A year and a half ago, I had a post detailing my first time on stage as an adult and how enjoyable the entire experience was. I don’t think I ever wrote a follow-up but the play went over well and audiences responded very positively! I made and still have many friends from that experience. Fast forward to the beginning of this year and I auditioned for another British play, The 39 Steps. To my surprise, I got a part! I’d say it was a lead role, but with a cast of only four, we were all leads! I played the role of Richard Hannay and, to be honest, I had an easier character job because I was the only actor who remained the same character throughout the play! (For the uninformed, there are dozens of characters among those four cast members – sometimes in the same scene!) Here’s a photo from one of my favorite scenes in the play, when Hannay has to figure out a way to extricate himself from underneath a dead woman draped across a chair. That never failed to get the audience laughing!
Now fast forward to a couple months ago. The local summer musical was announced to be Mary Poppins, which happened to be a favorite movie of my childhood. I mean, who doesn’t know the tune to Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious, Let’s Go Fly a Kite, or Jolly Holiday? Well, the acting bug bit again and, long story short, I was fortunate enough to get cast as BERT!
Hang on…Fawlty Towers, The 39 Steps, and now Mary Poppins. I’m beginning to notice a typecasting pattern…
Thankfully the auditions were a couple months ahead of actual rehearsals, so I have had time to learn most of the songs (at least the ones that I have parts in). We’re about to wrap up our first week of rehearsals and it has been great so far. The rest of the cast is awesome and the director, music director, and choreographer are fantastic. I admit, I initially had concerns about me being able to do the dancing and choreography, but after this week I think it’ll work out fine.
You know…eventually
“Mary” and I have been spending most of our time so far on just the “Supercali-” song. There’s a section in it where we have to spell the letters (yes, all of them!) when our bodies. So far, our slow speed is OK, but fast is…well, a bit less than OK. In the end, it comes down to practice, practice, practice! Thankfully we have 8 weeks or so to do just that, which is more than we had in either of the other two plays. Good thing too, because the timing and music needs to be…Practically Perfect!
(That’s a Mary Poppins musical reference. Kudos if you got it.)
I’ll post an update sometime later after several weeks have passed to update our progress.
