"The Ghetto of Funny"

That was a new term developed by one of my cast mates tonight. It was in specific reference to a note the director was giving me. He had asked me to punch a certain line in the script more than I have been so far. He wanted the joke to be caught by the audience. It was at this point that he admitted, (in an almost reluctant manner) that said line was "almost" or "kind of" funny.

Wise ass that I am, I mentioned it was in the "neighborhood of funny". This cast mate of mine, (who is the purser's "angel partner" in this show) chimed in with the notion that it was in the "ghetto of funny". That was a better term, so it wins the honor of having this entry titled after it. I think that has the makings of a catch all phrase for any joke in the show that is not that clever, but is not horrible either. (Though this one is a pun and those have never been funny to me.)

Aside from creating new catchphrases, the cast ran act one tonight. The non-dancing parts were say, a 5 out of ten in quality. The singing hovered around 4 most of the night, because the musical director is not there to kick our butts into gear. So laziness does slip in a bit for most.

Dancing went quite well. Get this, blog readers; for one run through of one of the dances, (we went through it several times), I did not detect being lost for any significant amount of time! I congratulate myself, and anyone reading this is more than welcome to congratulate me as well.

Tomorrow, from what I understand, costumes will be attempted. Except for the hat, I do believe I have a full "day" uniform. Despite recent talk of having the officers wear the same uniform throughout the show, the idea of separate day and night uniforms (informal and formal) has resurfaced. So, we will see which notion comes out on top.

Either way, it will be nice to get into costume. I have mentioned on this blog before how much more a character starts to define himself once he is in costume.

To help that along, I think I will buy a pack of my character's favorite cigarettes, and have them with me before rehearsal. Just to get into the mood more. I do little things like that when applicable. Holding a cigarette by its nature alters the way one holds one's self. We will see if that is a positive thing. (For those keeping score, Lucky Strike are the brand I chose my character to smoke, when I wrote the back story.)

I also want to experiment some with how I will be wearing my hair. Even if I have the hat on, I want some kind of semi-authentic hair style underneath. I plan on parting it down the middle. (Something the real me NEVER does.) That should add to the notion of being someone else. Besides even if it doesn't, my hair has almost never required specific attention in the roles I play. This way I can pretend it matters.