Ava

It is the early ’90s, and as a freshly graduated Masters recipient of a university in Illinois, I fully expect to be—for the foreseeable future and perhaps eternity—an auditioning, but mostly-unemployed, song ’n dance man in The City of Big Shoulders on the shore of the great inland sea of Lake Michigan. So imagine my elation/deflation when I am hired to become a resident/touring cast member of a theatre not in Chicago nor New York nor Philadelphia, but… in my home state of Kentucky.

Back to Louisville** I go, but not as a concocter of cocktails, nor a carrier of hod, nor a re-stocker of golf balls & “Gut Busters” at a local sporting goods store—all of which I do in previous stints as a Louisville-ean—but as a working ACTOR! I am over the moon. Somewhat.

In Louisville, we members of that year’s touring company are preparing to take on the road a production staged in-house the previous year. As always happens, some performers from the previous year’s in-house production must needs be replaced by other actors willing to go on tour. And for purposes of finding these new actors (as it apparently takes more talent to be an unemployed actor in other cities than to be an unemployed actor in Louisville), “replacement” auditions are held in New York and St. Louis and other exotic locales.

Among the new cast members is an older woman from The Big Apple—who is cast largely because she is precisely the same size as the actress she replaces for the tour, meaning the costume will fit without alterations. This woman—we shall soon find, while enclosed in a van—possesses a palpable personal malodorousness, which is compounded by the fact she showers or bathes only when taken aside by the Stage Manager and requested to do so. Apropos of nothing other than its oddity is the fact that she is—in addition—concerned to an uncommon degree that her touring diet—paid for with a generous daily per diem—is so sorely lacking in beef that her fingernails are becoming soft.

But these peccadilloes are not yet evident, as we have not left Louisville yet. Rehearsals have begun. And with touring dates already set in stone, rehearsal time is of the essence. This means that for the short rehearsal period allotted, rehearsals will also take place on the weekends.

On this particular day, we the cast are collected in the rehearsal space, receiving notes from the director from the rehearsal the previous day. Ava (as I will call the as-yet-to-be-found-malodorous woman) is not in attendance yet, as she is running late, and cell phones are the stuff of futuristic fantasies.

The door to the studio opens with a BANG, and into the room stumbles Ava. She is out of breath and in a general panic, which we assume is because she is late for rehearsal—verboten in the world of theatre. Her hair is mussed (its usual state, though we do not know this yet), and her eyes are wide. Her breathing is labored, as she has hustled at an other-than-leisurely pace, and she is visibly trembling.

“What happened!?” she cries. “I even went back to my apartment! I couldn’t find anything on the TV! Did something HAPPEN!?”

We are concerned for her, of course, but have no idea what she’s talking about. There are no breaking news stories we know of. And so we inquire.

“There’s nobody on the STREET!” she cries. “There are no PEOPLE! There are no CARS! Did something HAPPEN!? Did they BOMB WASHINGTON!?”

There’s a moment of stunned silence until we realize. She’s from New York City. Then someone pipes up.

“It’s Sunday. Everybody’s at church.”

**“Lou-” with the “ou” pronounced as in the word “book.” The “-i-” pronounced “uh,” with the “s” pronounced not at all. And the “-ville” pronounced as the word “full,” only with a “v” at the front. As a former girlfriend of mine (coincidentally, originally from Chicago) disdainfully remarked years before, “It’s not named after King Loo-uh,” but there you go. This is the same state where the town of Versailles is proudly proclaimed “Verse-sales.”

[Photo by Danehrr22 from Pixabay]