"Around here, however, we don't look backwards for very long. We keep moving forward, opening up new doors and doing new things...and curiosity keeps leading us down new paths."
---Walter Elias Disney

Saturday, April 11, 2015

I'm Going Far, Far Away This Summer

It's been a rough year so far. A work situation has left me running a route since early January and I'm about worn out. You can trust I'm not really being a whiner here because my boss (and mind you I work at a company where sarcasm and abuse is the rule) actually sincerely apologized to me last week. Never happens. But things are looking up. It's spring and I have a new project to delve into. Shrek the Musical.





I'm stage managing once again, this time for a director other than Jen, which is both exciting and a bit scary, but it's going swimmingly so far. The director, Cal, is new to the area and to Brunswick Little Theatre, so a few of us have been really helping him with recruiting cast and crew. It's already been a lot of fun. Once again, Lisa and John will be joining the crew, John on the sound board and Lisa as an assistant stage manager.

See, I needed to find someone to take charge back stage a few times while I'm otherwise occupied. For the first time in forever, I'm going to be on stage performing in a few scenes. It's a small part as one of seven guards. I'm not trying to make a huge deal out of it, it's kind of like being a tree in the elementary school show (if your school's trees were dressed up like The Gimp). But, the role DOES appear in the Shrek Wiki. It's not much, but heck, it's there :-)

The guards are on stage with Lord Farquaad and are sort of his posse, or, if you prefer (and I do), his S1W. I'm told there is a bit of back-up singing as part of this group (shudder) and some dancing. On our knees.


This knee dancing part is the reason I am making my stage debut. Myself, Cal and Michael, the musical director, were standing around late one night after an audition discussing how we could find enough able bodied males to be guards when Michael suggested me. Cal jumped on it and when the cast list appeared, there I was. I wasn't recruited for my talent, I was recruited by virtue of being male and ambulatory enough to dance around on my knees and still stand up afterwards without requiring medical assistance.

That, and the fact that I will clearly look fabulous in pleather.

Black, I hope. That way I won't need to change to return to stage manager detail :-)