MUSIC THEATRE SCENES

Now that I have caught up to all the theatre shows I did prior to starting this blog I would like to talk about music theatre scenes. Music theatre scenes or MTS was a music theatre class at SSU that I took five times. It was an elective class for anyone on campus, no matter their major or singing experience, and even community members. While I was taking Lynne Morrow’s vocal methods class, she brought us in to watch a rehearsal of that semester’s show. I decided to take it the following semester. Class times were always the same, Mondays and Fridays 1-3:40 with show dates always the Thursday and Saturday before finals week.

Lynne was the instructor of this class and Yvonne Wormer was always the accompanist.

SOPHOMORE YEAR, SPRING 2009

My first semester in music theatre scenes was different than how it was normally done. Usually the class would pick songs and then write an original show around those songs. But this semester, since many in the class were seniors about to graduate, Lynne did something new. We would pick songs, but sing as one would in a cabaret in order to gain performance experience. This allowed for more songs to be in the show, with some people getting many, with a few duets, group songs and a trio. I selected two songs: “Some Enchanted Evening” from South Pacific and “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life” from Spamalot. I also wanted to do “As Long as Your Mine,” from Wicked, but it didn’t happen.

The class was the largest that it ever was in all the times I took the class. It included Katie Foster, Ted Smith, John Browning, Meghan Howard, Chris Gonzalez, Xen Chen, Elise Siegel, Kelsey Mielle, Daniel Corpus, and Samantha Connelly, Kelly Dixon, and three others whose names I can’t remember.

The set for this show was the piano would be in the center with two chairs on either side. We would come out in groups of four and three and sit waiting for our songs. In group songs the group would come out alone and sing. The theme of this show was “Anything Goes” and that was the first song we sang in the show.

Over the course of about two months we were given a coaching session with Lynne and Yvonne. In one of my coaching sessions I came in after getting a head injury early that morning. As a result I was low energy that day. But I got through it. When the coaching sessions ended, we ran through the show every rehearsal until opening. With the song line-up, I had one song in both acts and both were fairly early in it.

I did not speak much to anyone else in the class. At the time I was still a shy, quiet person and I kept to myself. Yvonne would later recall that when she first met me no one could get two words out of me. In all honesty, I was even shier because I felt intimidated by the others in the class, virtually all of whose talents, experience and stage presence far exceeded my own. I was probably the least experienced there.

Opening night was memorable because it was the first time I sang with my parents listening. They were amazed that I was actually singing. My friend Christine, whom I would later meet in Fall of 2009, recalled later that she knew everyone in the show, except me. She thought "Here's this new guy and he's not too bad."

When I watched the performance later, I thought I sounded weird, and I felt that my two songs were mistakes. “Some Enchanted Evening” should really only be sung by someone with a classical voice and I felt I didn’t have the right type of voice for “Always Look on the Bright Side of Life.” Other than that, there’s not much to tell other than that this was my first experience with performing in front of an audience.

For years afterward, my mother liked to tell the story of the first time she saw this. Specific details she could recall were the blue spotlight, the song "Some Enchanted Evening," and the feeling of amazement that I could sing.

JUNIOR YEAR, SPRING 2010

My second semester in the class was the first time I did any acting in the class. This semester we would be taking songs and the scenes from the show they were from and perform them. I think this was an excellent idea because this way you’d be the star of your scene and could support other scenes. I only got one song “I’m an Ordinary Man” from my favorite musical, My Fair Lady and I also did some singing in “No One is Alone” from Into the Woods. I also wanted to sing “If Ever I Would Leave You” from Camelot, but Lynne decided not to do it. Looking back, I don’t think I was ready for that yet. I do not remember what the theme of the show was.

The class included Katie Foster, Xen Chen, Kirsten Torkildson, Kelsey Mielle, Rio Nagle, Grace Evans and one other guy whose name I can’t remember.

I played a number of roles in various scenes, mostly “cute” roles including John in Peter Pan, a role in Pal Joey, and Jack in Into the Woods. My favorite scene was the Peter Pan scene because in that scene my costume was a set of comfy pajamas. I got the role in Pal Joey merely stepping in. The scene was with Kirsten who sang “Bewitched” and she was originally paired with Rio. Rio was absent one day and I stepped in to run the scene. Lynne liked how I did the role so much she gave it to me.

In my own scene I played chess with the person playing Colonel Pickering. I took great care to set up the board every night even making a diagram of all the moves, resulting in my win. I took the queen at the end of the song holding it up as I sang “I shall never let a woman in my life.” I never liked the scene from Into the Woods mostly because I don't particularly like that musical.

"I'm an Ordinary Man"

That semester was the last time the class was ever performed in Ives 119. In all future classes performances were across the hall in Warren Auditorium and rehearsals were in the new Green Music Center. The reason was because before the GMC was built the music and theatre departments shared Ives Hall, but with the GMC ready for classes, the theatre department took over Ives completely, converting 119 from a perfect concert space with acoustics to a rehearsal space for theatre shows.

SENIOR YEAR, FALL 2010

My senior year of college was the only time I did the class both semesters. 

This class included Stephanie Halbert, Heather Steffen, Grace Evans, Kirsten Torkildson, Katie Foster, Moe Capik, Emily Somple and Ted Smith.

This semester we did the same format as the previous one. The theme for the show was “Who am I? Who do I Appear to be?” I got two songs, “I’ve Grown Accustomed to her Face” from My Fair Lady and “I Am What I Am” from La Cage Aux Folles. I like to think of this semester as my villain semester because I played some very despicable characters in other people’s scenes including Judge Frollo in The Hunchback of Notre Dame, The Foreman in Les Miserables, Curtis in Dreamgirls, and Professor Callahan in Legally Blonde the Musical. I was really good at playing them too, if I do say so myself.

“I Am What I Am” was my most challenging song up to then. It had my highest note yet (E above middle C), and I did wonderfully. However, my performance in that song was a little stiff, but I had fixed the scene so that I was not playing the character who actually sang it in the show.

"I Am What I Am"

There were a couple memorable moments in this show, though I don’t remember if they happened on the same night. The first moment was someone came onstage too early. I had just finished “I’ve Grown Accustomed to her Face” and exited stage right. I had two scenes before going on again and all I had to do was change jackets and clip-on ties. So I went to the bathroom, came back and put on my next costume as the first song was ending. What was supposed to happen next was a song from Katie, but Moe, who had the song after that, walked on stage and began her pacing around. Offstage we all panicked and wondered what we were gonna do for a few moments until they told me to just go on. We did that scene and then, as if someone had telepathically contacted Yvonne, we did Katie’s song next.

The second memorable moment was at the end of Act 1 one night. The song was “I Dreamed a Dream” and Kirsten was singing it. We had all been onstage and left. A moment later we heard coughing. We didn’t know what was going on. Then it stopped and the music sounded a bit different which I thought odd, but I didn’t think too much of it. It turned out that Yvonne had a coughing fit in the middle of the song. Lynne snuck over and took over first playing with one hand while Yvonne played with the other, then slid in as Yvonne got up, without missing a beat or pausing. I think only my parents saw it, but no one noticed at all. In fact, if I didn’t notice a slight change in the sound (Lynne played differently, a bit harder) I wouldn’t have noticed either.

This semester was the last time I ever did the various scenes format. Honestly, I preferred this method because you could sing anything and not have to worry about if it would fit into a story and you were guaranteed a spotlight of your own.

Opening song for Fall 2010, "Facade" from Jekyll and Hyde

SENIOR YEAR, SPRING 2011

It was in this semester that I first got a chance to do the usual method which is taking songs and writing an original show around them. The first day we threw out ideas for setting and all that. Then we sang some random songs to fish around. I suggested a few ideas for the show and one of mine was chosen: a mental hospital and group therapy. We would all create our characters, what they’d want and their story. I chose to be the doctor.

The class included Katie Foster, Ted Smith, Heather Steffen, Sara Cofiell, Nathan Hatch, Jon Ostlund, Sarah Standring and a couple other girls I can not remember.

My character was a lonely workaholic doctor who was unlucky with women. I had four songs: “Together Again” from Young Frankenstein, a duet with Ted, “Lonely Room” from Oklahoma, “Carried Again” from On the Town, a duet with Katie, and “Cool” from West Side Story.

"Together Again"

I chose “Lonely Room” because Oklahoma would be the musical for the season next year and I wanted to play Jud. So just in case, I wanted to start preparing. I had to fight to get “Cool” Lynne felt it was too famous and that everyone would recognize it immediately. I argued that was absurd because we had songs far more famous in this show and I felt not many would know where “Cool” was from. She did not let up. Finally I conducted a survey on Facebook, asking people which song came to mind first when they heard the title West Side Story. Only one person said “Cool.” When I showed it to Lynne, she laughed and relented. She was also confused because “Cool” is her favorite song. She relented. I chose to do the two duets because Katie and Ted would be studying abroad in Germany next year and I wanted to do a song with them before they left.

Scene before "Lonely Room"

The plot of this show was the lives of patients in a mental hospital, overseen by the doctor and nurse (Katie). One had an imaginary friend (Jon), two suffered from depression (Nathan and one girl), one thought she was an Egyptian princess (Heather), one was schizophrenic (Sarah), one had carried around a puppet acting as though it were real was a medication addict (Ted), one was placed in there because her sister died and the family didn’t want to see her (Sara), and one was very obsessive (one other girl). The doctor is waiting for new medication which has not arrived, only to find a storm delayed it and their current supply of medication was out. This caused a little chaos in the hospital and one person even died. Once the new medication arrived all was resolved.

We all worked on our own monologues and dialogue, though I also wrote much of Katie’s lines. My scene before “Together Again” mirrored the scene from Young Frankenstein where that is (The scene where the doctor meets Igor). In the scene where “Cool” was done, I did it as giving the new medication to patients. In the scene I sang it while restraining Jon with Katie helping and administered the drug. Jon would later call the scene creepy because he was struggling, Katie and I were restraining him and I had a needle.

We even had a gurney in the show for the person who died. We had to practice picking up this person and putting her on the gurney every rehearsal.

The Gurney

I felt that this show was a success and very popular. Many in the audience loved it and we had an eclectic choice of songs ranging from new to old and famous to obscure. I was only sad that we never got a recording of the show.

SUPER SENIOR YEAR, SPRING 2012

This was my final semester taking MTS. I would graduate a week later. I would’ve done the class the previous semester, but I couldn’t do it because I had other commitments. I had been planning this semester even since the previous semester. I had been talking to Moe Capik about the show. We were going to try to push for a villain show with villain songs. I had also been talking to my friend Nora Summers, who would also be taking the class. We decided we were going to do the song “Unworthy of Your Love” from Assassins. I also found another song to do, on an “Essential Bernstein” CD that I found in a Goodwill store, called “Some Other Time” from On the Town. I felt it perfect to be my last song.

When the semester began people raised doubts about a villain show and not everyone was on board. The idea of villain songs however, did not die, but the show itself evolved into taking place in Purgatory. I got one additional song to the other two previously mentioned, “Don’t Break the Rules” from the musical Catch Me if You Can.

"Don't Break the Rules"

The class included Stephanie Halbert, Hayley Sa, Moe Capik, Benjamin DeShazo-Couchot, Lisa Cronomiz, Kevin Ockelmann, Sarah Durham, Ashley Jarrett, Nora Summers and one other person.

We did a number of songs though not all necessarily for villainous characters. They included “Red Shoes Blues,” “Miss Baltimore Crabs," “Hellfire,” “In the Dark of the Night,” “Poor Unfortunate Souls,” “My Lullaby,” “Me,” “The Mob Song,” and “Mother Knows Best.” I would’ve liked to have done the song “Be Prepared” from The Lion King, which I was very good at, but it never happened.

My character in this show was a cop named Joe who was shot in the line of duty in a standoff. He threw his partner, Jodie, out of the way and died for her. Then the man who shot him escaped and Joe was angry at that and that he never told Jodie his love for her. That was the reason he couldn’t move on. I wrote a monologue detailing all of this, one of the finest I’ve ever written, and I designed my costume myself. This was the monologue:

"The name's Joe. I...was a detective in the force. It's a hard life down at the station. The long hours, the coffee, the steak outs. My partner Jodie and I, we caught the bad guys, most of the time. It was always worth it whenever we bagged one and booked him. Criminals. They disgust me. Thinking they can break the law and get away with it. (Chuckle) Wrong. Not on my watch. One day I was finally gonna catch these two drug dealers. I'd been chasing them for months, but I could never bust 'em. But that day we got a valuable tip. Jodie and I went in first. It was dark. They were hiding. Then all of a sudden, the lights went on and that's when it happened. They started shootin' and we shot back. They flung a table knockin' us both back. They aimed right at Jodie, but I shoved her outta the way and I was hit. Again and again. Pain and then nothing. Then here I was. I can't believe this. As far as I'm concerned my job ain't finished and I won't rest in peace until that punk is dead or behind bars."

"Unworthy of Your Love"

The show took place in Purgatory where a number of people were placed in there because they could not move on for one reason or another. The person who ran Purgatory was Death (Stephanie) and she sent the Grim Reaper (Moe), who was really Genghis Khan in a woman’s body, to fetch the deceased. Then trouble first begins when Westley (Kevin) arrives and puts the moves on Death only to be rejected. Then a woman split into twins (good and evil) arrives, causing an overpopulation problem and a person allowed to move on somehow returns. A character named Mother saw it as an opportunity to take over. She convinces Westley to help her defeat Death. They steal the scythe of the Grim Reaper, but then Mother’s daughter steals it back. Inexplicably Death falls for Westley. Death sorts out the problem and allows people to move on or stay if they haven’t resolved their problems. She informs me the person who killed me died and I can move on.

There were generally no problems with this show. We all worked together on the script while Lynne did her coaching sessions. Lynne came to like this because it caused more progress in making a script. It was done in a fairly short time. However, even after having a full script we had to move some songs around to make more sense.

EPILOGUE

Looking back, I was generally pleased with my time there. It provided me with vocal training and acting practice. I got to play a wide variety of roles from cute, to villainous, to callous, to serious. I wish I could’ve done the class every semester, but I had other things I had or wanted to do instead. I have only one complaint and that’s this class did not teach you how to move when performing. It was a lot of sitting and standing around while singing.

My one main regret is that there are so many songs I wanted to sing, but never got to do such as “A Little Priest” from Sweeney Todd, “Seventy-Six Trombones” from The Music Man, “If Ever I Would Leave You,” from Camelot, “Mister Cellophane” from Chicago, “I Wanna Be a Producer” from The Producers and most of all “Gee Officer Krupke” from West Side Story. Two of these I would subsequently watch other people perform. I never got to perform “Gee Officer Krupke” because we never had enough men to do it.

THE GREAT DIVIDE

Date of Run: November 1-10, 2012
ROLE: Phil and Trustee 2

Production Photos by Jeff Thomas

It was during this show that I was inspired to begin this blog and thus I wrote down my experiences rather than rely solely on memory.

The final show I did in 2012 was The Great Divide at Sonoma State (SSU) from November 1-10. Written by Adam Chanzit, The Great Divide was a fairly new play, having been staged only once in Berkeley by the Shotgun Players. It was based on An Enemy of the People by Henrik Ibsen. Taking place in Colorado in 2006, The Great Divide centered on a doctor’s efforts to stop a gas company’s hydraulic fracking practices because it was poisoning the water supply. Dr. Katherine Stockman leads a campaign to close the factory to stop the practice. The only problem was that not everyone, including the doctor’s brother, did not feel the same way and wanted the factory to stay because it gave them work, regardless of the risks. And that is exactly how it was in the real world.

Adam had spent time in Colorado, interviewing people where this was happening, and each character was based on someone he interviewed. And sadly, some had passed away by the time we staged the show. On our opening night after we finished our vocal warm-up, we gathered in a tight circle and had a moment of silence for all who had since passed on.

This was the first show I was ever cast in without auditioning. I originally had no intention of auditioning for any SSU shows that season since I had recently graduated and felt I should branch out. But that year, something unfortunate happened. They held auditions, but no call backs because, as Kevin Ockelmann told me later, there were so few men that they cast everyone and even then, not all the roles were filled. This I had to see. So, I journeyed to SSU and saw the cast lists. The musical show that year was a set of two short operas (which had only three male roles) and they were fully cast, but not the other plays. I was amused and bewildered for some of the male actors still at SSU were not on there at all. They probably had other offers elsewhere.

Three weeks passed and from what I heard from Kevin, they still could not find men. And one or two had dropped out or were uncertain about continuing. So, while still in rehearsals for The Elephant Man, I went to a full cast rehearsal one night and spoke with director Doyle Ott and I offered my services. He was hesitant at first because my availability would soon be limited because of The Elephant Man, but he gave me a script and tested me in a few parts. It was another rehearsal before I was finalized as Phil and Trustee 2. I only had a couple of full cast rehearsals and then I had to go back to The Elephant Man for full cast rehearsals and tech week.

The show was a reunion in many ways for me. I was definitely among good friends. In addition to Kevin, my friends Chris Colburn and Laura Millar, with whom I had done Oklahoma, were there. I was also reunited with Noelle Rodriguez and Kyle Ryan, both of whom I had performed scenes in acting classes the previous year. Also in the cast were my friends Ashley Rollins and Susan Cordero.  The rest of the cast consisted of Connor Pratt, Tyler Carl, Cassandra Slagle, Charvel Garibaldi, and Cory Scott.


Though it took me a moment to realize, and I don’t know why, I was now in my fourth main stage show at SSU and once again Chris Colburn was involved. That was a perfect record for me. It seemed like we were meant to work together in all my main stage productions at SSU.

In the case of Kevin, it was our third show together that year after previously doing Oklahoma, and The Threepenny Opera 

Tyler’s character was supposed to be 10 and when I first saw and heard him, I thought he was, give or take a couple years. Maybe not that young, but still fairly young. Then weeks later I found out he was actually nineteen. I couldn’t believe it. He looked and sounded like a young boy but was actually a college student. It took me quite a while to adjust to that.

Once The Elephant Man was up and running, I could go back to Great Divide rehearsals. I was usually only called once a week on Wednesdays for full cast rehearsals. Occasionally I’d be called for a couple rehearsals a week, but no more than that. Doyle emphasized character development in the scenes mainly for the main characters, hence why I wasn’t there often. But the last two weeks before tech week we were all called for every rehearsal. We’d rehearse Act 1 one night, Act 2 the next, with various scenes getting additional work. Doyle would say to me more than once “It’s good to have you back.” Truthfully, it was good to be back. I always looked forward to going to rehearsal there, even during Elephant Man rehearsals.

It was around the time I returned that I began to hang out with Kevin a lot more. Once a week I would go to his house and we’d cook dinner together. Kevin had Crohn’s disease and was on a specific carbohydrates diet and had to make a fresh dinner every night. Occasionally we go see a movie and, once, a theatre show, We Won’t Pay, We Won’t Pay! One week, we went to an Indian restaurant with another friend before seeing Camelot.

While I was away doing Elephant Man, another guy was found to take a few other small male roles. His name was Matt Lindberg. By this time, we were still short one man for a main role.

Three weeks before opening, we finally found a person to play the character we couldn’t cast. The character was supposed to be Hispanic and named Juan and the only Hispanic actor we could find was apparently not only a poor actor, but only showed up once and was never seen again. Doyle consulted with Adam and they decided to rename him John and they found another student, Phil Ferrero, to play him. He embraced the challenge and memorized quickly. He proved to be very cool, integrating into cast seamlessly and I got along with him very well. He and Kyle were very tight and it always amused me to see them goof around with each other.

One of my favorite memories in the whole process was how Ashley, Laura and I would often quote lines and imitate characters from the Disney movie The Sword in the Stone, especially Archimedes. Scarcely a day went by when we weren’t imitating specifically the squirrel scene or Archimedes, even matching the character movements in unison with each other without trying. I even threw an Archimedes line at Laura during the town hall scene twice during the process. And one of those times she did actually hear me, and it very nearly caused her to laugh.

On Monday October 22, little more than a week before opening, I got sick in my throat. At that rehearsal I began to feel horrible. At first, I thought it was a sinus infection because it had all the signs: dry throat, headache and stuffy nose. Then a couple hours later, my headache suddenly vanished, which I thought strange. Then over the next few days I got an eye infection, my nose was stuffed, my throat swelled, and I was constantly tired. By Thursday I began losing my voice. That Friday I visited my family, and I did not sound right because my voice was weakening, and it was a struggle to speak. Tech weekend was that weekend. I was still suffering on Saturday, but luckily, they skipped over several of my lines for cues. Gradually I began to improve, but then the following Monday I felt like a lump was in my throat. I went to the clinic where the doctor diagnosed my condition as pharangytis. The lump feeling lasted three days before disappearing.

For what seemed like an eternity, before and during the run, I went through the process of healing. I took antibiotics, began taking Vitamin C and D, ate soup for dinner and gargled warm salt water every hour I was awake. I also had a cough that came in the evening, but with Nyquil I suppressed it and got some sleep.

During the illness, my vocal abilities diminished significantly. When I tried to sing, I could only sing a limited range, none of my bass or higher notes and I could not speak or sing falsetto. For all of the tech rehearsals I dreaded the moments when my lines came. In one scene where the factory workers had lunch I had a few lines, but my voice was good for merely talking. Then I remembered that my line would end the first act. I would have to yell “Holy shit! It’s gonna blow!” or something like that and then an explosion would happen. Kevin had a monologue at the beginning of the scene, which was set in a bar. Every night during rehearsals, I listened all the way through it thinking, “In one minute this is really going to suck for me.” My voice did return enough in time for opening, though I was in a near panic. My falsetto did not return fully for weeks after the show closed.

The bar scene. Left to right, Me, Matt, Kevin, Charvel and Phil

We had a large technical problem that was more frustrating because I felt no matter how much we ran and reran through it during tech rehearsals, it was never right. The crew up in the box never got the explosion sequence right. The timing was always wrong. The lights came on too early and the sound too late. I found out later that the light board operator was always messing up. Every time we came offstage from that, Phil and I always ranted about how badly it went.

The set consisted of a turntable on which a table and chairs sat and that was the main characters’ home. Then up center stage extending to stage left was a high platform, which rose higher on stage right. In the middle was a gas rig. There were two staircases, one behind the platform, which was steeper, and one that led out into the wings. I certainly got a workout climbing up and down the two stairs and turning the turntable around every night.

Opening night went smoothly, with a couple small problems in cues. The second night was better. I had a rather eventful moment at one point that night. If there’s one thing I pride myself on in theatre, it’s that I never miss a cue. I’ve been in situations where actors have missed their cues (see Oklahoma), but I never miss one. But the second night I came close. Kyle and Laura were onstage and I was in the next scene for the end of Act 1. Matt and I would push the turn table on stage around and join Kevin, Phil and Charvel stage left in a bar. We would have beer bottles that we’d pull out of our pockets. When I came out to the wings I saw no bottles on the prop table. I looked around frantically but found none. I turned to Matt and whispered frantically “There are no bottles!” He whispered back to try looking on the other side. That meant I had to run to the other side of the stage and hope there would be one there.

I did not have much time. I ran as quickly and quietly as I could behind the backdrop. Luckily, I found one and dashed back. I could hear Kyle saying his last line as I turned the corner. As I ran to my place, WHAM! I ran right into him as he was coming off. Katherine was right behind, but she saw nothing. I whispered a hurried apology and rushed to turn the turntable. Kyle kidded with me backstage afterward. No harm done.

The third show, the only matinee, was terrible. Cues were missed by the stage manager, who apparently had a hangover, and the explosion at the end of the first act was horribly timed. In the second act during the town meeting scene, there was a raffle in which I would have a short monologue and then draw a name for a pair of tickets to the Fall Dance show. The first one was blank, so I threw it aside. The second had a name I couldn’t read and the third had a fake name. Eventually I took out a few that were blank, while staying in character. I’m sure the rest of the cast was just as perplexed. Connor tried to just drop it and said, “Maybe we should just get this thing started?” I finally pulled out one that had a cast member’s mother’s name. The next night all the tickets were blank, and I had to say the number.

My monologue before the raffle

Tuesday the following week, we had an Italian run or a speed through. It was the first type of brush up rehearsal I ever had. Doyle wanted the lines to be perfect for Adam, who would be there for the next few nights. Kyle was absent due to class and Cory was late. We zipped through the lines and ran through the staging. It took forty-five minutes.

Wednesday was a gala night. Hors-d’oeuvres were served in the lobby. It was by far our best night. It was our largest and most responsive audience. They talked back during the town hall scene in the second act and we got plenty of laughs. Since Adam was there, we were all at our best. After the show we had a talk back with Adam in the lobby. We talked about favorite moments, what it felt like to play the roles and asked questions.

Friday was the final performance Adam would attend. The first act went generally well; the explosion sound was perfectly timed, but not the lights. Then in the town hall meeting, disaster struck. At one moment, Laura’s character is showing contaminated water samples and would put a jar on the table where Cassandra and I sat. But this night she slammed it down. It cracked and water began leaking. I tried to move it aside, but it broke, and water spilled all over the table. I spent the rest of the scene struggling not to laugh. Then at the end when everyone was onstage reaching around for papers, I took care to make sure it was out of the way so no one would cut themselves. After the show Adam found me and said that he enjoyed the “cadence” of my raffle monologue and said that if he had known ahead what I was doing he’d have written a monologue for that moment. It was awesome to hear that.

The closing show was fine. I pulled a prank on Kevin in the second act. I had been planning this for some time and only told Laura of my plan. In a scene in the second act between Chris and Susan, Kevin and I would be above on a platform, watching and jeering. Finally Chris came to his line “You left my house that night in a frenzy,” to which Susan responded with “I was not in a frenzy.” At that moment I turned to Kevin, covered my mouth and whispered in his ear “I bet he put it in the wrong hole.” He did not crack up, but he thought it was hilarious and the expression on his face was worth it.

The scene with me and Kevin. 

The strike took little more than an hour. Afterward Kevin, Chris, Matt and I went to In-n-Out before attending the party at Susan’s house. Her house was not even one minute from my house. I remember how beautiful the night sky was and talking about the stars and other science facts with a guest named Jim. He was not an astronomy major, but an enthusiast. I was not at the party long due to work the next day.


I was glad to have done this show. It was a good run. It felt good to be back in Person Theatre and doing a show with a lot of friends again. It was only afterwards that I realized that at no time during this run did anybody think to say, onstage or off, “Somebody’s poisoned the water hole!” (Toy Story reference)

My one regret is that I never took any photos of me in my costumes or with any of the cast. I do not know why I didn’t do it. It just seemed as though I lost the will or the urgency to do that and before I knew it the end of the run had arrived, and I missed my chance. Better watch out for that in the future.

THE ELEPHANT MAN

Date of Run: September 28-October 14, 2012
ROLE: Officer and ensemble

Production photos by Eric Chazankin 

My second summer show of 2012 was The Elephant Man. It was not the play by Bernard Pomerance, but instead was an adaptation of the 1980 David Lynch film. Scott van der Horst, the director, had worked with Jacquelyn Wells, a Sonoma county actor and writer in adapting the film into a play. Auditions were in June with the play going up in September. Scott wished to do this version of the story, rather than the original play, because he wanted to convey the emotional power the film had onto the stage. The lead, John Merrick, the Elephant Man, was pre-cast with Peter Warden.

Around the same time, I was also auditioning for The Threepenny Opera. I feared I wouldn’t be able to do both and also a job, but as I found out, rehearsals for Elephant Man would not begin for some time, allowing me to do The Threepenny Opera.

The play would have a rather large cast. It included my friends Lito Briano, Charles Fanucchi, and Lenny Improta. I will list the final cast in a moment because people dropped and entered much later after the first casting. As the period of waiting between casting and rehearsals passed we did lose a few cast members.

First two of our main characters left the show to appear in another one in Santa Rosa. As such, the roles had to be recast immediately. The first role, Treves, was fairly easier to fill and was filled by Richard La Rosa. The other one, Mothershead, on the other hand was more difficult. Scott searched everywhere and cast and then lost a couple women before Dana Frank assumed the role about a week into rehearsals. Then we lost Katie Kelley, who was playing Anne Treves, but, thankfully, a few days later she was able to rejoin.

More ensemble players joined shortly after rehearsals began, but we lost a few of them too. We did not have near enough after the first casting. Also, the part of the boy assistant to Bytes, Merrick’s owner, was not cast. It was several weeks before Alex Morgan was cast. He was the final person to be cast in the show. The final cast, in addition to those previously mentioned, included Arnie House, Bruce Carlton, Diane Dearmore, Dene Harvey, John Erskine, Zora Franicevic, Lauren Alexa, Bonnie Gamble, Tika Moon, Dusty Corderman, Anthony Darlak and Dane Beatie.

The show would take place in the black box theatre at the Spreckels Performing Arts Center, but we didn’t move in right away. A couple rehearsals were at Scott’s house, then the theatre. I was not called to every rehearsal, due to the few scenes I was in and because Scott detested rehearsals where people sat around doing nothing.

I had to learn an English accent for this show, speaking in proper English. I’d also have to learn a few phrases in French, since there would be one scene that took place in France. Though Scott never said I had to, I spoke in as close to a cockney accent as I could in scenes where I was a bar patron. But I quickly learned that learning how to do all this was the least I had to worry about.

My main role in this show was the policeman. I appeared as that in the first scene and later, a little more than halfway through the second act. In fact, I began the show and was only that character for about a minute, but I found in spite of the size of this role, it was going to be my most difficult and challenging to play. I had to be scary, intimidating, and even forceful and I am none of those things. One description Scott used to describe him was “someone who had killed puppies for fun.” He wanted me to practically yell my lines. It was difficult at first and I made only very little progress at a time.

My first scene

When the house opened Scott wanted there to be an actual freak show and there was, with a fortune teller (Bonnie), a juggler (John), a “knife thrower” and his assistant (Lito and Dene), two street whores (Diane and Katie) and four freaks consisting of a bearded lady (Tika), the elephant man, the four-legged girl (a girl names Sophia) and Siamese twins (Lani and Janelle, twins yes, Siamese no). The freaks were in two “pods” separated into their own compartment. The audience would enter and either interact with the cast or sit down. This would go on for fifteen minutes. Then a cast member, Zora, would enter, be shown the elephant man, scream and run to the entrance where’d I’d be waiting. I’d inspect the elephant man, be repulsed, order the show to be shut down and even shoo people off.

It was tough at first because I had no one to play with. The cast wouldn’t be down there and I had nothing. Arnie was the only one who provided assistance. He’d act like different people for me to shoo off, but that was about it. Scott demonstrated what he wanted from me, embodying the character. We hammered through my entrance and my lines repeatedly. He said to me at one moment that if I didn’t feel I could do the role he could have me switch with someone else. For a brief moment I wanted to have him do that badly. But then I remembered that if I did that I would be onstage in the freak show, improvising for fifteen minutes and I can not do that for that long. So I said nothing. It seemed like every rehearsal we’d start with that scene. It was pure torture and I kept thinking “Why are you doing this to me? Can’t you torture somebody else tonight and cut me a break?” Arnie, who played Bytes, one of the antagonists, and who was the person I was talking to in that scene, said that every performance I was getting better and better. I felt I could've done better if I didn't have to have the accent. It just seemed to get in the way.



Me as the policeman

I couldn’t improvise or ad-lib in this show anyway. I was not good at it if it involved talking and in this show it was impossible. Any person I was partnered with made it impossible to do this because they just kept talking and talking and yammering and yammering, not listening to anything I was saying, and I couldn’t get a word in edgewise.

As the set began to be built it was becoming too clear that it was going to be very complex. Since this was adapted from a film, there were several scenes taking place in many locations and that required several furniture pieces. Scott wanted a rolling wall for several rooms outside Merrick’s hospital room. And it had to be decorated at times. Also, for a scene at the theatre the pods would be brought out, flipped around and they’d become the royal box. It was not going to be easy dealing with all that. Some pieces of furniture, such as a loveseat and chairs for Treves’ home did not arrive until a week before the show began. Some of these set changes would take a couple minutes and some after very short scenes. The most fascinating part about the set was a door right in the middle that divided Merrick’s first hospital room and an office. For the second act the door would be pushed into the wall to make Merrick’s second hospital room. When Scott first showed us this it took us all by surprise.

Also, as if the set were not enough, some actors (mostly some of the leads) were having trouble remembering lines and could not remember where they were supposed to be or what they were supposed to be doing in scenes. It was frustrating waiting while they redid the scene, and sometimes not making any progress. Due to personal difficulties and schedules, we rarely had a night, if any, where the entire cast was present. There was always at least one missing.

Scott nearly changed where intermission would be. In the script he and Jacquelyn wrote, it was exactly halfway through the show, but he wanted to make it much later after a climactic scene. After we ran through a timed performance of his first act, with the entire set, we saw that the first act would be two hours long. Then the second act would be about a half hour. We took a break. Diane, Dene, Katie, Peter and I huddled and agreed that we could not do that no matter what. The audience would have our heads for making them sit for two hours, have intermission and come back for only a half hour. Diane and I made our case to Scott and felt that the original intermission was perfect. He relented.

With the difficulties with the actors still having memory trouble and the clunky set changes, the show was very shaky. And it only improved at a glacial pace as time went on. We never once had a full run without stopping at least once until probably opening night. I was very scared for opening, thinking “Oh shit! This is gonna be really bad” and I wasn’t the only one thinking it. Scott even asked how many of us were thinking it. At least half of us raised our hands. I began to think I was trapped on a sinking ship. Opening night was very shaky, but as time went on we became more efficient at the scene changes.

For this show I got a make-up rendering of how I should look. The make-up designers, Lani and Janelle Basich, made them for everyone. They were probably the best makeup people I ever worked with. I learned about shadowing and highlighting my face.

My make-up design

Our one review panned us. He attended an early performance when everything was still shaky and did not hold back. He blasted the long set changes and many short scenes, saying that it ruined any momentum and he'd later call it the biggest theatre disappointment of 2012, but he praised Peter's performance, calling it "memorable" in a forgettable show. The audience sizes were not as big as we would’ve liked except for the last Saturday show. All of this didn’t matter too much because at every performance we usually had at least once audience member who cried. Also, at every performance the audience booed Arnie and John, who played the night porter, the other antagonist. It showed that they were into it. Months later many people who saw it told me that they liked the show and one person went so far as to say that the critic could "go fuck off."

During the freak show the freaks and the other show attractions had a porter who went around talking to the audience and trying to get money from them to see the freaks. Lenny was Bonnie’s porter and every night they got at least one dollar. They collected the most money. My mother even gave a dollar to them. She asked Bonnie “Would my son ever get married?” Then she picked a card, I forget what it was. Bonnie’s answer was that “he will or he won’t, but whatever he does he’ll make the right decision.” I could’ve answered that question for nothing.

After most performances I stayed behind and helped Kristen, the stage manager, reset the stage for the next show. I did not have too many shows where I had friends attend so I decided to help. It didn’t feel right to have only her stuck doing it. The only nights when I did not help were when my parents attended and the last Saturday performance because on that night, I had several friends attend.

When I watched Lito do his monologues during the boardroom scene I saw something I did not usually see in an actor. Lito possessed the ability to use his hands while acting. His arms never hung at his side. They were always moving. I wonder how he could do that, and I wished I could do that. One night he slammed the table and it genuinely shocked me and I jumped. Lito suggested I keep doing that because he felt it was brilliant.

The Boardroom scene

There were a couple changes in the freak pods concerning two different freaks. One night, Tika could not be there to be the bearded lady so Chuck stepped in, wearing a dress and wig. The last show one of the twins could not be there because of work so instead, Dusty put on a Mr. Tumnus (The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe) costume.

At the strike those of us who moved the wall and the pods took great pleasure in destroying them. They were a pain for all of us to maneuver on and off stage. I feared every night that the wall would fall over. I still believe they were a bit much. All we really needed was the furniture and lighting; the audience would’ve picked up that we were in different locations.

I can honestly say that this was not one of my favorite shows to do. Though I did have good conversations with the cast, I didn't feel as though I really bonded with this cast as much as I did with others. I was glad to be done with this show and truthfully, I think everyone in the cast was ready to be done with it. With this show done I looked forward to the next one I did which opened two and a half weeks later.


Or if you wish to see a video of highlights of the production, go here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-vvoe52Juw0
One of my best moments is at 7:03.