The Plays The Thing

So tonight we performed. Last night was the one and only semi dress rehearsal that included blocking. It was terrible. A lot of it was my fault, the script I thought was in the back seat of my car turned out to be a grant RFP we have decided not to write. My bad!

So the rehearsal went bad and we never had a good idea of how the play would look. It had been written by a community member so this would be the first and maybe only performance. Than around noon today I get an email on my Blackberry. "We decided to change the blocking so that most of the play will be wandering through the audience. No need to rehearse, we'll wing it."

So we do the play. I wander around the audience and try to make myself hated to the point everybody wants me dead. It is a murder mystery and I die first. So I wander around, pick on people, try to publicly embarrass as many as I can before the beginning of the play.

So we do it. We finish. There is laughter. Afterward I walk around and visit with friends in the audience. There is my friend Micah, whose wife was in the play. He does not look amused. When I ask if the play was all he expected, he makes a disgusted snort and agrees that it was.

Thinking I might get my needed positive affirmation elsewhere, I wander over to a group from our church. I sit down asking if they enjoyed the show. I am greeted by stony silence. Finally, the old retired minister in the group advises, "Don't quit your day job." The wife of one of the actors leaned in and seems to support the assessment.

The old adage is true. Dying is easy, comedy is hard. Community Murder Mystery Theater is Way harder.

Xmas Xberry

So there we were gathered around the reading table. A core group called "Neighbors Without Shame." All of us have been super busy and we all agreed to be in another quick murder mystery for the Old German(OG) writer. Tonight was our first read through and, for most of us, our first time reading the whole play.

It is another corny take on Dickens "A Christmas Carol." It is set as a 1930s radio broadcast and several of the cast has multiple roles. We get started and several of us, myself included, stumble over the obscure names in the script.

OG: What is WRONG with you people? Have you not ever read the story? Have you not seen any of the hundreds of versions of movies and TV specials? Do you really not know the names of these characters?!!

Girl in the play: I never heard of a Fred in the story.

OG: Fred was Scrooge's Nephew!

Woman in the play: I thought that was Bob Cratchet.

OG: NO! Cratchet was his poor employee who had to work on Christmas and had a starving family back home with a crippled child. Scrooge was his stingy employer who had no Christmas joy for anybody.

Girl: Well, I never heard of Fred.

OG: You need to go watch the movie

Me: Which one?

OG: Any of them!!

Me: OK OK OK so who was this Scrooge guy supposed to be?

That old German looked like steam was about to blast out of his ears... til he saw I was kidding.