On My Own

When you go see a play, do you like it when the actors come into the house and down the aisles and get really close to you? I am guessing you don’t, because no one does. It’s weird and uncomfortable and it makes you never want to go see a play ever again.

I don’t know why directors do this. Maybe they had a failed acting career and now they hate audiences. Or maybe they have too many actors to fit on stage. Or maybe some of the actors aren’t talented/attractive enough to be lit by stage lights, so they are better placed in the semi-dark of the house.

Or maybe, as was the case with my high school director in the 1996 production of “Bye Bye Birdie,” it was all three of these reasons combined. 

As a ninth grader, I auditioned for Bye-Bye Birdie with high hopes. I showed up with a song prepared: “On My Own” from my musical obsession: Les Miserables. I was weirdly obsessed with the character of Eponine – a tragic girl desperately loves a guy who only sees her as a friend because maybe she wasn’t that pretty or popular or well-dressed.

If you don’t know the song, it is beautiful and awful at the same time. I can only imagine how many times high school directors have had to listen to homely girls use it for auditions; they must keep a tally. Even now, I can hear my voice quaver with nerves as I slowly made everyone in that room uncomfortable with my raw display of emotion.  In retrospect I am unspeakably embarrassed.

I was not cast in a speaking role, but rather as a background character in the song “Telephone Hour.” [Not a too bad, considering.] However, since there were so many students in the show, I was actually not allowed to dance on stage. Instead, I was directed to dance in the bleachers. Not like “part of the set” bleachers, but actual bleachers. Our theater was in a multi-purpose gym.

This was a little off-putting. Not only because I was no longer technically in the scene, but also because it is kind of hard to dance on bleachers.  To add insult to injury, on opening night they forgot to turn on the lights on the bleachers. I ended up singing and doing the grapevine in the dark. I mean, not that anyone was looking. Those who did were probably like “Wow, that girl is really into this musical, dancing over there in the dark like she’s in the show.”

As I write this I feel like I must be exaggerating, but weirdly I am not. This happened. And it’s not even the worst thing that happened during my high school musical career. That is a story for another time.