ROOM SERVICE

Date of Run: January 25-February 10, 2019
ROLE: Simon Jenkins

My first show of 2019 was something I had always wanted to do: a comical farce. This particular farce was an old one from the late 1930s and staged at the Raven Theater in Healdsburg.

The story of this show begins at the general auditions for the Raven Player season. It went very well, thanks in large part to a book of monologues. This particular book was for men ages 18-35, something which I wish I had had from the beginning. It was truly heaven sent. The directors liked what I did. I felt I would at least be called back for one or two shows.

A little over two weeks later, an email of the casts was sent, and while some shows still had not been cast, I saw my name listed in this one for the role of Simon Jenkins. I was good with being in this one because I had been trying to do a show at that time of year since I could get away from work more easily.

Not knowing this play at all, I had to buy it online, though that was hardly necessary because I was sent a copy by mail later on. I found I was in two scenes. A fairly relaxing role for me. Rehearsals began in early November 2018, the first of which was at director Joe Guerella's house. Then the rehearsals alternated between a multi-purpose room in a Healdsburg elementary school and the Raven Theater itself.

The rest of the cast included Schuyler Marcier, Zach Acevedo, Steve Cannon, Troy Thomas Evans, Bohn Connor, Shannon Sawyer, Austin Schmidt, Madison Scarbrough, Tim Shippey, Steven Jackson, Robert Bauer, Logan Warren and Harry Farmer.

I was not necessarily called every night, only on nights when we ran an act where I appeared onstage, which was the first two acts, but not the third. On the first night when we started staging the first act of the show, since I didn't appear onstage until twenty pages in, I had a while to wait (namely two hours) before I did anything. The second night we staged the second act and, on this night, I fully confirmed that acting is something I'm meant to do. How? Well, since I did not appear until a little way into the act, I did not feel it too urgent to get to rehearsal from work and I ended up arriving right before my character was due to go on. It is all in the timing after all.

On nights when act three was worked on, I got a night off, but any night with the other two acts I had to go in. Sometimes when we'd work the full show I'd get to leave as soon as all my scenes were done. I also did not have to arrive right when we started since I was never onstage until a little way in. Sometimes that meant I was not at rehearsal long. Or at least it never seemed to be long.

When it came time for my costume fitting, which I had been worrying over as it was very close to tech week, I was in for a surprise. I had to supply a white dress shirt and my own shoes (easy enough), but the costume designer had an issue with my suit. She wasn't sure that she had anything that fit me since she thought I was tough to fit. After asking if I'd use my own suit just in case, she pulled up one for me to try and I recognized it immediately as the suit I wore in my previous show, Guys and Dolls. Problem solved.

Left to right- Austin, Bohn, Me, Schuyler

There was always at least one person missing on rehearsal nights due to conflicts. In fact, the only rehearsal where the entire cast was together in one room was the last one before our two week break for the holidays.

There were two scenes that Schuyler, Bohn and Austin had to rehearse extensively. The first was in the first act where Schuyler and Bohn, along with Troy had to quickly undress Austin. The objective was to make Austin's character appear sick, undressing him, hoisting him up and putting him in the bed onstage all the while saying their lines. It took a lot of practice with Austin's costume to get it done quickly. The other scene was in the second act was when the three of them had to eat. That's right, eat. Zach's character, Sasha the waiter, brings them a meal in exchange for an audition and their characters, having not eaten for eighteen hours chow down. The three of them had to practice eating with real food, mainly eggs and pancakes to get the feel of it. The food had to be reheated in the microwave backstage each performance.

There were no problems with developing the show other than one little snag a couple weeks before opening. Zack bruised his ribs playing with his nieces and was very limited for a couple days, at one point not being at rehearsal at all. There was a slight worry he couldn't go on, but thanks to pain killers and rest, he healed enough in time.

For this show our call time was only one hour before the show would start, though the stage manager would be there two hours before if anyone needed more time (the two women mainly needed this for their hair). Since this allowed me more time to get there from work, I wasn't going to complain. An hour was very suitable since there was no vocal warm-up as this was not a musical and no fight call since there was no fighting on stage. And the fact that the cast was mainly men, who could be ready very quickly; also, some of them, myself included, did not appear until at least a half hour into the play and two of them didn't appear until the third act.

If there was ever a time I was glad to have an audience it was for this show especially. For what seemed like ages, we did a run through every night before opening and after a time it starts to get old. The first weekend we had (and I'm just guessing) about 30-60 each night. On the second night I felt the energy was lagging in certain parts, which is a big no-no for a farce.

On the second weekend I got an experience of what it was like to work at the Raven Theater during the rain. There were no bathrooms backstage at the Raven Theater so if the cast had to go to the bathroom we'd have to the movie theater next door. It's only about fifteen feet from one door to the other, but it rained most of the weekend and we had to take care not to get our costumes too wet. This weekend had four performances, while the first and third had three each.

The Thursday and Saturday night performances both had a fairly quiet audience. The Friday night one had more laughs, particularly from one person hooting like a monkey at what seemed like everything. The Sunday show that weekend was the day of the Superbowl and there was barely as much as a chuckle from anybody. It was mainly because the audience was entirely of old people. However, the stage manager said they were enjoying it; one old lady, who passed out in the lobby wanted very much to stay to see the rest of the show when the ambulance came for her. We found out at the second intermission that one show at a different company that day only had a single person in attendance (a critic no less). Glad we weren't the ones in that show.

Struggling against Schuyler and Bohn in the second act

During the final weekend it rained again. I wouldn't miss having to dash to the back door of the movie theater across the alleyway in the pouring rain to use the bathroom when this was over. The Friday night show went very well. There were several laughs and even an applause after the eating scene, something that hadn't happened before. The Saturday night show had several laughs as well and to boot, had the largest audience we had had yet. From the audience we heard laughter from the person the previous weekend who sounded like a monkey. The audience of the final performance was as big as Saturdays. Then it was time to tear down the set.

Sadly, Joe didn't make it to any of our performances. Right before the show opened, he had to have a surgery performed on him and took longer to heal that he had expected. Though he had seen the finished product with costumes and set, he never saw it with an audience in the theater.

I had not had to strike a set for any show I had done in over two years. This one was a fairly simple one since the people who built it took the walls down and store them. My job was to get the furniture off the set and back to its room. This was easier said than done. The two previous shows I had done at the Raven Theater didn't have much, if any, furniture to speak of so I had never seen where it was stored. Apparently, the furniture the company used was all stored upstairs in a small, cramped space next to the sound booth. Most of the furniture was easy to get up, but the main problem was the couch; heavy and wide it was a struggle to get it up the stairs, which was in itself difficult since the stairs and the hallways leading to the furniture storage were extremely narrow. If you're a fan of Friends, think of Ross yelling "Pivot!"

I didn't hear anybody say anything about a cast party, but even if I had heard about one, I wouldn't have gone. I had plans already that night for a friend's going away party.

This was one of my most relaxing roles ever. I had a lot of backstage time, being only on for two scenes. I wish now that I had timed them just to see how long I was on in this two and half hour long play. Next time I did a farce, whenever that would be, I hoped to do more onstage physically.