Date of Run: August 7-24, 2014
ROLE: Humpty Dumpty
My summer show of 2014 was a new play. It was a play called Alice: The Rebellion of Wonderland, written by Tony Ginesi and Merlyn Q. Sell. It was staged by Narrow Way Stage Company in Sonoma and directed by Nicolas Christenson. Narrow Way had staged this show four years earlier in the smaller of the two theatres at Spreckels in Rohnert Park. I saw that production and found it very amusing. This time the show would be different because Tony had done some tweaking over the years and cut some scenes and characters out, which shortened the show and also changed moments and even the ending. When I asked Nick why they were doing this show again he answered because they didn't want to pay for the rights to another show after the cost of doing Little Shop of Horrors and he was hoping to do a show that would be popular with kids, maybe even get them involved and bring in a profit. Made sense to me.
Months before this show and even before Little Shop I asked Nick if there were any parts I could've played and he answered the March Hare or, with some pushing in the right direction, maybe the Caterpillar. Then during rehearsals of Little Shop he said to me that I would be perfect in the role of Humpty Dumpty because he was taking the character in a different direction. Rather than have someone in a giant egg costume, he envisioned Humpty as someone with my kind of body, limber and thin, with a giant egg-shaped head that he's always trying to protect. Believe it or not, Humpty Dumpty is actually in the second of the Alice stories, Through the Looking Glass.
I think I may have been Nick's first and only choice for that part. I was not sure if I could have played the part at that time because I was having problems at work and at the end of Little Shop my work situation was in the air and my future theatre endeavors were uncertain. But by the time auditions came around the problems were resolved, more or less. I could not attend the actual auditions because I had work that night, so I came to callbacks in Sonoma. On the auditions sheets the last question to fill in was "Whoooooo are yoooooooou?" I put down "Let me check my underwear," and Nick just about died laughing. After reading one scene Nick offered me the part on the spot and I accepted, but with the agreement that I would be released if I was cast in one other show that was auditioning at the same time.
The other show I auditioned for was a play called The Boys in the Band, a landmark gay rights play with great acting roles. I was about the right age for a couple roles and it would have really given me a chance to enhance and improve my acting skills. Nick was prepared to let me do that show if I got cast because he knew it would be good for me. It was to be presented at Pegasus Theater in Rio Nido (a short distance from Guerneville) and directed by Harry Duke. Unfortunately, at auditions only myself and two other men showed up for a play that had nine male roles ranging from early 20s-mid 30s. As much as Harry tried he could not fill the roles, despite searching for a couple weeks. So in the end the show was cancelled. It was a big disappointment really because I truly believed that had it gone up under Harry's direction, it would have been brilliant.
The cast of this show included my friends Alexis Long, Samantha Lane, Sam Starr, Ted Smith, and Cat Bish. The rest of the cast included Bill Garcia, Tessa Hope, Mark Stanley and Matt Witthaus, who reprised his role of the main villain The Crow, a role he played in the first production. Before we started rehearsals, we lost the person who was originally cast as Alice. And that girl looked like an Alice. At callbacks I took one look at her and I thought to myself "Oh yeah, she's gonna get that part." But she left because she was cast in another show and thought she could do both, but in the end, she realized she couldn't. Tessa was cast as the replacement.
Unfortunately, I missed the first read-through and rehearsals because I had work on those nights. I finally managed to get to rehearsal a couple weeks later and I knew it was gonna be a fun, crazy show. Everyone made great character choices and did such funny things that it was impossible not to have fun while rehearsing a scene. I was not called too often after my evenings cleared because I was only in the second act. Strangely though, I have no memory of Humpty Dumpty in the first production of the show.
To prepare for this show I first reread Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass, which I happened to own already. I did that as it had been many years since I read it and I decided to reacquaint myself with the original source. I found the characters in both stories to be very annoying and I think if anyone stayed in Wonderland for a long time, they would go insane. Anyway, Nick wanted me to be on guard where my head was concerned. He envisioned Humpty as a hypochondriac, always afraid of his head breaking and also shaky if he got off balance, nearly falling over. For my part, I did that in spots and when I stood and ran, I tried to be as straight and balanced as possible because I played Humpty as a stuffy gentleman type with excellent posture and I also felt that he would always try to be like that to keep from falling over. If I felt my body starting to slant, I repositioned myself to balance myself.
I'm sure Nick liked what I was doing in my portrayal. At rehearsals he told me things like "keep doing what you're doing" and "you make me laugh." Indeed, I got lots of laughs on some lines the first time I said them, usually because of how I delivered them. Later on, when I got an umbrella as a prop I added even more funny things like dropping it at a shocking moment or opening it when I'm scared. The umbrella helped with my portrayal and balance because it made it all look better.
Two weeks before opening we started tech rehearsals in Sonoma. The reason for that was because there were a lot of cues to do, both in lights and sounds and also because of our make-up. The make-up for this show, for anyone playing an animal or non-human character, was very extensive and Nick wanted us to start learning it and running the show with it. However, I proved to be the exception because they could not do anything with me until my egg-shaped head arrived. In the week before opening, they kept saying "It'll be here tomorrow," but it never showed up. It was worrying because I really would've liked more time to use it onstage and make sure there were no problems with it. I did, however, use a temporary head two nights before opening just for one moment. On our preview night they got it made and I finally had it, though it was not exactly as they envisioned it. However, for show photos in the lobby they used one of me without the head and a caption saying, "Costume revealed in show." Nick wanted it that way as a surprise, and, apparently, everyone I talked to afterward said they liked it that way.
Before every performance without fail, Ted, Sam Starr, Samantha Lane and Tessa would run their lines for the tea party scene, which was the final scene of the first act, and then they and I would run our lines for the first scene in act two to get the lines down perfectly. Other people did this as well. It was a ritual because some people had trouble on occasion remembering lines. However, that did not stop the immense improvising that erupted during the show.
One review of the show said "As for the performers, director Christenson has let his actors’ imaginations run wild." That was the truth. There was so much improving lines that were not in the script, especially for the dormouse. For example, when Ted and Sam entered for the tea party scene they'd sing a song and it was different every night. Some songs included "99 Bottles of (Tea) on the Wall," and "London Bridge is Falling Down." I always listened backstage for what they'd do that night, but nothing prepared me for the closing performance when I heard them start singing "Hello my baby, hello my honey, hello my ragtime gal," etc. I'm glad I wasn't onstage at that time or I just might have broken character. Luckily for us, the playwright (Tony) allowed us to get away with that. And since he was the one up in the booth running the cues, he of course knew what was going on.
This show was the most intense I had done in some time because it was very hot under the lights with the make-up and costumes. All of us were sweaty at the end of every night, though since I didn't go on until the second act I didn't suffer quite as much. However, I will give the designers credit because these were very good costumes and make-up. This was the first show where I didn't have to use any of my own make-up since the designer used her things and was there every night to apply everyone's make-up. I always had mine done at intermission because there was no way I was going to wear a lot of make up when I didn't have to.
The preview performance had about thirty people in the audience (not surprising since it was free), but then the audiences of the first four performances didn't go past fifteen people. And they were not exactly responsive audiences. Then on the first Sunday we had a good size audience that just loved the performance. During the second weekend the audiences on Thursday, Saturday and Sunday were a fairly good size with over thirty people, but Friday had a small, but responsive audience of ten.
After the Sunday show we went to Mark's house for a cast party and what a place it was! It was up in the hills west of Santa Rosa and it was a mansion. When I pulled up I was amazed as was everyone else (we were completely in awe and bursting with excitement for literally forty minutes). It had an amazing view out back with a long pool hanging over the side, a big backyard and a pond with a dock. In other words it was paradise and none of us wanted to leave, but I left after about two hours because I had promised another friend to attend her birthday party. But I almost, almost changed my mind.
On the closing weekend we had audiences of about 30-50 people each night.
On the final Friday show, Nick and Tony presented everyone with a special gift. They gave everyone a chrome pocket watch with the title of the show and the year on it. We were all floored by it. It was the best gift I ever received from anyone in the cast of a show. I've received mix-CDs and cards, but this was the best. I didn't even want to touch it or use it because it was so shiny.
It was very hot in that egg shaped head, not to mention the way it fit on my head made my neck straight all the time and feel like it was in a brace, but I had it easy compared to anyone who had heavy costumes and was in the first act. Everyone was just so into their character that they were all drenched by the time intermission came around.
In the early hours of the day of our final show there was an earthquake that did some major damage to Napa and also affected Sonoma. Our set survived, since the theatre had been made more structurally sound a little more than a year earlier, and none of our glass bottles we used in the show broke, but the building itself suffered some damage between the first and second floor. At the center of the building is a staircase leading to the second floor and on both sides up the wall there was a large crack from where the building shifted. Nevertheless, we had a decent sized audience.
I can't remember now which performance it was, but during one show, a cell phone went blaring off during a scene. And it wasn't a quiet tone either, but a very loud ring and it was very annoying.
The cast party was held at the warehouse where Tony worked and kept the set and prop pieces for Narrow Way. We had food, we played games, and we watched the film Hook. The reason for that was that Nick and Tony claimed that a good deal of the show was inspired by that film. During our run, the great comic actor Robin Williams passed away and at one performance at the end of the pre-show talk, Nick ended it with a moment of silence then he said "He can fly, he can fight and he can crow," to which all of us who waited in the wings yelled "BANGARANG!" and crowed at the top of our lungs.
