IT'S tradition in theatre to wish actors luck by telling them to break a leg. Philip Richard Black, a player in this year's Deep Cove pantomime, did the next best thing: He fractured his radial head.
Black, who plays Baron Hardupp in Deep Cove Stage's sold-out re-imagining of Cinderella through next week, has taken dedication to his art to a new level, performing nightly with a broken arm. The die-hard thespian was cycling home Dec. 13 carrying a heavy bag in one hand - unwisely he noted - when he stopped and overbalanced. Black took the full weight of the impact on his arm.
"It was either that or my skull," he said. "And that I would not have made the show for."
When the joint swelled up, he went to the ER, where the doctors told him it was broken. The injury prevented Black from working the next day - his job involves heavy lifting - but with so many volunteers relying on him in the community stage production and no understudy to fall back on, he knew he couldn't skip the show. The actor toughed it out through opening night - a little more than 24 hours after the accident - with only minor adjustments to his performance.
"There's a scene where I catch the evil stepmother, who is actually a rather large man, so I had to catch him with one arm," said Black.
Things went reasonably well until the final curtain.
"One of the actors who was on my right . . . grabbed my arm and hoisted it up straight it into the air for the bow," he said. "That was about as painful as it has been."
The limb has since recovered from that particular shock, however. "In fact, I think he might have set it for me," said Black.
The Deep Cove Panto runs through Dec. 31 at the Deep Cove Shaw Theatre.
