Leaving Office

A strange ending to my days as JFK on stage...

Those who read this blog know that I am locked in mortal struggle with route 340...the main way to get from my home to the Old Opera House. What should have been a leisurely Sunday afternoon drive to a closing matinee became a 90 minute stop and go traffic nightmare.

I do not really want to get into the details of the traffic, or the accident that caused it. Suffice to say, I knew that I was not going to make it in time for curtain. A first ever.

I was able to call and leave a message, as well as get a message to the managing director personally. I wasn't sure what would occur, but learned that several others were trapped in the same predicament as I.

I was the last one there, but when I got there, I learned that they simply switch the order of the acts. What would have been act 2, went on first. Meaning that my show was to be the very first one after intermission.

This gave me about 30 minutes to gather myself after I got there. I was very grateful for that.

The performance itself, despite breaking our pattern, was a success. I slipped up once or twice, but I doubt anyone in the audience noticed.

Speaking of the audience, they were smaller and not as responsive as last night, but far better than Friday night. So despite the heartaches leading into today, it was a decent note to end on.

It really has been quite a ride. Only about 5 weeks total to rehearse, one and a half of which went unused by my play, because of schedule issues. Then casting issues after someone quit. Once the cast was finally in place, we have maybe total run throughs as a cast before we went on. Not to mention that a week or so ago it felt very rough and spotty.

Yet despite all of that we had a very productive, well run, and for my part enjoyable weekend of performances. Despite the problems, I really started to get into portraying a silent JFK. Weird as the play was, it gave me a real chance for unique, nuanced work, which is why I signed on in the first place.

Not only did I get to sharpen my nuance work, I was told I looked very much, as well as sounding (for my one line) very much like the real JFK. This, in the end, was one of my main goals. Knowing that more than one person thought I achieved it makes me feel quite happy.

So here's to the end of the "Kennedy Administration", one of the most bizarre, but also most challenging and satisfying acting experiences I have yet had.