Theater companies around town have been plagued with weird luck over the past couple of months. Risk Theater’s production of Angels in America lost two of its leads at different times during a three-week run (not to mention having its set stolen from a pickup truck a week before they opened). High winds almost blew away the set of Shakespeare Dallas’ The Tempest on opening night last week.
Then, over the weekend, Classical Acting Company’s Huck Finn got hit.
Co-artistic director Emily Gray sent out a letter this morning:
On Friday night June 23rd during a black out, while exiting the stage, actor Matthew Gray fell from the stage severely hurting his left leg. However, because the show must go on, he strapped it up and went on for the second act completing the play the without the audience missing a beat.
It was discovered on Saturday morning that his ankle was severely sprained and his fibula broken. He is in an orthopedic boot/cast for 4-6 weeks.
Consequently, the writer Lee Trull, also being an actor, was called at 10.30am Saturday morning and asked to prepare himself for the roles being the only actor who could know the show well enough. To his credit he performed the entire show without a script on Saturday night after spending the afternoon having costume fittings and working through the play with the stage manager and scene partner Mark Shum.
He will now finish out the run of the show through July 2nd, no shows will be cancelled. The rest of the ensemble players worked marvelously alongside the new addition and the audience were very appreciative and excited by the show on both Saturday night and Sunday matinee.
Losing Matthew Gray, who was hilarious as the long-lost “dolphin” of France, would be an even bigger blow if Lee Trull weren’t such a good actor that he made our “Seven Actors to Watch” list in our March issue. Catch the show if you haven’t yet.
