I have been quite busy the last few weeks. Every now and then I get possessed by a form of madness, for which there is no treatment and one just has to let run. Perhaps, with time, it will pass. Or not. And that is called acting. As you may know I do technical theater, lighting design etc. for enjoyment and some kind of social life outside of this computer and room. And once in awhile I cross over into the light and get up on the stage. Yeah, yeah, I know, that’s like heresy or something for a techie to act but you know it’s sort of like being behind enemy lines it’s kind of intense. In any case the show I am in opens this Thurs. It’s another production of The Laramie Project. It’s about the real life murder of a young gay college student, Matthew Shepard and the aftermath in Laramie Wyoming. It’s something of a difficult play to do. All the characters (more then 50) are real life people and the dialog is from interviews and found texts so is not phrased, perhaps, the way a finely crafted line would be.
We are doing it with a cast of 8, so obviously we do multiple characters. I’m doing Doc (something of a local figure-played by Steve Buscemi in the movie), a priest, a detective, a bar owner and several other smaller parts. It’s been challenging. From the theatrical sense and of course from the OCD.
I do things in the play, in character, that I do not do in real life. Having contamination type OCD makes things like costuming a challenge-you know, who the hell wore this last??? I get around that by providing my own costumes, and I tend to pick contemporary plays to be in so that the clothing can be used in real life. But there are other things, physical things that I would not do normally like shaking hands, hugging, sitting on floors, (in my first play I had a love scene-but that had its really pleasant aspects to it as well) and of course there is no washing hands on stage…. the really cool thing is that when in character and on stage in front of the audience, the OCD is not a factor. Maybe later in the evening it is but not right then. And that is really something. It’s why I do acting from time to time. Those moments on stage are really worth it all.
And for this show I am designing the lights as well so get to keep my techie cred.
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