This year I found myself participating in another play, "Lafferty's Wake." I read in our county paper that there was going to be a casting call. And after talking it over with Joyce, we decided that this fall would be open if I actually got a part. Last year, for some reason ;-) was not a good year for me going out for long stretches at a time. But now, since that chapter was finished, we thought getting me out of her now growing hair for a while might be an okay change of pace. We will come back to that in a few paragraphs.
The audition went well, in my humble opinion. It was humorous filling out the application. There was a part that asked if I could sing. Well, anyone who knows me knows my answer was a resounding NO!!!!!. Literally, that is how I put it on there. There was a part that asked if I could dance. Again, NO!!!!! Was my answer. As some would say, as a dancer I am a singer and as a singer I am a dancer. I can't understand why people aren't able to equate singing in tune as singing louder. Honestly, that is what I do.
Of course, being an old bald guy helps get parts written for old bald guys. So I had that going for me. And there was a part that fit those two criteria. To shorten this part of the blog, I did get offered a part as a bartender. And without reading most ( let's put that as hardly any ) of the script, I said I would take the part. After all, how much would a barkeeper be able to say in a two hour play? As it turns out, quite a bit.
Rory Finn turns out to be the Master of Ceremonies at his good friend's wake. So, for two hours of the show, I was there for all but 3 minutes. I guess I should have looked at the script a bit better. Oh, did I mention that Rory had a couple of solo singing parts? Which turned out to be kind of hilarious during our practices. I have been on stage enough to know that once you have adopted the character as your own, it is full throttle ahead. So when it came to the singing parts that is what I did. They kept asking me to sing in tune, so of course I just sang louder and louder and louder. I kept reminding the other cast members of how I had "punctuated" my application.
The play was a dinner theatre production and we were suppose to shatter the "fourth wall." In most plays, the audience is only presented with actors addressing three walls. The fourth wall is the wall that faces the audience. The audience is the fourth wall. And when that wall gets "broken" the audience is either talked to directly or becomes part of the production. In this play, they became part of the production. Did I mention this was a comedy? Needless to say, the unsuspecting audience was included in many of the lighter moments. We only had one person who did not appreciate being brought up on stage to participate. I suppose that is not too bad for the 40 or 50 people we selected over the course of the six night run.In the end it was a fun project. It was well received. I didn't forget too many lines. I sang as loudly as I needed. And in the end, Joyce discovered that me being away that many times during the night was not as well received by The Dude as she might have thought. I guess she had to spend most of those evenings sitting beside him. And now that Joyce is well, sitting for an evening is not something that comes easily.
here is a link to a mannequin challenge that is all the rage I guess:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_iJTYTNpsrs&time_continue=27
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