"Acting!" "Genius!"

My close shave was trying out for the Minneapolis Children's Theatre school, getting in, and not being able to go because of the scholarship I needed. About six months later the school's head, John Clarke Donahue, was outed as a paedophile (I can post this 'cos he was convicted). Phew! Do you remember that scandal, Dan?

Winnie The Pooh - Animal #2 Fiddler On The Roof - Lazar Wolf Hound Of The Baskervilles - Butler Joseph And The Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat - Jacob, Potiphar Great Expectations - Herbert Pocket West Side Story - Action The Sound Of Music - Max Detweiler You Can't Take It With You - Wilbur C. Henderson Falstaff - Man In Big Brown Peasant Sack

I was also a detective in some random melodrama freshman year of high school, but I can't remember the name of it.

Idjits. They missed their chance to smooch a babe, but now you can laugh at them from a great distance as their arteries harden.

I also played the Lion in the Wizard of Oz at school when I was (I think about) seven or eight. It was quite challenging for me to play such a weedy character.

I played Maid Marion in Robin Hood, once. It was some sort of "modern" Robin Hood set in the ghetto. It struck me as very funny. But my best stories are all backstage stories, working crew stuff. I just always wanted to be the makeup artist at the school productions. Once this one guy WHO REALLY SUCKED AND HE WAS AN ASSHOLE was the lead guy in Lion the Witch and the Wardrobe and I was doing his makeup and like we were sort of dating and he like leaned in like he was going to kiss me and I'm all whatever and then he says "You thought I was going to kiss you" and I said "I HOPE you weren't going to kiss me, you're covered in greasepaint shit" and he got like offended. Then this friend of mine, Josh, he was playing some other character who was the bad guy, some wolf, and he made the wolf all Scottish and wore a kilt and we did his makeup too, and then this girl, who called herself Ally even though HER NAME WASN'T ALLY and was obsessed with me and had me called into the principal's office because one day I walked by without saying hi and cried and cried over it and said I was her "best friend", she was sitting all over him, telling him he had the prettiest blue eyes ever (he has green eyes) and then he like tried to get up and she jumped on him and he ended up dropping her into a brick wall.

Sigh.

lol @ ally on this thread!!!

a question...how the FUCK do I get involved in amateur drama in London? I've been trying to do this for about 6 months, googling, emailing groups, they're all dead in the water and any directories of them are obsolete. It surely can't be that hard, can it? Or is there another way, eg a class where you do a play as well? i can't believe how hard i'm having to try to get somewhere with this...

Star of the show as Billy Flynn in 'Chicago' at school, triumphantly followed by an assured turn as Sky Masterson in 'Guys and Dolls' the year later (asked back cos none of the lads in that year wanted to be a lead).

In between I did panto (we all do, darling, keeps the wolf from the door) lustily singing 'Lean on Me' to Snow White as the Huntsman sent out to kill her. Huge themes, huge.

Had a gig singing swing/easy listening with a group in local hotels/bars/functions for a few months the year after, bit of pocket money kinda thing.

Career guidance at school fairly puzzled when I told him I wanted to do theoretical physics at Trinity, haven't done anything of the sort since I left school.

LG it might be worth looking at listings to find some amateur productions you can go to and make contact?

that was going to be my suggestion; oftentimes the only way to get into the scene is by meeting someone already in it, and the likelihood of that goes up if you start stalking the productions that interest you most

yeah i managed to find some that have sort of informal reading sessions and stuff. it's also that thing where it's hard to tell what the group will be like. i'm not massively picky but i obviously want to meet some new friends etc...

London probably not a prime spot for amateur theatricals, what with all the professional actors milling around, shouldering one another roughly, and vacuuming up every ort of available oxygen. My advice is to go to the sticks, where they are famished for the chance to wear greasepaint, don tacky garb, and prance about the stage.

NB: I was a drama geek in my secondary school days. Leading man, naturally.

i've been a part of five productions this year, and am currently playing P@nch in 25th Annual Putn@m County Spelling Bee

my first and last leading role
http://imgur.com/WMQch.jpg

Sorta off-topic but: a friend of mine recently bought, then left in his bathroom for people to flip through, a cheapo used paperback called DIGESTS OF 500 PLAYS, which includes not only the expected one-paragraph plot summaries, but also short sections with advice and guidelines about staging them, including the always-hilarious "DIFFICULTIES" (for King Lear: "DIFFICULTIES - Exceptional actor required for title role; blinding of Gloucester must carefully staged to avoid revolting the audience"; for Faust, Pt. I: "Only a very literary-minded audience will accept that the protagonist's fate remains unresolved at the play's conclusion.")

The audience is revolting!

i got a part in a one act play, a piece of original material about a council worker trying to evict an old couple from their flat. i play the council bloke. pretty pleased about it, it's not a mindblowing work of genius as a play but it gets me back into acting. and a big time consuming hobby!

great news!!

(x) weeks to rehearse and rehearse?

think about 2 months to rehearse, prob two midweek 2 hour rehearsals and a weekend 5 hour one.

that is exciting, dude

had my dress rehearsal for this tonight. it went really well and i'm very pleased, serious emotional crash after though, just feel mega disorientated and weird. i guess it's what happens after you throw yourself into being someone else.