For the past few weeks, I've been attending rehearsals for a play with a local thater guild (basically it's a means to raise funds for the local grammar school), that's doing a modernized version of Damn Yankees.

Well last week, they finally had auditions, and today I received word that I will be playing the younger version of one of the main characters.  For those of you who have seen the film version of Damn Yankess, it would be the role played by Tab Hunter.

Well, long story short (too late), there is a scene in the play where the character has to sing a solo as he leaves a goodbye note to his wife, but there was never any song assigned to it.  I had auditioned for another role as well, but reserved myself to the fact that I would probably be getting this one.

So I started listening to a bunch of different options, found one I liked, and brought it up to the director today during a break, which she replied "Can you sing it?".  "Oh yeah" I said, and proceeded to break into a few lines from it.  She liked it, and said she would see what she could do.

After the break, she was talking to the producer, and called me over, and had me sing a few lines for her as well.  Well, I'll just say the producer was stunned, and said I gave her goosebumps.  Ha Ha Ha.  It's still not 100% set in stone if that's the song that will be used, but I think its got a pretty good shot.   The song?

Nat King Cole

(I Love You) For Sentimental Reasons.


Yep, if I'm not careful, I'm gonna turn into Jack Amsterdam one day, and never look back.


I'll see if I can't get some pictures to post or maybe a short video that I can pop up on MySpace or AcidPlanet once it's done.  The first show is March 4th.


I'm fired up!


Things are going to start happening for me - Navin R Johnson   

Sweet, Mike.  I'm also going to be in a one act play entitled "The case of the crushed petunias", and I have an improv show on wednesday (feb 1st).  Good luck.

Congrats, good luck man.

Dress Rehearsal tonight, and two days to the opener.

I'm starting to wear out.

Wow Mike!
Fantastic news. I'm thrilled for you.   It sounds like a lot of fun.
Pictures would be great. I would love to see them.

Cindy

Fun?  It sounds like frikin' torture to me.  I could never do that.

Good luck to you, though, Mike.  Break a leg, right?

I can see Shelton in the role of Peter Pan.  I would post a picture where I've doctored a picture of PP with Shelton's face, but I do not have Adobe on this computer.  Just imagine that I did it and laugh.

Congratulations.

Congrats Mike. Hope all goes well.

Quoted from greg I can see Shelton in the role of Peter Pan.

I hope it's because I refuse to grow up.  

I should at least have pictures, but my parents are going to go to the Sunday show with their fancy new dvd camcorder, so I'm going to try to get some footage online.

Dress rehearsal last night went alright.  There are still a few scenes that need to be ironed out, but I think it will be a solid show.

Fucking in Polish means bravo! Bravo, Mike!

Well done, Deano  

Have a fantastic time and take pics please.

Love,
Andy x

I throughly enjoyed the plays and musical I was in (I have 8 under my belt -- I think, it's been awhile). It's a totally different animal doing theatre as opposed to film. My favorite parts were the pickup rehearsals. That's when everything went really off the wall and goofy.

Enjoy Mike. You'll never forget it.

I have to m,emorize my lines for "The Case of the Crfushed Petumnias" this weekend  They are all like speeches.  The on;y other play i have been in was "Once Upon a Matress" Where I p;layed thge mute king.  No lines to memorize, just pantomime.  This...this is hard...

Any suggestion Mike?  George?

Best of luck to you Mike.

Practice practice practice. The more you read it, the more you'll remember it. It would also help to have someone read the lines immediately preceeding yours (ideally the whole scene with you) so you have the cues down.

Do it without the script as much as possible once you've read it a dozen or so times. You'll remember more when you don't have anything to fall back on.

George is right.  The best way to learn lines is through repetition.  Read from the script, get a feel for it, and then try to say it with the script in your hand, but only look at it when you absolutely need to.

Another method is to figure out just what it is, exactly, that you're trying to get across.  For example, I'm in a scene where the devil's son in law is trying to get me a tryout for the White Sox.  Now, the main objective for him is to promise a huge batting average, many stolen bases, etc. etc., so he's got a little bit of creative license there.  The one thing that he really can't tinker around with is the line that the person he's speaking to is supposed to respond to.  If the cue gets screwed up there are huge problems.


I've done a few things myself, where I changed or added things, but always kept the cue.  Example:

Original Line

Sheldon, it's me, Mac.  That was fantastic!  I haven't felt this good in 30 years.  How did you do it?

My change:

Sheldon, it's me, Mac.  That was fantastic!  The old Mac?  He gone!  How did you do it?


Being in Chicago, and knowing that everyone has at one time or another heard Hawk say that famous line, I decided to use it.  The result?  One of the biggest laughs in the play, and I still kept the cue intact.

So you have a couple of choices based on the type of director youre dealing with.  Memorize word for word through repitition, or get the jist of it across.

Well, I suppose I should say something about opening night.  It went very well. I had a lot of people come up to me after the show, and said that it was great, and that I did a great job.  I stopped at a gas station afterward, and a lady came up to me, and she was like "Weren't you in the show tonight?  You were great."

So that was pretty cool.  I've got a matinee today at 3, and I'm hoping that one of my friends will be taking pictures at some point that I can put up.  My mom and brother will be there today, and my mom is filming onto a dvd, so I may even be able to upload something.  If anybody has any idea of how to do that, and could help out, that would be great, cause I'm clueless.

Do you have a USb cable with ure camera?