch from outside. We threw open the curtain at the back of the stage and opened the garage door. This time, people poured in to take their seats, and huddled around the open garage door. It was a beautiful night, warm, starry and magical. All the energy that had eluded me in the first show came rushing into my veins.
The second Cameron went on stage they started cheering. They were a roudy audience. When Cameron played “Ask a ringmaster”, fielding questions from the audience, she got questions like “How many licks does it take to get to the center of your ringmaster?” They clapped for every move we did. I nailed my back flip and they went nuts. We even screwed up our acro act royally, but they still gave us the love.
At the end of that show, we got a standing ovation again. They leapt to their feet. No one would leave after the show. It turned into a dance party to “What A Feeling”, everyone doing their best Flashdance moves. It was still hard to breathe, but at least I felt like trying.
We went back to the mansion we stayed in, and crashed hard.
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