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Backstage haiku

posted by Megan Wygant on Thu, Mar 3, 2011
in At the theatre , Backstage buzz

Found on the backstage kitchen microwave:

For those who don't have super-vision, the post-it reads:

I stand on a chair
Melt, melt that cheese, microwave
Scene shift coming up.

It's dated December 2008, which a quick flip through the theatre's timeline tells us was right in the middle of Joe Turner's Come and Gone. JT, as we call it internally, was a "food" show -- one that has lots of scenes with characters eating.

All the food you see actors eat onstage is, of necessity, prepared backstage. There's a fully functional kitchen offstage, house right, where food is made, stored, and then reheated in the moments before it has to arrive onstage for the actors to consume in front of you (what that food is could be a blog post all of its own -- modern-day allergies, dietary restrictions, and other considerations mean that the "chicken-n-biscuits, with gravy" called for by the script can probably be none of those things).

Clearly, the mystery writer was working under a deadline. I can only assume they made it. 

Melt, melt that cheese, microwave!