Poor Ol' Sore Back
Yesterday, though intended for painting, ended up being a short work day. I pulled a muscle either the day before, or in my sleep, and ended up with a very uncomfortable back and shoulder. It may sound whiny, because I could have worked through it, but thought in my little noggin that perhaps I should not do anything to make it potentially worse. So instead, I ran some errands and picked away at little bits of work.
I'm still going to take it easy today, but more because I have writing work to finish. And some to start.
We had a bit of drama at Belleville-Ville on Tuesday. Apparently, someone came in at the end of the show, to be present for a show which was starting after us, saw the last five minutes, and from those five minutes concluded that our show was awful, even going so far as to verbally abuse our door volunteer about it.
We get odd folks all the time. We play in a bar in downtown Toronto at night. Every sort of person pops through and sees us in some state or other. She had some valid points that we've since been discussing on our private message board, such as gender and diversity.
The five minutes that she caught, she saw a stage full of white men, and me, and we were making dildo jokes, which apparently made her feel unsafe. Now, we've been struggling to keep women on our stage since the show began, and for whatever reason, we've never had any non-white people performing with us. It's a problem. We want the diversity.
What has become of the discussions on our forum is that our side director has called an HR meeting. He wants to change the entire show come September... Which is only a problem as far as I'm concerned, because none of the cast have been consulted about their interests yet, and we seem to have all the decisions being made for us. It makes it feel like our group is crumbling apart, like a gluten-free muffin.
Blargh. Too many worries. Improv is supposed to be fun. :s
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I hope that your back pain will be better soon! I hate back pains as it has such an impact on what you do. You can always feel it so I can imagine that it's difficult for an artist to paint with pain.
I'm sorry to hear about your performance. People are different and some of them feel like they have to express their opinions whether it makes sense or not. I struggle with accepting that but that's how it is. I hope that this issue will be resolved and that you will get more diversity on the stage so that no one can complain. Well, there will always be someone to complain :)
Have a nice day!
Thank you, @delishtreats! I already feel almost entirely better, it's just so disconcerting when you don't even know what you did to injure yourself. Past thirty, apparently you can even just sleep in a weird position and have to deal with that for days. Lol.
As for the performance - that in itself was pretty good. We had only compliments from the people who came to see the show. Anyone is allowed to criticize, of course. Now and again, we all need to be kept in check to make sure we don't cross the line from edgy to offensive. And to grow as performers. We can all do better, but nobody tends to without a push. :)
Diversity is a must, though. We need to tackle that problem yesterday!
Awww Rachel :( I hope your back will settle back down soon, pulling a muscle is painful > __ < I think you did the right thing not to risk making it worse, tbh
And aaahhh, i guess when you are out in the public, there will occasionally be some feedbacks that are hard to take. I hope the group wont crumble since you seem all to be having fun, but maybe a check from time to time to convey where everyone's at would be good.... Though if you are feeling as if your decisions are made for you, that is difficult :( Hopefully, you can communicate these feelings to all the members and director of the group. Ideally, changes should not be pulled just because there is a single bad feedback, cuz it seems.... well, drastic.
I feel much better already, thank you, @veryspider! <3
It does feel drastic! And while many changes that are to be implemented are necessary, such as all of us performers taking classes periodically, and practicing consent within performance, I still think we all need to be there to agree to it, even just to mentally be on board with the responsibilities that means. I think Dave (the director) will be met with much more resistance than necessary this way, rather than discussing it as a group first.
As for feedback, we'll never be free of it! Nor should we! You can't really grow too much if you live in a bubble. ;)
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