Local theatre group has given me the part of the head Dwarf in Snow White. I’m a little grumbly because I’m only in a couple of scenes compared with last year’s part where I was one of the main characters. The character is kind of flat because the dwarves main schtick is they all have names like Sorry, Who, Kidding etc. making it similar to that old baseball sketch but not as well written. But I’m making sure to take it in my stride. Quite a few people were upset with the part they got and I’m making sure that I’m not going to be a nuisance about it.
I think back to my childhood when one of my brother’s was in the nativity play at Christmas and was the inn keeper and he was only in that for one scene but he did the part so well for his age they put him in the local paper!
I’m with tripwire on the hamming it up. I remember once I played Lord Lopsided in The Shoemaker and The Elves, and they basically went “Okay, he’s a merry fop, who walks in an exaggerated manner.” Not a big part, just a couple of scenes and a song. I took it a bit past merry fop, and more into jovially insane - riding(and falling off) an invisible horse, improvising half my lines(Thankfully, I’d done a few improv shows with the two leads, and we knew how to bounce off each other), just wandering about and making a nuisance of myself, and generally carrying on like Brian Blessed if Brian Blessed had been rapidly double-fisting LSD and Amphetamines.
It went down so well(more than a little thanks to the leads being very quick on their feet) that we actually got booked for an extended run, including a one-off late-night, mostly improvised 18+ special performance. We even had people buying tickets to see it twice, honestly one of the most successful shows I’ve ever been a part of.
We’re like a month away and things do not look promising. The kids don’t know the words, we’ve had constant absences and the piano recordings of the songs are all wrong.
I’m finding it very frustrating and my time is being constantly wasted. Because I only appear in two scenes in the second half I spend most of my time just standing around. We get to the scenes towards the end of the session at which point everyone is tired and low on energy.
We would have done better to get people in to do one scene a night over and over until we’ve got it rather than trying to run through every scene every rehearsal.
Opening night is Wednesday. It’s looking better but there’s still a load of problems. Quiet songs, long transitions between scenes for scenery. They’ve given me a second small role to replace someone who left. The guy playing the king broke his nose yesterday so got that all covered up. They’ve added a load of new dance moves to keep Heigh-ho going while they change the set.