Date of Run: April 15-May 1, 2011
ROLE: Ensemble
ROLE: Ensemble
Production Photos by Caitlin Brandon
In the fall of 2010, I auditioned for and got into Reefer Madness the Musical, with book and lyrics by Kevin Murphy and music by Dan Studney. This musical was being staged by Narrow Way Stage Company, a fairly young theatre company formed by former Sonoma State and Santa Rosa Junior College theatre students. It was to be this company's first musical. I had seen some of their shows in the past and they were generally very well done. I was cast in the ensemble. The director was Nick Christenson, the music director was Liam Robertson, and the choreographer was Gloria Rubio. Our stage manager was the incredible Robin DeLuca. Rehearsals for this show began in late January while Die Fledermaus rehearsals were winding down and performances beginning. It seemed that whenever I was called to Reefer Madness rehearsals, I had Die Fledermaus rehearsals and on the few nights I was free I usually was not called at all.
It had taken some time for the cast list to appear, but when it did, I only recognized four people: Claire McCaffrey, who was also in Die Fledermaus, Elise Siegel, with whom I had done a music theatre scenes class some semesters back, Liam Robertson, who was the music director for Growing Up in Neverland, and Emily Somple, with whom I had done the music theatre scenes class one year earlier. The rest of the cast included Nora Summers, Braedyn Youngberg, Trevor Hoffmann, Lenny Improta, Hana Casita, Alexis Long, Samantha Lane, Clint Campbell, and Ryan Neilan. Emily, however, left the cast, probably at the beginning of rehearsals, and was replaced by Rebekah Patti.
Some of the people in the cast were Sonoma State (SSU) students whom I had seen in SSU shows, even if I didn't realize I had. And others in the cast were people who lived throughout Sonoma County. I was beyond thrilled to work with Nick and Rebekah, two of my favorite actors from SSU. They were in the first show I saw at Sonoma State and in Sonoma County in the French farce A Flea in her Ear and they both made an everlasting impression on me. Over the next three years I saw them repeatedly in shows but did not meet them until that school year. I took a playwriting class with Rebekah the semester before Reefer Madness, and I met Nick at auditions. Rebekah is a wonderful person, and her outgoing personality made it very easy to get along with her and the same went for Alexis.
When Die Fledermaus finally ended, Claire and I went to Spreckles Performing Arts Center, where the show would run. We would be using the smaller black box theatre, but as another show was in progress, we had to rehearse in a number of places including the larger theatre at Spreckles, the gym at SSU and a few rooms in Ives Hall at SSU. By the time Claire and I arrived Gloria had staged the first song, "Reefer Madness." So, Claire and I stood back and watched as the others ran through it to show us and I thought "Crap, I am so behind." They had also done some staging for the song "Five and Dime," but not all of it. Gloria and the rest of the cast caught us up, though in my case it took a little while.
Gloria used the soundtrack from the film version of this musical to help her choreograph. At first there were no problems because there weren't any differences between the musical and the movie until we got to "Jimmy on the Lam," which was the last song to be fully staged. Gloria staged it so we'd be walking in angles alternating between slow, normal and fast steps and forwards and backwards. For the longest time when we came to the ending, something was wrong. It was the song going weird all of a sudden and Gloria couldn't figure out how to fix it. The staging frustrated us, and I would gladly have suggested she scrap this and think of something new. It was when we rehearsed with Nora, Rebekah, Elise and Lenny who did the singing in the song that we figured out what was happening. What was wrong was the music that was playing was not the same as what we'd be using. Gloria fixed it and after some time the ensemble remembered all the steps in the correct order. In fact, the first time we did the whole thing right without stopping once, we cheered, and I got us to do a group high five in celebration.
Easily, everyone's favorite song was "The Orgy." In this part of the show, Jimmy, Braedyn's character and the lead, has smoked marijuana for the first time and he lapses into this extreme orgy. We were told that we'd be dancing and rubbing against each other like people do in sex, so we would have to be comfortable. Nick gave an exercise to help with that (more on that later). No one was really uncomfortable though at one moment when the girls were bent over and the guys were behind and thrust their hips forward and back, Samantha asked me not to get too close. The dance consisted also of crawling, rolling and sprawling on the floor. The number ended with everyone collapsed in a heap in the floor. We were also allowed to play with the audience, not only in this song, but also in the first song (more later).
I was sure that the music would cause me real vocal cord injury. The women's parts were divided into soprano and alto, but the men had only one part. I don't know if that's how Studney wrote it or if that's how this edition came, but it seemed as though it was decided that all the men had to be tenors or bari-tenors. No low baritones, which is what I am. In the ensemble I was the only guy with any real vocal experience, but it was impossible. I had to employ falsetto and a more nasal sound to manage parts of it and completely drop out at other parts to make it work, but after every rehearsal my throat would hurt. Liam was hardly any help because if we sang the wrong notes, he'd sing the right note or more often would hit the right key on the piano repeatedly. All I could think was "Liam, that really isn't helping." For the rest of rehearsals, I really lived like a monk. No talking or singing during the day if I could avoid it. Nothing but quiet.
My least favorite song in the show was "Mary Jane/ Mary Lane." I basically repeated the line "Loved by Mary, loved by Mary, loved by Mary Lane" over and over, but no matter how hard I tried I never got the notes right.
It was also in this show I first learned about fight choreography. Here we come to Richard Squeri, who taught and staged fights for a living. In our first meeting with him he had us play a called flowing dragon swords with him. This is a description from a Youtube video of it: "Flowing Dragon Swords is played when two people face each other and touch wooden swords, then as soon as possible, make and maintain consistent eye contact. The Sword contact is held with no aggressive movement or preplanned outcome. The object is for two people to connect deeply and if inspired, to co-create motion. When this is realized, a window to another world opens. Suddenly, there is no winning or losing, no blame, or expectation -- there is simply seeing yourself and others in a profound and simple way that heals, forms bonds, and invites deep dialogue." Richard staged people dying in several ways, falling, catching others, slapping and best of all, what everyone called "The hoe death."
The hoe death was Elise's big moment in the show. It was where her character, Mae, would kill Trevor's character, Jack, using a garden hoe. She would knock a gun out of Trevor's hand, jab the hoe into his stomach, drag him by the hair and throw him behind the couch. She then proceeded to beat him with the hoe (really beating a large stuffed bag) wile Trevor squirted her with stage blood. Then finally Elise would jab the hoe straight up like she was crushing his balls, reach down and pull up a plastic heart. I reveled in watching this every night while hidden.
Nick had some very interesting exercises for us in order to connect and feel comfortable with each other. They took place in a small dance studio in Ives Hall at Sonoma State University. He first had us walk around the room and when we felt like it we would yell "Fall." Then we would begin to fall and someone or multiple people would catch us. I loved that exercise. The next was to help with the orgy scene. Nick had us split in four groups and go to the four corners of the room. He then turned off the lights and we had to go diagonally to the opposite corner. This entailed us being caught and tangle in a pile to work out of. The last exercise was being in pairs wherein one person would be imagined to be in the worst place possible, naked, emotions bare, and eyes closed. The other would bring that person out of the fetal position, crawl next to them and comfort them. I was paired with Lenny. It was a grueling exercise and some people sobbed. We all had a group hug afterwards.
Generally, I got along well with the cast. They were hard working and dedicated to the show. I even admired some of them. However, Braedyn lost my good favor forever at one rehearsal. At this rehearsal the cast was on a short break, and I was doing a handstand leaning against a wall. Braedyn was goofing around and then he came up and tickled me. I am very ticklish and so I fell. That was the first and to date only time I lost my temper in a blind rage. I grabbed the nearest things I could get my hands on (which turned out to be Trevor's shoes) and hurdled them at him. I had enough sense not to physically attack him, however. When asked if I was all right, I said told everyone to leave me alone and I went outside to regain my composure. For the sake of the show, I tolerated and was professional with Braedyn, but once the show ended, I never spoke to him again.
Clint was a near perfect theatre person. He graduated with a technical theatre degree, but he also acted and danced. He did not sing as much, but I said to the others in the cast, even him, that if he took some singing lessons, he'd be complete.
Ryan was funny at times. I remember the first time I saw his dance for "The Brownie Song." It was cool. Then it was funny watching Braedyn having sex (yes, having sex) with him at the end of the song. If you watch the movie, that scene becomes an animated cartoon moment and Jimmy starts having sex with a brownie head attached to a woman's body.
The layout of the black box theatre of Spreckels was that the stage would be a diamond with seats to the sides and an opening in the center that led out. Exits were also on stage right and left and behind us. Hallways connected the area. For my part I sixteen scenes (the majority) and had eight costume changes, many of which involved just adding to or taking off what I already had on, and six makeup changes. My face always ended up being clean at the end of every show. I had to be a zombie, reefer den person, teenager, orgy person, choir person and angel, ordinary person and executioner so I had to master quick changes and I did very well, though some were difficult. We in the ensemble also did set changes. Mine was easy because Ryan and I were in charge of moving the couch. Once or twice when he didn't show or took some time to get there, I'd be like "I'm not waiting," and moved it myself.
We moved to tech week. We did not have a sitzprobe, which would've been helpful. We had maybe two or three rehearsals with the full orchestra, which consisted of five or six people. We spent much time hammering out our entrances and cues in the songs. Samantha in particular was very good at figuring it out. Everything came together on the last night, though it was difficult. I honestly thought that the show would crash and burn with everything still shaky and certain people were always messing up, though I won't say who.
A character that was cut was The Placard Girl. She would bring in the signs saying all the negative aspects of reefer and other things like the repeated "Loved by Mary Lane" line for the audience to sing along to. For some reason, Nick divided the signs among the ensemble cast members. I was given two placards. Mine were after "The Lullaby" where Rebekah's character, Sally, sells her baby for money and then the baby (Lenny) comes out and sings. I came on in my angel costume with my placard saying aloud "Reefer makes you sell your babies (flip it around) for drug money." My other was after "Little Mary Sunshine." The cue was where Lenny said, "Come on let me up!" to which Nora said, "Shut up bitch!" and I'd come on as a zombie saying, "Reefer gives you a potty mouth."
Opening night was not a complete disaster, but all the male principal characters messed up at some point. Liam switched and repeated a verse in "Reefer Madness," Braedyn forgot lyrics in "Mary Jane/Mary Lane," Lenny's timing was off in "Jimmy on the Lam," and Trevor's Jesus wig during his song "Listen to Jesus Jimmy" fell off. Trevor also made a very grave mistake that nearly stopped the show.
In the second act the second song was "The Brownie Song," in which Jack gives Jimmy a pot brownie. We would carry our brownies in our pocket during "Jimmy on the Lam," but Trevor placed him between him pants and shirt. I told him not to put it there because I knew it would fall out, but he didn't listen. We came to his scene, and he had no brownie. Claire, Hana and I were waiting offstage left, waiting to enter and watching and we saw something was wrong. A moment later Clint came on whistling and slipped Trevor his brownie and had to run back around stage right. An audience member found the brownie and I retrieved it later. I personally baked the brownies, and we did lose a few in the course of the run forcing me to cut some in half. I made new ones every week and we ate the old ones.
Clint was the hero of the hour and Trevor put it in his pocket from thereon. Through it all the ensemble took it in their stride. The second night went for the most part flawlessly. It lifted my spirits and I prepared for the rest of the three weekend, 12 performance run. I also began to notice that after every show my throat did not hurt. I don't know if it was muscle memory or adrenaline or all the moving around that I did, but after the shows I felt okay. I drank water as much as I could while not onstage.
During opening night, we used confetti cannons for the first time which happened at the end of the finale and the loud bang nearly made me jump out of my skin. They were behind me, and I had no idea that was about to happen. Not to mention I'm not sure when the last time I had heard confetti canons or even if I ever had.
There was only one day (Easter) when the audience wasn't full. I remember because I climbed over seats at people and then did a jump from the second row onto the stage. On the April 20 (4/20) performance the house smelled like weed. I usually peeked at the audience. During the first song Alexis and I would enter stage left as zombies and I'd have a look. I did this when I went into the audience because if I had a friend in the front or in an aisle seat on that side, I would give him/her a lap dance during the orgy scene. Sometimes I could do two friends, but I didn't get to every night though and one night when I headed for a friend, Claire got in my way and her arm accidentally hit my neck. Then I thought "Aw fuck it" and didn't bother to do it. One night in my near-sighted eyes I thought I saw a friend of mine. It turned out to be a friend of Ryan's. When I found out afterwards, I was so embarrassed. Luckily, he and his girlfriend (who was also an actress) were the most into the show that night so I got away with it.
My voice and music theatre teacher at the time, a classical musical type, came to a performance and said it was one of the funniest things she'd ever seen.
Backstage before one performance for some reason I began to sing "Colors of the Wind." Practically everyone approved. As time went on, I sang other songs that people brought up from films and musicals. I surprised many by how many I knew, even obscure songs from films like The Swan Princess. I do not remember if this was during a performance or a rehearsal, but before we did the show, one day backstage Samantha and I sang the entire song "A Little Priest" from Sweeney Todd. I knew it a bit better than she did, but we did the entire thing. She would later call me one of her favorite backstage singing buddies.
As the show went on, I began to learn it by heart. For example, in the climactic scene I'd be backstage saying "Nora's been shot," then came Rebekah's line "She fell down!" A moment later we'd hear "Romeo and Juliet (reprise)" and when the dramatic chord was heard I'd say, "And she's dead." I even had some fun with the lines. After "Reefer Madness" there would be a scene between Braedyn and Nora before their duet "Romeo and Juliet." One of the lines was "Forsooth fair Juliet. Wouldst thou likest yon hot chocolate?" but to me it was "Forsooth fair Juliet. Wouldst thou sing a cheesy song with me?"
Mistakes and various other incidents popped up here and there. We in the ensemble were very good about taking something in our stride. Twice it happened during "Listen to Jesus Jimmy." First one night Trevor switched verses. The first line began with "Satan went and conned ya" while the ensemble would repeat it. Then later it was "Jimmy, let me see ya." Trevor said "Jimmy" while some in the ensemble said "Sat-" and stopped, thinking "Huh?" Then we finished the Jimmy line and as if we all had the same brain, we did our choreography for that moment and did the Satan line later. Another time concerned Ryan where he had to improvise.
After "The Orgy" were three scenes showing Jimmy's transition from good to bad. Alexis and I entered in the last of these as Jimmy's parents. One time as we were frantically changing, I reached down for something while her back was turned, and her foot went up and kicked me in the face just below the eye. Another half an inch and she would've taken that eye out. From then on, I did my change away from everyone else.
One night, I remember there being a mistake being made, though I did not notice until someone said what happened later. What happened was Braedyn was coming backstage from one of his scenes and said something with "fuck" in it and apparently his mic was still turned on. I'm sure the audience found it hilarious, but I didn't notice because I was too busy getting ready for my next scene.
One time when I almost cracked up laughing was during "Listen to Jesus Jimmy (reprise)." I was the executioner and about to pull the switch when Trevor entered. He says his lines and then start saying "Body of me" while throwing Ritz crackers to the audience. Once he threw it like a Frisbee and it hit an old woman right in the face. From then on, he handed them to the audience.
"The Orgy" was always fun. After a lap dance I'd join the cast dancing with usually Elise and I in each others arms rubbing against each other with Claire behind me and Trevor going underneath our legs.
Often there were "safety meetings" (really weed smoking get togethers), usually headed by Robin and Ryan and cast parties to which I was usually never informed about, probably because I didn't smoke or do drugs like the others in the cast did. In a show about weed I was the only person, cast or crew who did not smoke it even once.
At the closing night cast party Ryan gave me what he called a compliment by telling me what he honestly thought of me, as he claimed to do with everyone. He told me that I was a machine specifically programmed for musicals. The oddest compliment I've ever heard, but as time went on and as I did more musicals, I think he may have been right.
The end of the run was sad. I wish it would've gone on longer. It remains one of the best, most successful shows I ever did, one of my favorites that I ever did, and it had my favorite cast that I ever worked with. Alexis and I continued for years afterward to beg Nick to do a revival of the show.
In the fall of 2010, I auditioned for and got into Reefer Madness the Musical, with book and lyrics by Kevin Murphy and music by Dan Studney. This musical was being staged by Narrow Way Stage Company, a fairly young theatre company formed by former Sonoma State and Santa Rosa Junior College theatre students. It was to be this company's first musical. I had seen some of their shows in the past and they were generally very well done. I was cast in the ensemble. The director was Nick Christenson, the music director was Liam Robertson, and the choreographer was Gloria Rubio. Our stage manager was the incredible Robin DeLuca. Rehearsals for this show began in late January while Die Fledermaus rehearsals were winding down and performances beginning. It seemed that whenever I was called to Reefer Madness rehearsals, I had Die Fledermaus rehearsals and on the few nights I was free I usually was not called at all.
It had taken some time for the cast list to appear, but when it did, I only recognized four people: Claire McCaffrey, who was also in Die Fledermaus, Elise Siegel, with whom I had done a music theatre scenes class some semesters back, Liam Robertson, who was the music director for Growing Up in Neverland, and Emily Somple, with whom I had done the music theatre scenes class one year earlier. The rest of the cast included Nora Summers, Braedyn Youngberg, Trevor Hoffmann, Lenny Improta, Hana Casita, Alexis Long, Samantha Lane, Clint Campbell, and Ryan Neilan. Emily, however, left the cast, probably at the beginning of rehearsals, and was replaced by Rebekah Patti.
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| The Cast and Crew |
Some of the people in the cast were Sonoma State (SSU) students whom I had seen in SSU shows, even if I didn't realize I had. And others in the cast were people who lived throughout Sonoma County. I was beyond thrilled to work with Nick and Rebekah, two of my favorite actors from SSU. They were in the first show I saw at Sonoma State and in Sonoma County in the French farce A Flea in her Ear and they both made an everlasting impression on me. Over the next three years I saw them repeatedly in shows but did not meet them until that school year. I took a playwriting class with Rebekah the semester before Reefer Madness, and I met Nick at auditions. Rebekah is a wonderful person, and her outgoing personality made it very easy to get along with her and the same went for Alexis.
When Die Fledermaus finally ended, Claire and I went to Spreckles Performing Arts Center, where the show would run. We would be using the smaller black box theatre, but as another show was in progress, we had to rehearse in a number of places including the larger theatre at Spreckles, the gym at SSU and a few rooms in Ives Hall at SSU. By the time Claire and I arrived Gloria had staged the first song, "Reefer Madness." So, Claire and I stood back and watched as the others ran through it to show us and I thought "Crap, I am so behind." They had also done some staging for the song "Five and Dime," but not all of it. Gloria and the rest of the cast caught us up, though in my case it took a little while.
Gloria used the soundtrack from the film version of this musical to help her choreograph. At first there were no problems because there weren't any differences between the musical and the movie until we got to "Jimmy on the Lam," which was the last song to be fully staged. Gloria staged it so we'd be walking in angles alternating between slow, normal and fast steps and forwards and backwards. For the longest time when we came to the ending, something was wrong. It was the song going weird all of a sudden and Gloria couldn't figure out how to fix it. The staging frustrated us, and I would gladly have suggested she scrap this and think of something new. It was when we rehearsed with Nora, Rebekah, Elise and Lenny who did the singing in the song that we figured out what was happening. What was wrong was the music that was playing was not the same as what we'd be using. Gloria fixed it and after some time the ensemble remembered all the steps in the correct order. In fact, the first time we did the whole thing right without stopping once, we cheered, and I got us to do a group high five in celebration.
Easily, everyone's favorite song was "The Orgy." In this part of the show, Jimmy, Braedyn's character and the lead, has smoked marijuana for the first time and he lapses into this extreme orgy. We were told that we'd be dancing and rubbing against each other like people do in sex, so we would have to be comfortable. Nick gave an exercise to help with that (more on that later). No one was really uncomfortable though at one moment when the girls were bent over and the guys were behind and thrust their hips forward and back, Samantha asked me not to get too close. The dance consisted also of crawling, rolling and sprawling on the floor. The number ended with everyone collapsed in a heap in the floor. We were also allowed to play with the audience, not only in this song, but also in the first song (more later).
I was sure that the music would cause me real vocal cord injury. The women's parts were divided into soprano and alto, but the men had only one part. I don't know if that's how Studney wrote it or if that's how this edition came, but it seemed as though it was decided that all the men had to be tenors or bari-tenors. No low baritones, which is what I am. In the ensemble I was the only guy with any real vocal experience, but it was impossible. I had to employ falsetto and a more nasal sound to manage parts of it and completely drop out at other parts to make it work, but after every rehearsal my throat would hurt. Liam was hardly any help because if we sang the wrong notes, he'd sing the right note or more often would hit the right key on the piano repeatedly. All I could think was "Liam, that really isn't helping." For the rest of rehearsals, I really lived like a monk. No talking or singing during the day if I could avoid it. Nothing but quiet.
My least favorite song in the show was "Mary Jane/ Mary Lane." I basically repeated the line "Loved by Mary, loved by Mary, loved by Mary Lane" over and over, but no matter how hard I tried I never got the notes right.
It was also in this show I first learned about fight choreography. Here we come to Richard Squeri, who taught and staged fights for a living. In our first meeting with him he had us play a called flowing dragon swords with him. This is a description from a Youtube video of it: "Flowing Dragon Swords is played when two people face each other and touch wooden swords, then as soon as possible, make and maintain consistent eye contact. The Sword contact is held with no aggressive movement or preplanned outcome. The object is for two people to connect deeply and if inspired, to co-create motion. When this is realized, a window to another world opens. Suddenly, there is no winning or losing, no blame, or expectation -- there is simply seeing yourself and others in a profound and simple way that heals, forms bonds, and invites deep dialogue." Richard staged people dying in several ways, falling, catching others, slapping and best of all, what everyone called "The hoe death."
The hoe death was Elise's big moment in the show. It was where her character, Mae, would kill Trevor's character, Jack, using a garden hoe. She would knock a gun out of Trevor's hand, jab the hoe into his stomach, drag him by the hair and throw him behind the couch. She then proceeded to beat him with the hoe (really beating a large stuffed bag) wile Trevor squirted her with stage blood. Then finally Elise would jab the hoe straight up like she was crushing his balls, reach down and pull up a plastic heart. I reveled in watching this every night while hidden.
Nick had some very interesting exercises for us in order to connect and feel comfortable with each other. They took place in a small dance studio in Ives Hall at Sonoma State University. He first had us walk around the room and when we felt like it we would yell "Fall." Then we would begin to fall and someone or multiple people would catch us. I loved that exercise. The next was to help with the orgy scene. Nick had us split in four groups and go to the four corners of the room. He then turned off the lights and we had to go diagonally to the opposite corner. This entailed us being caught and tangle in a pile to work out of. The last exercise was being in pairs wherein one person would be imagined to be in the worst place possible, naked, emotions bare, and eyes closed. The other would bring that person out of the fetal position, crawl next to them and comfort them. I was paired with Lenny. It was a grueling exercise and some people sobbed. We all had a group hug afterwards.
Generally, I got along well with the cast. They were hard working and dedicated to the show. I even admired some of them. However, Braedyn lost my good favor forever at one rehearsal. At this rehearsal the cast was on a short break, and I was doing a handstand leaning against a wall. Braedyn was goofing around and then he came up and tickled me. I am very ticklish and so I fell. That was the first and to date only time I lost my temper in a blind rage. I grabbed the nearest things I could get my hands on (which turned out to be Trevor's shoes) and hurdled them at him. I had enough sense not to physically attack him, however. When asked if I was all right, I said told everyone to leave me alone and I went outside to regain my composure. For the sake of the show, I tolerated and was professional with Braedyn, but once the show ended, I never spoke to him again.
Clint was a near perfect theatre person. He graduated with a technical theatre degree, but he also acted and danced. He did not sing as much, but I said to the others in the cast, even him, that if he took some singing lessons, he'd be complete.
Ryan was funny at times. I remember the first time I saw his dance for "The Brownie Song." It was cool. Then it was funny watching Braedyn having sex (yes, having sex) with him at the end of the song. If you watch the movie, that scene becomes an animated cartoon moment and Jimmy starts having sex with a brownie head attached to a woman's body.
The layout of the black box theatre of Spreckels was that the stage would be a diamond with seats to the sides and an opening in the center that led out. Exits were also on stage right and left and behind us. Hallways connected the area. For my part I sixteen scenes (the majority) and had eight costume changes, many of which involved just adding to or taking off what I already had on, and six makeup changes. My face always ended up being clean at the end of every show. I had to be a zombie, reefer den person, teenager, orgy person, choir person and angel, ordinary person and executioner so I had to master quick changes and I did very well, though some were difficult. We in the ensemble also did set changes. Mine was easy because Ryan and I were in charge of moving the couch. Once or twice when he didn't show or took some time to get there, I'd be like "I'm not waiting," and moved it myself.
We moved to tech week. We did not have a sitzprobe, which would've been helpful. We had maybe two or three rehearsals with the full orchestra, which consisted of five or six people. We spent much time hammering out our entrances and cues in the songs. Samantha in particular was very good at figuring it out. Everything came together on the last night, though it was difficult. I honestly thought that the show would crash and burn with everything still shaky and certain people were always messing up, though I won't say who.
A character that was cut was The Placard Girl. She would bring in the signs saying all the negative aspects of reefer and other things like the repeated "Loved by Mary Lane" line for the audience to sing along to. For some reason, Nick divided the signs among the ensemble cast members. I was given two placards. Mine were after "The Lullaby" where Rebekah's character, Sally, sells her baby for money and then the baby (Lenny) comes out and sings. I came on in my angel costume with my placard saying aloud "Reefer makes you sell your babies (flip it around) for drug money." My other was after "Little Mary Sunshine." The cue was where Lenny said, "Come on let me up!" to which Nora said, "Shut up bitch!" and I'd come on as a zombie saying, "Reefer gives you a potty mouth."
In this show I had eight costume changes. I'd start as a zombie then go to a reefer den person then to a teenager to an orgy person to Jimmy's dad to a choir person/angel to a teen again. And that was just the first act. The second act had only two and it was more leisurely. I started as a teen then to a zombie and ending as the executioner. I not only had that but about four or five make-up changes, wiping off zombie make-up and then reapplying it later and adding little bits here and there for various scenes.
Opening night was not a complete disaster, but all the male principal characters messed up at some point. Liam switched and repeated a verse in "Reefer Madness," Braedyn forgot lyrics in "Mary Jane/Mary Lane," Lenny's timing was off in "Jimmy on the Lam," and Trevor's Jesus wig during his song "Listen to Jesus Jimmy" fell off. Trevor also made a very grave mistake that nearly stopped the show.
In the second act the second song was "The Brownie Song," in which Jack gives Jimmy a pot brownie. We would carry our brownies in our pocket during "Jimmy on the Lam," but Trevor placed him between him pants and shirt. I told him not to put it there because I knew it would fall out, but he didn't listen. We came to his scene, and he had no brownie. Claire, Hana and I were waiting offstage left, waiting to enter and watching and we saw something was wrong. A moment later Clint came on whistling and slipped Trevor his brownie and had to run back around stage right. An audience member found the brownie and I retrieved it later. I personally baked the brownies, and we did lose a few in the course of the run forcing me to cut some in half. I made new ones every week and we ate the old ones.
Clint was the hero of the hour and Trevor put it in his pocket from thereon. Through it all the ensemble took it in their stride. The second night went for the most part flawlessly. It lifted my spirits and I prepared for the rest of the three weekend, 12 performance run. I also began to notice that after every show my throat did not hurt. I don't know if it was muscle memory or adrenaline or all the moving around that I did, but after the shows I felt okay. I drank water as much as I could while not onstage.
During opening night, we used confetti cannons for the first time which happened at the end of the finale and the loud bang nearly made me jump out of my skin. They were behind me, and I had no idea that was about to happen. Not to mention I'm not sure when the last time I had heard confetti canons or even if I ever had.
There was only one day (Easter) when the audience wasn't full. I remember because I climbed over seats at people and then did a jump from the second row onto the stage. On the April 20 (4/20) performance the house smelled like weed. I usually peeked at the audience. During the first song Alexis and I would enter stage left as zombies and I'd have a look. I did this when I went into the audience because if I had a friend in the front or in an aisle seat on that side, I would give him/her a lap dance during the orgy scene. Sometimes I could do two friends, but I didn't get to every night though and one night when I headed for a friend, Claire got in my way and her arm accidentally hit my neck. Then I thought "Aw fuck it" and didn't bother to do it. One night in my near-sighted eyes I thought I saw a friend of mine. It turned out to be a friend of Ryan's. When I found out afterwards, I was so embarrassed. Luckily, he and his girlfriend (who was also an actress) were the most into the show that night so I got away with it.
My voice and music theatre teacher at the time, a classical musical type, came to a performance and said it was one of the funniest things she'd ever seen.
Backstage before one performance for some reason I began to sing "Colors of the Wind." Practically everyone approved. As time went on, I sang other songs that people brought up from films and musicals. I surprised many by how many I knew, even obscure songs from films like The Swan Princess. I do not remember if this was during a performance or a rehearsal, but before we did the show, one day backstage Samantha and I sang the entire song "A Little Priest" from Sweeney Todd. I knew it a bit better than she did, but we did the entire thing. She would later call me one of her favorite backstage singing buddies.
As the show went on, I began to learn it by heart. For example, in the climactic scene I'd be backstage saying "Nora's been shot," then came Rebekah's line "She fell down!" A moment later we'd hear "Romeo and Juliet (reprise)" and when the dramatic chord was heard I'd say, "And she's dead." I even had some fun with the lines. After "Reefer Madness" there would be a scene between Braedyn and Nora before their duet "Romeo and Juliet." One of the lines was "Forsooth fair Juliet. Wouldst thou likest yon hot chocolate?" but to me it was "Forsooth fair Juliet. Wouldst thou sing a cheesy song with me?"
Mistakes and various other incidents popped up here and there. We in the ensemble were very good about taking something in our stride. Twice it happened during "Listen to Jesus Jimmy." First one night Trevor switched verses. The first line began with "Satan went and conned ya" while the ensemble would repeat it. Then later it was "Jimmy, let me see ya." Trevor said "Jimmy" while some in the ensemble said "Sat-" and stopped, thinking "Huh?" Then we finished the Jimmy line and as if we all had the same brain, we did our choreography for that moment and did the Satan line later. Another time concerned Ryan where he had to improvise.
After "The Orgy" were three scenes showing Jimmy's transition from good to bad. Alexis and I entered in the last of these as Jimmy's parents. One time as we were frantically changing, I reached down for something while her back was turned, and her foot went up and kicked me in the face just below the eye. Another half an inch and she would've taken that eye out. From then on, I did my change away from everyone else.
My most stressful costume change was the one before "Listen to Jesus Jimmy." After the scene I was in before that, I had to take my dress shoes off, switch out of pants, shirt and tie, put on my angel then choir robe and put my shoes back on then run to the upstage center entrance to enter during Nora's song "Lonely Pew." I had very little time to do this. What made the change more difficult was that I exited downstage center and run all the way to upstage center. I thought "Why didn't Nick have me exit that way?" It wasn't until after the show when I was erasing the notes out of my libretto that I saw he did tell me that and I clearly wrote it down.
I wish I had paid more attention to that or that someone had corrected me earlier. There were quite a few nights where I was sweating bullets about making my cue in time. One night I barely made it. I literally joined them as they were going on stage, but I noticed that Ryan wasn't there. He zoned out backstage and missed the cue. We went through "Lonely Pew" and then at Trevor's entrance for "Listen to Jesus Jimmy," Ryan came on holding Trevor's Jesus cape and took his place. Nick was not pleased.
One night, I remember there being a mistake being made, though I did not notice until someone said what happened later. What happened was Braedyn was coming backstage from one of his scenes and said something with "fuck" in it and apparently his mic was still turned on. I'm sure the audience found it hilarious, but I didn't notice because I was too busy getting ready for my next scene.
One time when I almost cracked up laughing was during "Listen to Jesus Jimmy (reprise)." I was the executioner and about to pull the switch when Trevor entered. He says his lines and then start saying "Body of me" while throwing Ritz crackers to the audience. Once he threw it like a Frisbee and it hit an old woman right in the face. From then on, he handed them to the audience.
My favorite moment was when I was the executioner. I had so much fun. I was told by many that I creeped them out during that scene. Sadly the only thing that displeased me was the fact that the executioner had his own music motif, but they cut it. A couple people tell me that when they think of a role to associate me with they think of that. I played it very convincingly. I was cast as this role the day Braedyn tickled me so I guess my anger at him made me very convincing.
"The Orgy" was always fun. After a lap dance I'd join the cast dancing with usually Elise and I in each others arms rubbing against each other with Claire behind me and Trevor going underneath our legs.
Often there were "safety meetings" (really weed smoking get togethers), usually headed by Robin and Ryan and cast parties to which I was usually never informed about, probably because I didn't smoke or do drugs like the others in the cast did. In a show about weed I was the only person, cast or crew who did not smoke it even once.
At the closing night cast party Ryan gave me what he called a compliment by telling me what he honestly thought of me, as he claimed to do with everyone. He told me that I was a machine specifically programmed for musicals. The oddest compliment I've ever heard, but as time went on and as I did more musicals, I think he may have been right.
The end of the run was sad. I wish it would've gone on longer. It remains one of the best, most successful shows I ever did, one of my favorites that I ever did, and it had my favorite cast that I ever worked with. Alexis and I continued for years afterward to beg Nick to do a revival of the show.
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