Backstage Stories

I've decided to start a new segment on my blog called "Backstage Stories".  I'll share funny things that happen with shows or performances I'm in that the audience never knows about.

Tonight's edition of "Backstage Stories" takes place at the McCreery House near downtown Loveland.  We were doing a special event in conjunction with the Loveland Museum and Gallery.  We performed excerpts from the opera The Bohemian Girl by Michael William Balfe.  I played the Queen of the Gypsies.  It was a fun little gig.  Great music!

So here are my two funny stories:

My character is killed near the end of the opera.  Since we weren't acting out the whole opera, just little tiny things with the narration, I didn't really have to leave the room when I died.  But in the interest of being melodramatic, I made a very dramatic exit...right into the kitchen.  Since I don't eat a lot before I sing, I was STARVING!  There were a couple of trays of the hor d'oerves in there and, since I wasn't going to be singing anymore, I started chowing down.  At the end of the final song, I was supposed to go out and bow with everyone else.  I wasn't really paying attention and all of the sudden, Juliana goes "Angela!"  I had about 5 seconds before I needed to go out to bow.  And guess what!  My mouth was full!  I couldn't just swallow it, so I went out to bow with my mouth full of food.  I discreetly finished chewing, and I don't think very many people noticed, maybe a few.  Note to self:  pay attention when you have to make an entrance, even if the food was divine.  Stop stuffing your face!!!

The other funny story had to do with my outfit.  Take a look at this picture:

You'll never guess what I had on underneath that.  I didn't want to wear nylons.  It's sometimes hard to sing in them...and it was hot outside when I was getting ready.  So I didn't wear them.  Under that dress, I had on a pair of grey knit shorts!  And the audience never knew!!!!

Good times! 

Acting Lesson for Today

Okay, Boys and Girls.  Gather round.  I'm going to teach you a very valuable acting lesson.

If you are standing still and have no expression whatsoever on your face, you will draw just as much attention to yourself as the actor who is over-the-top acting.  Why?  Because your motionless existence draws the audiences' eyes because of your non-movement.   You'd think the person who is being totally crazy and over-the-top would draw more attention.  They do get more of the attention then the actors who are in the middle of the spectrum, but because they are engaged in the scene, they don't totally stick out (unless they are ruining the scene, but that's a lesson for a different day.)

So remember....be engaged in the scene or get off the stage.  It's as simple as that.  Yes, it's a little more complex than that.  But basically...that's it.

The Perfect Explanation

Wow.  I just read a paragraph in a book that totally sums up my life.

The single life is a life of uncertainty.  I'll always wonder if or when I'll get married.  But I remind myself that everyone has to deal with uncertainty.  Some people worry about having a job or whether they'll ever have children.  Others have disabled children and worry for their future.  My particular uncertainty is marriage.  Yes, I want to get married, but not to just anyone.  I want the right person.  Romance -- it's one of those things that seems so unimportant, yet, in a way, it is at the center of everything.

Wow.  Just wow.  Thank you, Rebecca H. Jamison.  You hit the nail on the head.  (The book is Persuasion:  A Latter-Day Tale, by the way.  A modern version of Jane Austen's Persuasion, which is my most favorite of her books.)

26 Brides for 26 Brothers?

You know how in Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, Adam says "He figured on using all twenty-six letters of the alphabet right down to Zachariah.  But when he got one look at Gideon here, he went out and chopped a tree down on himself."?  Well, what if Ma and Pa Pontipee had made it all the way to 26?  have you ever sat and pondered what the names might be?  Probably not.   But since I'm insane...I have!  Here's my list:

• Adam
• Benjamin
• Caleb
• Daniel
• Ephraim
• Frank(insence)
• Gideon
• Hiram (King of Tyre, friend of David & Solomon)
• Isaiah
• Jesse (There are so many J names to choose from!  Joshua, John, Jacob, Jonah, Joseph...)
• Keturah (A girl...Wife of Abraham after Sarah's death)
• Luke (or Levi)
• Matthew (or Mark or Malachi or Michael or Moses)
• Nathanael (or Noah or Naomi, if it was a girl)
• Obadiah (but he would go by "Sky")
• Paul (or Peter or Phillip)
• Quiver (There were no "Q" names in the Bible, so Ma named him Quiver, because with 17 kids, her quiver was full.)
• Reuben (or if it was a girl...Ruth, Rachel, or Rebekah)
• Saul (or Seth or Simeon or Solomon or Samuel or Sarah, if it was a girl)
• Timothy
• Uzziah
• Vashti (Queen of Ahasuerus, she was deposed in favor of Esther)
• Wine (No "W" names.  Pa liked to drink a lot by this point.)
• Yeshua (Hebrew spelling of Jesus)
• Zachariah

I am such a nerd.

Musical Theatre Characters Who Should Have Gone to Jail

Since I'm currently in rehearsals for a production of Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, it stands to reason that a subject foremost in my mind is characters in musicals that totally should have been arrested.  As my friend Scotty "Frank Pontipee" Shaffer said, “the most fun you’ll ever have watching a musical about Mass Kidnapping and Stockholm syndrome!”

So I am setting out to create this list of some well known musical theatre characters and what they would have been charged with:

• Bill Starbuck - 110 in the Shade - Fraud
• Julian Marsh - 42nd Street - Molestation
• The Beast - Beauty and the Beast - Kidnapping
• Gaston - Beauty and the Beast - Aggravated Assault
• Huckleberry Finn - Big River - Assisting a runway slave
• Jeff - Brigadoon - 2nd Degree Murder
• Conrad Birdie - Bye Bye Birdie - Solicitation of a minor
• Billy Bigelow - Carousel  - Domestic Abuse (even though I maintain that he only hit her the one time.)
• El Gallo - The Fantasticks - Solicitation of a minor
• The Baker & Baker's Wife - Into the Woods - Fraud (when they bought Milky White from Jack)
• Joseph's Brothers - Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat - Human trafficking
• Scar - The Lion King - Murder
• Sister Julia - Nunsense - 3rd Degree Murder
• Ali Hakim - Oklahoma! - Selling drugs
• Jud Fry - Oklahoma! - Aggravated Assault
• Captain Hook - Peter Pan - Kidnapping
• The Phantom - Phantom  & The Phantom of the Opera - Murder, Destruction of Property, Kidnapping, Stalking, Menacing
• Max Bialystock & Leo Bloom - The Producers - Fraud and Racketeering
• Dr. Craven - The Secret Garden - Domestic Abuse
• Adam Pontipee - Seven Brides for Seven Brothers - Marrying Milly under false pretenses (I'm sure that's a punishable offense, I just can't think of the official term.  Fraud, maybe?)
• The Pontipee Brothers - Seven Brides for Seven Brothers - Kidnapping
• Bloody Mary - South Pacific - Pimping (Hello!  Trying to get Joe Cable to sleep with her 16 year old daughter?!  What else would that be?!)

This is obviously an incomplete list.  I left off characters that DID get arrested (like Mrs. Meers in Thoroughly Modern Millie) or that their crimes were obvious and really part of the plot.  Like Harold Hill in The Music Man.  But I still put the Phantom on there, because his list was long.  Anyway, let me know of any others you think should be on here.