Did you know that before I went to school for geology, I dreamed of being an actress? You probably didn't. Most people who know me now, don't know that I was a theatre student for most of my life.
Well, I was! Starting in the fourth grade, I started going to magnet schools (specialized public schools that students had to audition for to be accepted). I chose to go to school for theatre and I was accepted into the program. Between 4th grade and 8th grade I performed in several plays and one-acts. When I got into high school, I still went to a theatre school, but I changed my focus from acting to technical theatre. I auditioned for a couple of plays in high school, but I never made it in. Instead, I made costumes for nearly every play that my school produced while I was in high school.
Of all the plays I performed in, there are only three roles I want to tell you about. In the fourth grade, my class performed a Shakespeare play called 'The Comedy of Errors'. The basic plot of the play is that there is a set of twins each named Antipholus who were separated when they were young. Also, both of the Antipholus characters has a servant named Dromio, the servants are also twins, separated at the same time as their masters. Well, the Anitpholus of Syracus is in Ephesus, looking for his lost brother. In fact that is where his brother actually lives, and the whole comedy begins when the wife of Antipholus of Ephesus sees the Antipholus of Syracus in town and drags him home, thinking it is her husband. In the actual script the Dromio characters are played by men, but to be fair, my teacher chose to have girls play the Dromio characters. I played the part of Dromio of Ephasus. I actually don't have any pictures from this play, or I would show you.
In the fifth grade our class performed Romeo & Juliet and I had the honor of playing the part of Juliet. That was a lot of fun. I loved the dress I got to wear for this role and I had so much fun pretending to die. I do have pictures somewhere, but they are lost at the moment.
In the 8th grade we were performing 'The Emporers' New Clothes'. During auditions for this play, I had only read about half of the script and I decided to audition for the role of Patches. I just really wanted to be in the play and Patches seamed to be a fun and over-looked character. I didn't think that many other people would want to audition for that role, so I auditioned for the part and I got it. Once I got the part, I finished reading the script only to find that Patches gets crowned as King at the end of the play! Ha! So that turned out to be a really fun role to play. Especially because I was the only character that was 'allowed' to laugh at the character of the King when he walked out on the stage wearing only his underwear! I think this was probably my favorite role I ever performed. It was the most fun.
Another tid-bit worth mentioning from my acting days is that I got to be an extra in a movie when I was in the Fifth grade. The movie was called 'For Which He Stands'. You can google it. It turned out to be a rather dull movie, but I was in it! I got paid $120 I think for being in that movie. It was the first paycheck I ever got and I was only 11 years old. (I still have the paycheck stub, but it is in a photo album in the bottom of a chest somewhere in my garage, so I'm sorry, I am not going to go dig it out to scan it and show you.)
Like I said before, by the time I got to high school, I changed my focus to the technical side of theatre. I got to help make costumes for a lot of plays, but I think the best time I had was working on a musical called Honk! It was essentially a play about the ugly duckling story, but working on the costume crew for that play was the best. All of the characters were animals, but we didn't dress them in cat, duck, goose, frog, or swan costumes. We dressed them in clothes that 'suggested' the animal that they were, and their movements and dialouge conveyed the rest. It was an amazing show to watch. Anyway, it was a lot of fun for a long time because we performed it early in the school year, but we were told that the school would be taking that play to the Thespian Festival in Licoln, Nebraska during the summer. So when school was over in June, we resumed rehearsals, we spruced up all the costumes and the sets. We ran the show again for one week before going to the festival, and then we packed it all up and went to Nebraska. Going to the Thespian Festival was an amazing event all in itself. What an amazing time. We saw 2-3 major stage productions every day and there were one-acts and monolouges to go watch nearly all day if we wanted and all kinds of workshops. There were dances at night after the plays and the final night, we were all required to dress in formal attire. There were students at the festival from a Japanese school and those girls came to the final performance dressed in elegant kimonos. They were so beautiful. *Sigh* I miss being a theatre student a lot sometimes. Anyway... that's my story for today.
Here's some pictures from plays that I helped make costumes for in high school.
Honk! The frogs teach Ugly a lesson about love.
Honk! Prepare for takeoff! The geese lead the way.
Caucasian Chalk Circle
Hello Dolly!
Les Miserables
Ok, okay. Goodbye 'till tomorrow.
Wow, those sets and costumes are awesome. I never got into theatre. It was very much a 'cool kid' subject so I never dared do it. Plus my school was crap and had no budget for costumes or props lol.
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