Tuesday
I was 7 years old when my mother volunteered to work at the Windsor Light Opera Association making coffee and feeding the troops at rehearsals, etc. She got me and my middle-older sister (12 years-old) in the production of The Stingiest Man in Town, the musical version of A Christmas Carol. I'm pretty sure I must have auditioned, but I don't remember it. In any event, I got the role of "cast member" and I had to learn dance moves and songs.
I really don't remember much of the actual play, I only remember that I had two important scenes that I was in. In the Ghost of Christmas Past scene all of the kids were dressed up like toys in Scrooge's old toy room and I got to be a puppet with the prettiest ballerina dancer in the cast as my puppet master (I think her name was Karen and I was star-struck by her - she was a real, live ballerina!) She pulled on my one string and my arm went up, pulled on another and the opposite leg went up, and like that. It wasn't too difficult. I knew my routine, but if I ever forgot what to do next she was there to tug the right string to remind me. My sister was dressed like a big stuffed bear and she tumbled around the floor with another girl in a bear costume.
Man, I have a feeling that that last sentence is going to attract the wrong element to this site.
Anyway, the other big important part I had was in was the graveyard scene where all of the kids had to kneel in dry-ice fog (very unpleasant smelling) and moan and wail like lost souls. The highlight of the scene for me was when I got picked up by one of the adult male dancers and carried over his head and passed over to another dancer and off the stage. It was then that I got my first line ever, to wit: "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHH" The director told me to scream my guts out and scream my guts out I did. Man, was that fun. I'd just spend hours at home screaming my head off and when my mom complained I got to say, "sorry, Mum, practicing". Heheh.
Other than that, all I can remember about that production was our choreographer Ken. He was the nicest man alive and on opening night he gave me and my sister roses and the toys that we were playing in the show (he had bought a doll and hand-made puppet strings for it for me and got my sister a stuffed bear). On the card it said "break a leg" and he had to explain the old tradition to me of wishing me bad luck so that I would attract the opposite.
If I were a little older I might have wondered, "why just a broken leg? Why not wish someone an aneurysm, or a heart attack, or a gangrenous pinky finger? Laryngitis, meningitis, emphysema, scoliosis, warts... the list goes on and on. Why, I'm sure there must be a whole musical number full of possible ailments you could wish on someone. A plain old broken leg is boring." However, I was too young to think any of this at the time and I simply thanked Ken for his gift and gave him a big kiss on the cheek.
I don't remember being afraid of the audience or really being very self-conscious about performing in front of strangers. I remember getting to wear cool period costumes with the fluffy muffs and fur-trimmed hats and the capes and oh, god, there go the fetish google search returns again.
All in all it was a lot of fun. So much fun that my sister and I joined the cast again the next year. (Can you folks at home guess what the production was? I made mention of it not very long ago...)
Anyway, my time's up, but I think I'll get back into the habit of wishing people bad luck. For fun!
Adieu, my friends and God give us irritable bowel disease... one and all!
I was 7 years old when my mother volunteered to work at the Windsor Light Opera Association making coffee and feeding the troops at rehearsals, etc. She got me and my middle-older sister (12 years-old) in the production of The Stingiest Man in Town, the musical version of A Christmas Carol. I'm pretty sure I must have auditioned, but I don't remember it. In any event, I got the role of "cast member" and I had to learn dance moves and songs.
I really don't remember much of the actual play, I only remember that I had two important scenes that I was in. In the Ghost of Christmas Past scene all of the kids were dressed up like toys in Scrooge's old toy room and I got to be a puppet with the prettiest ballerina dancer in the cast as my puppet master (I think her name was Karen and I was star-struck by her - she was a real, live ballerina!) She pulled on my one string and my arm went up, pulled on another and the opposite leg went up, and like that. It wasn't too difficult. I knew my routine, but if I ever forgot what to do next she was there to tug the right string to remind me. My sister was dressed like a big stuffed bear and she tumbled around the floor with another girl in a bear costume.
Man, I have a feeling that that last sentence is going to attract the wrong element to this site.
Anyway, the other big important part I had was in was the graveyard scene where all of the kids had to kneel in dry-ice fog (very unpleasant smelling) and moan and wail like lost souls. The highlight of the scene for me was when I got picked up by one of the adult male dancers and carried over his head and passed over to another dancer and off the stage. It was then that I got my first line ever, to wit: "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHH" The director told me to scream my guts out and scream my guts out I did. Man, was that fun. I'd just spend hours at home screaming my head off and when my mom complained I got to say, "sorry, Mum, practicing". Heheh.
Other than that, all I can remember about that production was our choreographer Ken. He was the nicest man alive and on opening night he gave me and my sister roses and the toys that we were playing in the show (he had bought a doll and hand-made puppet strings for it for me and got my sister a stuffed bear). On the card it said "break a leg" and he had to explain the old tradition to me of wishing me bad luck so that I would attract the opposite.
If I were a little older I might have wondered, "why just a broken leg? Why not wish someone an aneurysm, or a heart attack, or a gangrenous pinky finger? Laryngitis, meningitis, emphysema, scoliosis, warts... the list goes on and on. Why, I'm sure there must be a whole musical number full of possible ailments you could wish on someone. A plain old broken leg is boring." However, I was too young to think any of this at the time and I simply thanked Ken for his gift and gave him a big kiss on the cheek.
I don't remember being afraid of the audience or really being very self-conscious about performing in front of strangers. I remember getting to wear cool period costumes with the fluffy muffs and fur-trimmed hats and the capes and oh, god, there go the fetish google search returns again.
All in all it was a lot of fun. So much fun that my sister and I joined the cast again the next year. (Can you folks at home guess what the production was? I made mention of it not very long ago...)
Anyway, my time's up, but I think I'll get back into the habit of wishing people bad luck. For fun!
Adieu, my friends and God give us irritable bowel disease... one and all!
posted by Alanis at
7:55 AM
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