You're the Top

The Bigun takes Technical Theatre in school, and is in the middle of a run of Anything Goes. I, having been a Theatre Major for a time, and a lover of musicals, have been immensely supportive and encouraging and insanely jealous.

I saw the show Friday, and the kids were magnificent! The timing was excellent, the singing very competent, and the accents were hilarious. I fell in love with them. For several hours I was transformed back into the realm of my college days, where long hours and sweat equity were always rewarded with a great feeling of accomplishment when we'd done a show well.

I remember learning I had "it" on stage one day.

The play we were taking to contest was a weird one called Dark Ride. It was pretty awful, but interestingly, the set design was great. Each character had a tarot card painted to look like him. These cards were 4'x8' in a wood frame, and were on casters, so as each character made an entrance or exit, he would wheel his card on to the stage and use it as a door. The "card" was mounted in the center, so when it opened either side had space to enter through. Think of a revolving door with no compartments, just two sides.

My character was an obnoxious old lady who had been in door-to-door sales for years. Dressed in a 2' tall beehive and an enormous felt coat, I had to deliver my lines in the sweet-Southern accent of Dallas (I suppose) and make like a spry little old lady. This was fine with me. I would come out, start rambling my lines, tool around the set, and then exit. It was my one big scene.

So these card/doors? They were weighted with sandbags to keep them stable and upright. It worked a charm, until it didn't. Here we were with a full house, my scene was coming up. I leave the green room and get behind my card. I wheel it out without a hitch and make my entrance. Only my door doesn't close. It's sitting there wide open, distracting to me and the audience. So taking a look at the audience, to whom my lines are addressed anyway, I hold up a finger and ad-lib "'Scuze me jest one sec, 'kay?" And I proceed to kick the devil out of the offending sandbag.

Huge laugh. "There! That's better!" And I continue.

Meanwhile, listening in the green room, the director is having a fit, thinking that I've forgotten my lines and am messing up her play. It isn't until after that one of the veteran actors comes to my defense and explains what happened, and that the audience thought it was planned. She was skeptical until the audience came up after the show and told her how funny that part was. (In yo FACE, AP!)

And after that show, she learned that I was indeed pregnant, and had been so during that show (Thank God for large costumes and small bellies!) and I pretty much had to sit out any shows from there. Soon I went into accounting (I'll never understand to this day why I did that) and had to give it all up.

But here's the Bigun, working backstage at shows now. Shows with singing and dancing and quick changes and creative staging and lighting. And I miss it, once in a while. There's nothing like standing on a stage and cracking a line that brings the house down. And nothing like being up there and knowing everyone in the room is looking at you, waiting to hear what you'll say. Wanting to fall in love with your character and with you as an actor.

B, the costumer, was the leading lady in Anything Goes. She's not a tiny little dainty thing at all. This is not the girl they would think of in the lead of your typical high school play. But she was awesome. She soared, and my heart soared with her, glad that there was this great lovely memory of her senior year where she had the whole room falling in love with her each night. And glad that no matter how many little chippies she comes up against in life, she had one moment in that spotlight that no one can diminish.