Green Room Greatness...

I've spent a lot of time in this one particular theater over the past couple of years, done a lot of shows, seen a lot of things, met a lot of wonderful people. Many of those wonderful people you will see on stage as the curtain rises and the players walk on and break the legs of the stage, as it were.

But there are many people you miss when you pay for your ticket and sit in your seat. They're working behind the scenes and unless you're in a show or involved with the theater in some other way, you never see them.

One such person is Holly, and part of what she loves to do at the theater is dress up the Green Room. In the past four months I've seen the room transform from a ode to the Addams Family, an ode to George Bailey and Bedford Falls, and finally an ode to 1930s Long Island.

Our current show runs until the beginning of February and then Mary Poppins takes over. I'm sure Holly's already thinking of how she can Poppin-ize the space. I don't know what she'll come up with, but I'm sure it will dazzle.

I don't know if other theaters do this--this one obviously doesn't have to. A green room is important for the performers and techs, but decorating it to match the theme of a show, that's just a labor of love. Thanks Holly and CPT for going above and beyond!

A Simple Flip Of A Hat...

I've done a lot of shows over years and in many of them, I've been given hats as part of my various costumes. Now, I wear hats every day. I wear hats in the summer to avoid sunburns on the top of my head. I wear hats in winter to keep from freezing to death. And I wear hats in the spring and fall...just because.

So, there have been times when doing these shows when we have some down time. Some/most pull out their phones and do a little surfing/texting. I've been known to do that as well. But, give a guy a hat, and it just begs to be flipped.

Attempting a hat flip is sort of like standing atop a diving board and having everyone look at you before a big dive. It's not a lot of pressure, but there's some. Last week I was in the green room with a few from the cast and I thought I'd give it a try.

I'm not very good but I'm getting to the point where most of the time, the hat at least hits the top of my head. When I tried it a couple of times during intermission of one of our shows last week, a fellow cast member, Brian Hill took out his phone and began recording.

I tried once...failed.

I tried twice...failed.

I tried thrice...and did not fail.

A few clapped. Brian said, "I got it on video!" And he sent me the shot. It's short, but that's okay. He did catch the moment the hat floated down and landed squarely on the top of my head. 

Hats, at least the kind we wear in shows and the type men used to wear every day, are something I wish would make a return. I'd love to see men wearing fedoras, pork pie, bowlers, straw hats, Panamas, even top hats would be cool. I suppose the closest thing we have in our modern society would be a cowboy hat. I think trying to flip one of those would be a true test.

So, here's the flip. Thanks Brian for preserving the moment.

People Who Live With Glass Tables...Should Not Stand On Them

The funny thing is I climbed on top of the table in order to try and stop someone from getting hurt. You see,  for each show the theater does, some amazing people decorate our green room. And what they did for Christmas was beautiful. For one decoration, they hung a huge exercise ball on the ceiling. The problem came when that huge exercise ball became separated from it's connection and it fell down. Some of the kids were kicking the ball around and it was big enough to cause some serious damage. I thought if I could reach the ceiling and retrieve the thing it was attached to, I could re-attach it and put it back up, thus eliminating any potential problems.

So, I positioned the table in the room and climbed up on it.

There was one big problem...

The table had a glass top.

Okay, two problems...

It had a glass top and I didn't know. That table had a tablecloth on it and it never dawned on me that there was glass under there.

So, I'm standing the table and suddenly, I'm falling and the sound of shattering glass fills the empty room. Screams of "What was that?" filled the halls as those not in the room heard the commotion and came to investigate.

At first, I was just dazed and embarrassed. I felt like an idiot for doing something so stupid. It was then I saw the blood. Somehow when I fell, my wrist was cut--not badly, but enough to start bleeding.

It took some work, but we finally got the bleeding to stop. I had to do the show with a bandage wrapped around my hand. It wasn't until later that I found out, my left foot did not escape unscathed. It got pounded, too (I wasn't wearing shoes when I stood on the table...). After the show I took off my shoe and saw the results.

It's been a week since all this happened. I'm still healing, and doing better. As I did the show that night, I realized that I could have been hurt so much worse than I was. I could have had my arm or leg sliced open, but that didn't happen. My stupidity could have ended up costing more than the cost of a replacement table. I am very lucky. I'll probably always have a scar on my wrist, a reminder of my poor choice. Hopefully it will make me remember not to stand on any more glass tables.