Saturday started innocently enough. A half-hour run, followed by some delicious cereal and a couple hours of nerdery before making my way downtown to prepare for the first of the day’s two performances of WCT’s 1776. It was shortly after noon when I walked through the stage door of the Grand Theater with my recently acquired sandwich, which I made short work of as I readied myself for the 2:00 matinee. Life was good.

As the show began, I felt awfully tired. I wrote it off to the heat, and after the first scene took the opportunity to rest a bit backstage as I had a long while before I need to return. I was still feeling a little sluggish afterward, and digestively something just felt… off. My next scene came and went, and while the tiredness went away, the nausea did not. I opted to miss my next entrance and spend some time in the bathroom (fill in the blanks), which seemed to help, and felt cool and rejuvenated for a short period after that. The feeling was short-lived, and the final few scenes left me feeling beat from every direction. I was still nauseous, and the tiredness from before became a full-on exhaustion.

It’s fortunate for me that 1776 is based around congress, and as such there’s a lot of sitting, because there’s not a lot else I was able to do at that point. It was a struggle just to keep my eyes open, and the lightheadedness I felt was becoming worse every time I had to stand for any reason. There was a point where I experienced what seemed to be a total disconnect between my brain and the rest of me, as I could not make my hands function.

As the show neared its end and we all approached center stage to sign the Declaration of Independence (spoiler alert!), I was struggling to keep it together for just a few more minutes. All I had to do was stand for a few moments, and then make it through bows, and then I was done. I failed.

My first thought: SHIT. I awoke to the curtain call music and the face of Edward Rutledge, one of a group of my fellow congressmen to carry me to the wing. If you’ve ever fallen asleep slightly while in a lecture or meeting or any other place where it’s inappropriate to do so, you may be familiar with the state where you start to dream and then you kind of wake yourself up. I think that’s what happened to me, except while I was standing up, and on stage. I’m fortunate that I was surrounded by others so I never even made it to the ground.

The next few minutes were… interesting. I only opened my eyes briefly after waking up, but I was so exhausted that I couldn’t keep them open. They sat me in a chair offstage, and I felt like I could’ve sat there basically forever and been happy. I can’t describe how relieved I felt (physically – how I felt mentally is an entirely different story) to just finally stop. I can certainly understand the cause for concern, as while I was totally lucid, that’s probably not what it looks like when somebody collapses and then just sits there with their eyes shut for ten minutes.

Eventually we went down to the orchestra lounge, where there are couches, and I rested a bit more. Abe brought me a Subway-brand cookie and that was delicious (did I mention he was in the audience for this show and this show alone? I was thankful for that). I was still feeling a little off when I stood, but I had some delicious pizza with the rest of the cast and felt a lot better. Fortunately the brother of a fellow cast member was able to step in for the Saturday evening performance (and did so with aplomb!), which left me free to go home and rest.

So it could’ve been a lot worse. Some people thought the collapse was part of the show (because that apparently happened when it was hot in congress back then), so I guess I can consider it my body’s own personal ad-lib. Fortunately I was able to return for the closing matinee on Sunday and celebrate the end of yet another fantastic WCT production with the rest of the cast and crew. I also owe them my thanks for their concern and help both before and after the incident.

(PS: I’m pretty sure it wasn’t actually the flu.)