PERSONAL "Mark, Why Did You Die?" And Other Songs
Hey kids... I know it's been a long time, but I needed to let you know about my first Level 5 Conservatory show. Yes, I've finally made it this far... the end is neigh, indeed. At any rate, tonight was the first of our Level 5 shows and it consisted of 15 minutes of improvisation. My class went second... but, for some reason, being on the etc stage for the first time didn't intimidate me. I was actually pretty relaxed, for me anyway. And when we got on-stage I, modestly, killed. I was on fire (at least for me). We started out slowly... but then our show picked up. During one of the first scenes, the TD Jason played a street/car noise... for pretty much no reason (the scene was about a woman trying to decide what to major in [in what to major... right]). So, after the horn sounded, I walked into the scene and "closed" a "window." For some reason, people laughed. I think it was simply acknowledging something that everyone knew... it was clear that a car horn sounded--but the people in the scene weren't doing anything about it. So I closed a window apologetically and the scene continued. Later on in that scene, the car horn sounded again... I crossed the stage and closed a different window apologetically and got a huge laugh which ended the scene.
A scene or two later, I initiated with "This year, I'm keeping my New Year's resolution" in my 1930s-guy voice. Just then, Jason played baby crying noises. So Matt, who wasn't in the scene previously, came on-stage and said something about needing to get to the maternity ward. So I basically said "So much for my resolution" and followed him off-stage. A new scene started but I didn't know that until I was back on stage. As such, I came on-stage, saw a new scene started and simply said "I must be in the wrong room" and exited. It got a huge response.
Then, finally, Fernando and I went on-stage at the same time. He said simply that he was going to go to bed and then Thomas shot him in the face with an "arrow." Fernando dropped and I was left onstage by myself. Matt came on and said something like "We've secretly switched Cupid's arrows with real arrows." I was livid... "Why was Cupid here?! Why did he shoot my roommate?! Unless..." And then I got all "musical-prepare-for-song" and I heard an audience member yell "Sing"... to which I responded "I think I will" and then broke into a song I'd like to call "Mark, why did you die?" The lyrics were nothing special... I basically just lamented that Mark had died before he was able to express his love (and I wondered why Cupid had shot him). I didn't know it at the time, but Fernando and a couple members of my ensemble had started dancing like angels behind me. I can only assume that it was a hilarious sight... I didn't want to turn around, lest I break during the song.
All in all, I was supremely happy with the first fifteen (yeah, all that happened in 15 minutes!) performance. I was happiest right after the performance. My class went backstage and met with our instructor Norm... who is the director of the Conservatory. After someone asked him a couple of question about class this week, he gave me a look. A look like "Well that was pretty good." A "you surprised/impressed me" kind of look. Norm doesn't know anything about me besides what he saw in class last Thursday... so to get a "wow" kind of look from him was AWESOME! He did say something to me about playing well with the sound cues... but he could have said I had a stupid shirt and I would have still been happy... I got a look! Am I making too much of this? It doesn't matter... how often am I happy? Let me have it. Thanks.