When We Are Married

Haven't mentioned the Varsity course I'm doing on here much, I don't think. When I last wrote about it, I was still doing a week's block course called, Congregations in New Zealand. Well, that got side-swiped by the fact that I was in hospital that week (!), so I reverted to my earlier choice of an online paper called Research Methods, which actually suited me better anyway.
I've been getting along fairly well with the course, and enjoying it, but I also got asked a couple of weeks ago to do a part in a play. It was a very small part, two scenes in which I would have been on the stage for no more than about three minutes in total. Achievable, I thought.
The play is When We Are Married, by J B Priestley. It dates back to the thirties, I think, but is actually set in the late 19th century. It has a cast of fourteen, so it's a big piece actor-wise. Several of the parts are relatively small (though none of them quite so small as what I was to be doing: the local chapel minister.)
Anyway, I went to the first read-through, and did my two bits, and thought this will fit in nicely with my Varsity work. And then yesterday got a call to say that the man playing the photographer in the play had had to pull out due to unexpected work commitments, and would I take over that role?
It's still not a large part, thank goodness (though it's a lot more fun) - he's on for a couple of minutes in the first act, and then doesn't appear again until two thirds of the way through the third act. The two scenes there are a bit more involved, but still not what you'd call huge. But the rehearsal schedule turns out to be very full on. Three nights a week, and we open on the 23rd May. Crikey.
Fortunately, not being in the second act at all, I have a couple of weeks off in the middle of the schedule, but after that it's going to be a fight to get the Varsity work done.
Well, live on the edge, they say. Not quite sure if that applies here, but it feels a bit like it.