Craziness

So we're doing a show tonight, upstairs in our performance space and downstairs, directly below us, is a loud crazy Pentecostal church service going on.

So, we're trying to do this play adaptation of a Jodi Picoult book about teen suicide - quiet, delicate, and angsty - while underneath us we have people yelling and screaming in Spanish and apparently jumping up and down as the pastor/minister exhorted them to get even louder as he yelled over his microphone and they played really really loud music with miked singing and a full drum kit and people were screeching and Oh. My. God.

It was loud and crazy enough that if I hadn't known what was going on I'd have been a little frightened. It sounded like a riot had broken out, but no, it was just the worship service.

It was a very surreal night. I have no idea how our audience could manage to pay attention. It was all I could do to get through my scene, practically yelling to be heard. And since we're in the room about the size of a small classroom... Shouldn't have to scream to be heard.

The landlord didn't think it should be an issue to have us both there the same night. And in fact, they'll at least be there again during our Sunday matinee this weekend and possibly also there with three or four other church groups for a really rocking get together the last Friday we perform.

We might do better handing out earplugs, giving each audience member a copy of the script and just putting on a slide show.