My first performance with a professional theatre company

I love LA more each day... especially when I get a chance to perform live for an audience! As I briefly mentioned before, this weekend's show was a 3-in-1 show (each actor performing something different). The first performer was Jaime, and she was telling tales of her... adventurous (major understatement) youth that included some hilarious and frightening stories about usage of certain drugs. I was kind of like Vanna White during this bit, or at least that's what they called me. I like to think I had a bit more personality though Anway, I would spin this wheel and call out which stories she had to tell. :-D We had some running banter planned beforehand to keep a pace moving and a few bits between us to cause some conflict, like her feigning as if she didn't want to do it and my job was to make her. 

After Jaime came Terry. Terry told his story about what it was like to drive a limo for the Saudi royal family. WOW! During his performance I had more of a technical job, working the slide show, but I was on stage while I did it, so we tried to incorporate it in as much as possible.

Richard played the piano, sang, and told short quips in between, pretending we were all at this restaurant here in LA called Twain's. I was his waitress, I came on three different times, and did my waitress-y bit, talking to Richard in between songs, checking up on him, getting refills and taking orders. At the very end of the show when Richard starts playing 'California Dreamin' and Jaime and Terry are "singing" a hilarious version of it, I stomp in ad slap the check on the piano... turns out they don't have cash. ANNNNNNND BLACK OUT. I promise it was much funnier to watch, but the explanation is difficult :-) I became quite the running gag throughout the show which was good because you are always more likely to get laughs when you DON'T ask for them. It was a great opportunity getting to work a lot of improv during the show, as only some of the lines were solid, the rest were scenarios for me to accomplish while I was on stage.

I also worked as the stage manager during this weekend's run of One Ups (the show title by the way, because I don't believe I mentioned it before). It was kind of intense doing both but for the most part it went swimmingly. The part that did not however, was Saturday night, Terry's slide show did not work. The slide show took the computer's wallpaper and that was it. We had so many people try and work on it with no luck. We were running about 20 minutes late and eventually decided to start the show while some people were still working on it. So I go on stage and am doing Jaime's act, and as soon as I run off (with less than one minute between Jaime and Terry's acts) JJ (producer/director) debriefs me explains what I am going to do instead. It was quite hectic, and although we never got the projector to pull through Saturday night, the show still went really well. I was so fortunate to have gotten to work with the group that I did this week. Cheers!