Third weekend was Labor Day weekend. So THREE days in a row of the funny accent and attempting to make prolonged eye contact with strangers. Saturday morning had the best surprise, though: my best friend and co-director arranged for a former troupe member to play with us as a cast member for the weekend. He lives out of state with his wife, but drove up with his mom and got a paper pass and brought his old costume....I may have been a little excited to see him.
...ok, I was 200% excited to see him. He participated in so many great shows and bits and memories that I dearly treasure. He jumped into crazy ideas with both feet and had no fear of being silly wherever we were. He and my best friend had *killer* rapport, they worked together like a wild, loud, violent, hilarious machine. When I espied him Saturday morning, I may have frightened him with my enthusiasm. I'm just proud that I didn't cry all over him. Throughout the day, I loved each time a person's face lit up when they recognized him.
So I enjoyed the HELL out of Saturday and Sunday. We demonstrated the game-play for the bocce ball tournaments, throwing actors across the green as the balls (with minimal injury). We also helped wrangle the spaghetti-eating contests, which involved wrapping grown men, small children, and the occasional ambitious woman in plastic ponchos and shouting at them to eat mooshy spaghetti without utensils or hands. We got to keep the extra spaghetti. That played quite well as a second lunch at the Arbor stage. Still no forks, but we made do. By the third day of contest leftovers, though, we were pretty sick of anything cold and noodly. We fed random cast members backstage, instead.
Saturday night I lost a fight with a bench. The balloon-fencing tournament at the fencing booth had drawn its usual large crowd. People had dragged benches over from surrounding areas, and, of course, left them there. When I tripped over one as I turned around, I was just drunk enough that I couldn't catch my balance, and just sober enough to discover exactly what it feels like to land on your face. It feels flat and scratchy. I don't recommend it.
Sunday night was busier in the public tent, as expected. Fortunately, my former troupe guy made plans to stay after hours to hang out with us. "Us" were performers from all across the range of cast, sharing dirty (and stupid) jokes and stories of our days. It was the perfect set up of friends for me to actually enjoy being in the midst of such a crowd of people.
Then I tried to eat a chocolate eyeball without taking off the wrapper. Good times.