Opening night!

Please indulge me, on the opening night of this play, to go on for great lengths about... the last play I was in.

"What? Why?"

Because I was talking with my friend Glackin a few moments ago, and he brought up an amusing bit of antecdotery, and I thought I would share it with you, the Internet-at-large. Aren't you lucky?

Last year, in Shakespeare's A Winter's Tale I played over a half-dozen minor characters, including a mariner, an old shepherd, and a bear. The special thing about these three, is that they all appeared in Act III scene iii. The mariner walks on with Antigonus and a baby, then leaves. Then the bear chases Antigonus and eats him. Then the old shepherd comes on and finds the baby. Bam, bam, bam. Me, me, me. One right after another. And this, ladies and gentlemen is what you need to know to ready yourself for the story of the Greatest Quick-Change Ever!

The mariner. He wears a bandana tied around his head, a poofy white shirt, brown trousers (it's Shakespeare so they aren't pants), a red sash, and a drunken swagger. Basically I'm swaggering around like a low-rent Jack Sparrow. After mentioning in passing that, yep, there are bears about, I swagger off stage right, and then it's time to frigg'n BOOK! The bear comes on stage left, and I have a forty-five line monologue to make it happen! Now, the Doorley theatre, being, well, poorly designed, has a distinct lack of ways to get from stage right to stage left that don't involve plowing through the women's dressing room. Thus: 'scuse me ladies! Don't mind me, running past you in your various states of undress trailing the accessories I'm not going to need! I loose the sash and head rag right off the bat, and the shoes are gone by the time I hit stage right, where someone grabs them and takes them back over to stage left where I'll need them in... a minute and a half! Oh crap!

So, I arrive by my entrance in a blind panic, and there await my partners in crime: our bald prop Czar, Glackin, and Eric Steel, who really should be a superhero with a name like that. And, of course, a skinned bear for me to climb into. Zip! I'm in the body. Snap! Snap! I've got feet. Shoop! Shoop! I've got hands. THUD! I've got a head. I'm a bear! ROAR! Only now, of course, I'm nearly blind and deaf in that stupid bear head! Someone push me toward the door! Is the storm up, yet? Am I fearsome? It it time? "A savage clamor..." I barely hear... time to make with a mighty ROAR! and run onstage!

But it's not over yet. Not by a long shot. I'm only halfway done, kids! The old shepherd's up next, and he doesn't have a monologue to change with. He had about twenty seconds of his son running in, yelling 'Haloo!'

The bear runs off stage left. Fortunately, the shepherd enters from there, so the ladies won't suffer a bear running through their dressing room. No, I just have my helpers yanking off bear parts left and right... throwing a cloak over my shoulder, shoving a walking stick in my hands and sending my on my way to shove my feet in shoes as I'm walking on stage, fixing my cloak, hunching over and trying to find my old man voice all before I step into the spotlight. "I would that there were no age," I'd say, sounding like Wallace Shawn if he were punched in the throat. And then it was done. Two minutes, two changes, two helpers, and two species. Amazing, it was! Beyond all belief, it was! A bear, I was! Hooray! Amazing! Forever!

I am so glad I spend this entire play in the same suit, though.