I can’t sing. I can’t dance. I can’t act. I never have. I’ve never done theater or anything similar. Despite this, I somehow found myself in the musical my senior year of high school. My friends were all starring in it and encouraged me to join, and, in the spirit of saying yes to things, I did it. They had me audition for ensemble, and it was terrifying. I had to do this dance in a group with step touches and eight-counts all while being unaware of what those were. The day of auditions I spent my free periods randomly doing the dance in places—I was extremely nervous. At the end of my audition they took my measurements for costumes and after, I fell up the stairs trying to leave. Four months later our co-director Ed Beese—he tried to get us to call him Mr.Beese but it never stuck—told me my audition was his favorite because of this. He also gave me a butt chin while doing my makeup—great guy, honestly. He made it fun.
Anyway, a few weeks before practices started we did a script reading which was great for me because I didn’t have any lines. But halfway through they put me in a room and tried to gauge my vocal range. This being a music room I assumed everything was sound proofed, but man, was I wrong. I learned after the fact that everyone had heard my attempt at hitting notes. Spoilers: I couldn’t. Everything about those first few weeks was petrifying because I was completely out of my element. I had nothing to compare the experience to, or any knowledge of the terminology, or any prior skills that would help me. Basically, I had no idea what was going on. But I remember when it all “clicked” for me. It was around two or three weeks in and we were practicing this big dance number, the chef’s dance. It involved a lot of moving parts, with people weaving in between each other with trays and handkerchiefs, it was a lot. And—for those who know me, you know I don’t usually do this—there was this kid Janz next to me. I had only heard good things about the man; I would be surprised if anyone had anything bad to say about him. And I don’t know, I just started talking to him like I knew him, and he did the same. And that put me at ease a little bit.
And gradually, things got easier. Instead of dreading practice, I looked forward to it. I never learned to sing, but I learned the dances. They had me memorizing a 15 minute waltz sequence with my dance partner, who did competitive dance, and I wasn’t terrible! Ed even said that we had the best waltz one rehearsal. Was I carried through it? Yes, but what matters is that I tried.
We practiced from 2:30 to 4:30, typically five days a week, with some practices running up until 6pm, and some early morning Saturday practices. It was hard work, but very rewarding. During the last week or two, we had nights where our practices would run til 9pm. I got to school around 7:30 am, so it was 13 and a half hour days, which is a lot! I struggle to get out of bed before 12 pm now. I skipped all my classes today. So it’s insane to think back.
A cool thing my school did was allow the elementary school kids to watch a modified version of the show early that went about half way through, which would act as our first real performance. The morning of that mini-show, someone burnt something in the cafeteria and we had to evacuate as I was putting on my costume. After I quickly put on pants, our director made us do warmups in the parking lot in front of everyone. That’s traumatic. Have you ever made the fire siren noise during an actual fire in front of your entire school as a vocal warm up for Cinderella the musical, in full costume and stage makeup? Anyway, we get back in, and the kids arrive. Seeing all of them in the seats for the first time was wild. It’s a blend of intimidating and exciting to have that many eyes on you at once.
During the show they were fixing the bobby pins in my hair because I was too inept to do it myself when the scene ended and the scene change began. My job during all the scene changes during the first act was to move the table on and off stage with this dude Josh—great guy. For this scene, we had to move it off stage for the Chef’s dance. So I take off and run to move the table in time. An important thing to note about our backstage—it was pitch black until the actual shows. No lights. So I’m running full speed, making a beeline for the table, when I run into a cedar chest and go over the top of it—which made a loud sound the audience could surely hear. But you do what you gotta do, so I sprang back up and moved the table. I returned to do my hair before the dance number only to find out that not only was I bleeding but the paint from the cedar chest had gotten on my boots (which were borrowed from my director), my pants, and my white chef jacket. As I was cleaning my leg off and getting ready, Eddy recounted a similar story where he ran into something so hard a small bit of his bone came out. He finished out the rest of the show. Theater people. They’re some of the most passionate, dedicated, oddballs I’ve ever met.
There are so many more stories I could tell. Almost making Faith—the stepmother—break character during our last show, changing “peas and carrots” to “penis and carrots” with Annika, riding in the trunk, singing out school song in the stressing room, running around the hallways, our collective breakdown during lunch—so, so many memories. I think I cherish this time not only because I was surrounded by friends, but because of its uniqueness. I will never do something like this again in my life. I’m behind the camera, usually working alone—never in front of it in a context like this. It makes me sad because I had so much fun and wish I had done it sooner, but it also makes me appreciate the experience more.
Next Song Click me to go to the library
