Remembering when...

 

I enjoy some acoustic guitar, but I also like violin music playing songs that I recognize.  Other than attending legitimate stage plays, good music is my next favorite thing.

I don’t necessarily enjoy local community plays that are poorly written or with bad actors.  I don’t see myself as a harsh critic, because I have seen some that were terribly written and yet the local actors, comprised of clerks, housewives and mechanics did an outstanding job.  It was truly an entertaining evening.   The audience as well as the actors were having fun.

And I think that is the difference.  Anyone taking themselves too seriously tends to show only their bad side, and we all notice it.  Even the other actors see it and give it away with their facial expressions and body language. 

We attended one play in Big Bear, California where everyone in the audience knew everyone on stage.  Here’s the thing… Audience members came armed with tomatoes and other vegetables and actually threw them at the actors.  No kidding.  I don’t recommend it.

One year I worked in the sound booth of the local theatre.  The play was Social Security.  I don’t remember who wrote it but night after night I got to watch it from the booth behind the audience.  I hit all my cues, like when to ring the phone, or click on the radio or clap the thunder.  I also got to see the slight mistakes the actors made during the play.  Of course, the audience never noticed them, but I knew what the line should have been and I got to see the other actors respond to the wrong line.  It was a hoot. 

That was a volunteer job, so as long as it didn’t interfere with my day job, nobody complained. 

There was one theatre that sat directly next to the train tracks.  Whenever a train came rumbling by the actors had to freeze where they were and not say their lines until the noise from the train had passed.  The first time I witnessed that, it surprised me, but then I realized, what else were they to do?

 

I think it was the unpredictability of it all that I enjoyed.

 

 

 

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