Tomorrow's The Day

I woke this morning to cancellations.

You see, I'm working at a new venue tomorrow night performing the show that ran three glorious nights this winter in midtown. With new venues come new rules and, as it turns out, new penalties. I absolutely understand why they impose "cancellation fees" on shows with audiences below a certain number but to deal with that one needs to have a firm hold of their nervous system.

There's a lot going on in New York. There's a lot going on in the lives of most adults. Sometimes weather happens...in a city where people generally walk places. The art of the RSVP, while not lost, is certainly wandering the desert without a map and I say that not as an indictment of anyone else but as an admission of my own failings. Sometimes people reserve very early and don't come. Sometimes people don't reserve at all. Sometimes people reserve early or late and actually do come. The one thing you can count on is you just never know.

I need to have 20 sets of eyeballs on me when the first strains of Sentimental Journey are tickled from the ivories at The Duplex tomorrow at 7pm. The wonderful staff there keeps me updated with the reservation list and, up to this morning, it was climbing slowly and steadily. I'm not kidding that the very first thing I saw when I opened my email and social media today was a sure-thing audience member canceling and she wasn't the only one. Someone was reserving, too, and I've still got some maybes. I honestly think I will have the 20 sets of butt cheeks required to avoid embarrassment but we're getting the dregs of a hurricane tomorrow so....you never know.

My practical brain continues telling people about the show while remembering that I decided to do this as an experiment and with the full knowledge that it could go every which way but loose. If I don't meet the requirements I believe I still get to do the show for whatever the audience turns out to be and the fee is just money. The part of me that picks pennies up off the sidewalk is in full on panic mode. The part of me that needs and wants to sing her heart out tomorrow night is wondering exactly how she's going to muzzle the penny picker-upper for that one glorious hour of performance. I'll do it. Somehow. That bitch can't keep me down.

She can't break me because I've been rehearsing this show for the last few weeks and every time I sing through it I get a smile on my face. Hanging out with Daryl and tweaking things here and there is one of the great joys of my recent days. I'm proud of what I've written and I love to tell a joke and I can't wait to see the reactions of people new to my work. I'm nothing but lucky to have this sort of opportunity.

I'd be lying, though, if I didn't say that I need your help. Even if you aren't in the area maybe you know someone who is. Maybe you know someone else who knows me. Maybe you don't even know but when you boost this signal one person will decide to come see the show and that's one more than I had before. So I humbly ask you to share this information (also found here on Facebook) with anyone and everyone you know (and don't know, tweet your heart out!). I promise to tell you how it went and even to post the video from this winter...just as soon as I've RSVP'd to a few invitations.