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Stage Management: Plays & Musicals / Re: PROFESSIONALISM: What to do when you're sick?

« on: Nov 09, 2010, 11:58 pm »

I was working out of town as the Stage Manager on a musical.  Opening Night I started feeling funny, I didn't stay that night for the party.  It was an awful night, a somewhat delirious day where I was unable to keep anything down.  In the afternoon I called the director and left a message saying that I may need him to call the show but I was going to try to get to the theatre for the show that night.  He came to pick me up to take me to the doctor.  We went to the ER, thankfully it was a small prairie city and I was able to get in without a long wait.  They gave me an IV to get my fluids up.  I kept my eye on the clock the whole time and the guilt was killing me, I imagined the audience coming in, the curtain going up, and I wasn't there!  I let them give me one bag of fluids and asked the doctor if I could please go now, I really wanted to call Act 2.  He asked me "the show will go on?"  I managed to get out of the Hospital and get back to the theatre.  I called Act 2. 

I am glad the director was still in town to call the show.  I am really glad that I keep my prompt book in "what if I get hit my a bus" condition. 

I feel silly for not taking the second bag of fluids and not taking my health more seriously.  It's just a show.  Maybe the show wouldn't have looked as good, but my health is more important than the look of the show. 

Bottom line.  Call the director, call the TD, call the PM, call the Lighting Designer, call the ASM.  The show will go on.