"Fifth of July" 20th, 21st, and 22nd Rehearsal: Trees Should have Children

This week was all about running the show.  It's definitely had it's ups and downs, but I think we are getting there.  There was a tree/wood theme this week in the dressing room.  It started out with Johnny Yoder (Jed) coming to me with a problem:

"So, Jen, I was in my office today and there is a really low wooden beam by my window and I normally duck, but today I backed right into it," Johnny told me.

"Oh no," I responded.

"Yeah, but the problem is... I think I have a sliver in my head."

"A what?"

"A sliver.  Could you look at it?"

"A silver in your head?  That's awesome.  Sure, I'll look at it."

"Are you sure?  It's not too weird?"

"Johnny, I'm a mom.  I've looked in weirder places today."

So, I moved his mop top out of the way and sure enough there was a sliver deep in his scalp.  It amazed me.  He had to have been going full speed for that piece of wood to get through all of that hair and pierce his scalp.

Poor kid. He was out of it all night.

The next day Rob was in the dressing room staring at himself, as usual.  Not in a vain way in a curious way.  Then after places were called and the room got silent, he turned to us and said:

"Does my head look like a tree?"

Which of course was confusing.  Then I looked at his shirt which had a trunk of a tree starting at his neck which led down to roots that sprawled across his chest.  His head did look like a tree.

"Or, am I the roots?" he said.

Then he tried to turn his head upside down and, yes, he could be the roots as well.  Fascinating.  Deep thoughts.

Two days after the sliver incident, during a run I came back to the dressing room for a moment between scenes.

"What's burning?" I asked Judy.

"Nothing, anymore," she replied.

"Oh, was someone smoking?" I figured.

"No, I was sterilizing a needle," she laughed.

"For what?"

"I took that damn sliver out of Johnny's head."

Leave it to the moms to take care of it.

"Here it is," she pointed.

"Holy crap! That was in his head???" I whisper screamed.

"Yep."

And here it is:

This tree trunk was in Johnny's head for over three days!  Talk about horticultural!

Anyways, he survived.  Today we are entering day one out of two of tech.  It sounds bad, but August and T.L. are the best tech-ers I've ever worked with.  I'm looking forward to a long, relaxing day, sans wooden beams.