Saturday performances

We only have one more Saturday performance, and it's our last one. I have to say though, there is something special about our Saturday Matinees. We always seem to have some of our best shows that day. I tend to bust out the French Accent on Saturdays, but I didn't this time. Everybody was on fire! The pacing was incredible, and it seemed like everyone brought their A game. I would even go as far as saying it was our best performance thus far!

We have such an amazing cast. I've come to the conclusion that we all just really feel comfortable around each other. We all really enjoy each others company, and it's a total blast to be around everyone. Even with people in the other cast, but especially the people in the MWF cast. I know I might be biased, but everyone is so supportive of each other, and we all can joke with each other and nobody takes offense at anything.

This is the last week of performances, and I have to say, I've really taken my wife's last comment to heart. I have been just enjoying each and every performance as it happens. I am going to miss being a Musketeer when it's over, but for now, I'm doing everything in my abilities to bring Porthos to life.

Oh one more thing about Saturday's show. Jeff is dating Ms. Utah (or at least a former Ms. Utah) and in honor of her being in the audience, all the girls wore tiaras during curtain call. The intermission show in the greenroom was especially hilarious. I'll have to get a copy of the video from Dave, or at least provide a link to it, because it was priceless and deserves some face time.

If you haven't seen the show, I strongly suggest you get your but out to the theatre. Use this link: http://www.halecentretheatre.org/2010Season/the-three-musketeers.php to buy your tickets. Memorial day still has quite a few tickets left, and they're a great price. In fact my wife and a bunch of her friends are coming that night. I have a feeling that it's going to be just as good, if not better than this last Saturday performance, we're at a place now where we are all fully in tune with our characters, so every show from here to the end is going to be epic. Don't miss it!

Only 8 performances left!

I'm starting to get bummed. Nearing the end of the run now, and I have to say that so far, I've had the time of my life. I truly love bringing Porthos to life every Monday Wednesday Friday and Saturday afternoons. So on Friday, my boss and her husband were in the audience. They both really liked it. I'm just glad I didn't know they were there, or it probably would have made me nervous. As it turned out, I had a great time out there.

I really love the stuff that goes on with our cast. We are such a tight knit group now. We all have such amazing energy and we're all so supportive of each other to get the best performance. We sing backstage, we joke on and off stage. One of my favorite jokes onstage comes in the ballroom scene. Rochefort circles around at the end of the first dance and Athos says something to him and then he busts out in kind of a hiss, "Smells like Assssholes." it's awfully hard to not laugh in that situation.

Oh I totally forgot to mention what happened on Wednesday. So we got brand new swords. that is because our swords are beat up and the strength and integrity has been compromised from all the fights up to this point. So on Wednesday during the Luxembourg I go to block an overhead slash and the sword I blocked broke in half. A huge part of the blade starts flying toward the front row of the audience and this guy in the front row raises his hands in self defense. Luckily it landed on the stage and didn't slice anybody up. It threw me off for the rest of that scene and the next one as well. It's crazy that it was a BRAND NEW sword and it broke like that.

On Saturday we had performers and Tech crew from the Cirque de Sole' in the audience. I normally like to bust out the French accent on Saturdays, but I was a little apprehensive because there were French speaking people in the audience, but the King and the Cardinal came into the wig room and they both told me to do it. I had to do it after that! It was so much fun, and I'm glad that I did. I had a blast doing it! I got a lot of good response to it. What was great is that I had 3 co-workers in the audience on Saturday, so my boss and co-workers got two totally different performances, and both groups loved it. I'm having a hard time deciding if I just want to go to the French accent for the remainder of the show. I get the most laughs when I do it. I'm for sure doing it on Memorial Day. We'll see how it goes. I should see what the rest of the cast thinks for sure though.

I can't wait to get the CD full of photos for this show. I really wish I could get a copy of it on DVD. I just want to watch it at least once.

On Monday we had another fun and fabulous performance. What I love about this show and the cast that I have the privilege to be a part of, is how well we all work together on the stage. We're not afraid to try new things, and work things out on stage as it happens in the moment. We try it and come off stage and high five and say how fun that was, or we take something that went a little wrong and turn it into something that will be totally cool the next time we do that scene. Some great stuff going on. If there was one show that would be fun to watch every night it would have to be this one because of all the little tweaks and changes to our performance. It's a true tribute to how well we all react off of each other and listen to how they are delivering it. I haven't had this much fun in a show in my whole life! Thanks to all of you guys. And thanks to all who have been supportive and came to see me in the show.

And then there were 19

Yes folks. 19 more performances to go. It would have been 20, but they canceled one of the Friday Matinees. I'm a bit bummed about that, but there you are. The reason is because we haven't sold out the rest of the show at this point. That's pretty surprising because the feedback I've been getting in the lobby after the show has been all good. It's a fun show. What amazes me is the men who go that looked like they were dragged there by their wives, and they come out with a smile on their faces. It's a great show for men who like action films or even Westerns.

So to catch you up on the latest... Friday night went really well. I couldn't help but notice that Jeff/Aramis was using his French accent, and it was getting thicker and thicker as the show went on. I almost slipped into it myself, but I managed to hold off. After the show though, I decided that I was going French in the Saturday Matinee. I figured why not. I've already developed the character for it. I worked on it all night and the next morning, and on Saturday I let it fly! Wow what a blast! I found more parts that are funny about Porthos because of it, and Jeff and I were really playing a ton off of each other. Eden/Milady even said she liked it, and that we were like the Brownies from Willow when we were on stage together. It certainly felt good, and I was able to maintain it throughout the show. I also took the liberty of kissing Rosalie/Adele on stage in our scene. It was so funny to catch her unaware, her reaction was priceless. Allan/d'Artagnan and I had to do a little recovery because the timing was a bit off between us, but we were able to make it work, it was quite funny how we worked it out. Afterward I was just flying high. I was really proud of myself for pulling it off like I did. I didn't hear anyone complain about it, and I got quite a few compliments too.

However when I got home I started getting a bad feeling. I probably over thought it, but I was really beginning to worry that I offended people in the cast. I didn't ask for permission, (although I did announce it on Friday night in our dressing room, so the Musketeers, and Rochefort knew) and in a way, it was selfish of me. I wouldn't have done it if I didn't think I could pull it off and be believable, but still I was getting worried that someone would complain and I would hear about it on Monday.

When I got to the theatre on Monday however, I told Tammy about it and she said she didn't hear anything, and she usually hears all about what goes on. So that was a good sign. I had already decided that I wasn't going to use the French accent all the time, maybe once or twice. I have fun doing it the way that I normally do it anyhow. When we got to Greenroom before the show though, Kacey said that he noticed that some people made some minor changes and additions. I assume that some of that was aimed at me, but he didn't point me out, and he didn't say that it was horrible. Our director had said at the last dress rehearsal that it's our show now, I guess I may have taken that a little too literal, but I would have never done anything that would have ruined the show. If I didn't get a talking to, then it must have gone over alright. Who knows, the French may actually return. The kiss is definitely going to make a return, but we're going to have to work the timing out before we do that again in a performance.

Monday's performance was a blast though. After I found the laughs from playing it French, I implemented some stuff in my Standard American English accent and it went over well with the audience. My big fight scene went over really well too. Everything was crisp and on point, it had all the intent it should have had, and it was just awesome! Something happened to the stage though on Monday. It wouldn't raise or lower and the center column was all the way down. We were backstage near where we come on stage for the next scene and the stage crew started filling up the hall with the chessboard, table and stone benches. Jeff and I both wondered what was going on. They told us the stage was broken, and they would have to carry that stuff on for the last garden scene. They also had to carry off the bench and table that was currently on the stage. We lined up in the Vom waiting to run on, and the tech crew was standing right next to us ready to come on after the blackout and do their thing. It was crazy, but it couldn't have happened at a better time in the show. We only had once scene left. After we all ran off stage and the blackout occurred, we were all backstage watching the monitor as the tech crew came on and worked their magic. Those guys and gals are total studs! Unsung heroes if you ask me. They were pretty fast about it too. It was interesting doing the last scene like that, but it enabled the whole audience to see me pull out the Cardinal's nightcap and taunt him with it. It got the biggest laugh to date because of the visibility. I haven't heard anything yet, but I'm pretty sure they fixed the stage for tonight's performance. I just hope we don't have anymore issues with the stage for the rest of the run. That's the danger of relying such high-tech equipment though. Luckily it happened when it did, because it would have been a beast to do a majority of those scene changes with a broken stage.

Tomorrow is my last day doing the educational performances, (unless my double can't do them with his cast.) I'm excited! The last time we performed for the kids, it was amazing. They are the best audiences we've had so far. They really get into it, and cheer and clap. I can't wait! I'm having so much fun doing this show. I could totally play Porthos for another 60 more performances and probably still be juiced up about it every time! What's great is it's constantly changing. Right now it's just minor tweaks and adjustments, but it's all in the name of making the show better as a whole. I really love performing with Mike and Jeff. We've developed a great bond together onstage and off. It's so much fun working with those guys. I'm definitely having the time of my life!

Backstage shenanigans

So here are a few pictures from backstage. I thought you might want to see what happens during the play. In this one Charisse is removing my wig after the show, and Greg's hair is freshly de-wigged as well. In the bar scene I am supposed to yell out the name of 3 different girls that I toast to and take a huge swig off of the bottle. In the Saturday performance I toasted to Charisse and she didn't even hear it. Oh well. The other Musketeers agreed that I should take requests for names to say, so if you want your name said on stage, I'm taking suggestions, and if I actually say your name, it will cost you. We can discuss method of payment later.




Here is a picture of the ball gown I wear for the King's Birthday party. I'm dressed as a rooster. This is my favorite costume of the show, even though I don't have any lines while wearing this costume. I do however bust out a mean Mer Laison in this getup. So if you haven't seen it yet, this is yet another reason to come and see the show. The biggest problem I have with this thing is it's so long. It's set to the length of both myself and my double Matt. He's a few inches taller than me, and when I have to go up the stairs, which is a couple of times in the dances, I sometimes step on the gown. I've nearly tripped about 3 times, but I've gotten better at holding onto it while I go up the stairs. The mask is amazing with the detail, the only problem with it is, I can't breath out of my nose in this thing!

This is part of my nightly ritual, and the best part, removal of my wig. I've been growing my hair out so that I wouldn't have to wear my wig. Hopefully It'll be long enough that I can go without it the last couple of performances. I honestly think it's long enough now, but that's not how the makeup department sees it. Until then, I have to get enough metal pins put in my hair to make Pinhead jealous. When she takes them out my hair has been through pressure, heat, and sweat and comes out all sorts of funky. Almost Medusa like.
Oh and one more backstage item with Charisse...I'm standing in Vom 2 just after we rescue d'Artagnan, and she comes in to brush all our hair in place. She's standing behind me and mentions that the threat she made on my fly away hairs when she was putting it on, has worked! Then she finishes and starts to walk around me when she bumps into my scabbard that is always on my hip and says, "I'm just not good with swords."
I reply, "That's what she said."
I think Mike Hohl/Athos and I were laughing at that for a good 30 seconds. I know Allan/d'Ar and Jeff/Aramis joined in. I really love the bond we are developing back stage as Musketeers.

So I'm walking down the hall to Vom 2. I've got Rosalie/Adele on my arm as we're discussing this lovely cape I've purchased, and I'm asking her to guess what it's made out of. (I could probably write a whole piece just on that daily conversation up to now.) Anyhow, we get to the Vom and Jeff walks in and set's down his freshly filled water bottle near the prop table, and he turns and Aramis is suddenly hitting on Adele. Porthos couldn't allow that to happen, so he shoves Aramis out of the way, and curses some made up words at him. I think we were all laughing at that one until we got on stage. It was good, it made Rosalie's cheeks live up to her name.

I know there are some more, and I'll have to write them all down. Those that are in the show that read this blog, please feel free to leave one of your backstage moments in a comment.