"Actors Can Never be Sick" (Why I am always sick after Closing)

"Actors can never be sick."
-spoken off-handedly by a director

This single phrase has haunted me for years.
Because it is both true and terrible to behold.

To give it context:
The director in question was speaking specifically about understudies.
Understudies are meant to step into a role in the event that an actor is too sick or indisposed to perform.
This can happen for any number of reasons, up to and including death.

So what is an understudy's job?
I don't know.
Working for years, often as an understudy, I still do not know what an understudy does.
I am an actor.
I know how to act.
There is no job training for being an understudy.
You show up to rehearsals, learn the blocking and the lines, and sometimes you go on to perform.
But, what does that mean?
Are you an actor creating your own unique performance?
Are you an understudy meant to seamlessly insert yourself into another's performance should they go down?
Are you a chameleon?
An aardvark?
I do not know.

The directors I have worked with very rarely consider or consult with the understudies.
Why is that?
They do not have time.
(that is not wholly true, but for the sake of this argument, let us assume that it is)
Six weeks max to create a full production with their initial creative team.
Working with understudies is like working with a separate, but constantly fluctuating possible show that could happen at any moment with any one of them.

(Yeah...it is like that)

So instead of leaping that hurdle, what do directors do?
Say things like: "Actors can never be sick"

What happens to me when I hear this?
I kick myself for being sick.
I know many actors who do.
We have our tricks:

• Over-hydration (I have seen actors drink literal buckets of water)
• The ever-present trash bucket (I have seen actors walk offstage, vomit from stomach flu, and go back on to finish a five act Shakespeare...way to be Betsy. You have undying respect)
• Anachronistic (or not so) additions (I have seen an actor with diabetes suffer full blown insulin crashes onstage and keep going by drinking soda and eating candies to make it through)

But that also meant that everyone else filled in the gaps (and not always safely)

• One time the lead in a production took ill during the first act and the understudy had to walk on for the second act (brilliantly taking care of one another)
• The incident of diabetes on stage? he had a fight to finish the first and second act. One night, we actually fought for our lives against this erratic man (not so taken care of)

What do I do when I get sick?

I pretend I am not sick.

I wait and hold out for the end of the run.

Because of course I get sick, but I am a consummate professional and so find every work around for it (read: scared of being unprofessional and so give my best possible performance until I crash after closing).

So there it is.

I am afraid of being sick.

I am afraid to go down during a performance so I hold out just enough to make it to closing.

And then I allow myself a chest cold, a flu, a sick day.

Before I duct tape myself back together for the next day's rehearsal.

It is not a way to live. I would never advise my students to do it.

But, if they were to watch me and follow my example, that is what they would see...Miles is never sick, he never misses a performance (I am not proud of this)

Actors are the primary creative tool of theatre.
They are necessary for theatre to exist.
But, what happens when an actor is too sick to go on?
The entire production changes.
Someone new enters the scene.
Someone no one else has worked with over the process.
Everyone is just a little bit scared and a lot of bit supportive.
What happens?
Theatre happens.

It is not the same show.
And that panics most directors.
But, it is still a show.
It is still theatre.
So my contention is that actors can always get sick.
Because we are human.
We are capable of adapting and creating new performances every night because that is what we do.
We are actors, hear me roar!

So there it is.
We are human.
We can and do get sick.
That shouldn't be the worst thing to happen to theatre ever.
The worst thing to happen to art is telling the artists that they cannot act the way humans do.