The Thespian's Alphabet-B
B is for backstage.
Every thespian knows what crazy awesome stuff goes on backstage. In my drama class, we perform 2 musicals a year, one for elementary schoolers, and one for middle-and-high-schoolers. We help each other with things backstage. So I have the joy of helping a bunch of straggling, excited, totally sweet and adorable little kids in numbers of 35 or more get costumes on and off, switching microphones, and getting onstage when their cue is heard. Then, it switches around and the straggling, adorable amateurs help us, who range from being new to musical theatre to having been there for years. The backstage area we have is crammed full of costumes each year for such drastically different musicals like Alice in Wonderland, Fiddler on the Roof, Annie, and The Musical Adventures of Tom Sawyer. We have to keep names on things, have to switch microphones fast, and have the nightmare of trying to get in and out of costumes and help other people get in and out of THEIRS in 8 minutes. Yike!
But where else will you find a bunch of Russian peasants playing ninja?
Where else will you find a fully-fledged bird tail with no bird?
Where else will you find a fully concentrating teenager covering a child's cheeks with lipstick?
Where else will you find Alice in Wonderland listening to an iPod?
Another thing about being backstage is, at least, in our musical theatre group, there are generally 30 girls and 5 boys-give or take a couple. Which means, every year there's a girl running around looking strangely masculine. Never fails. And girls generally talk more than boys, right? Bingo. WE CAN NOT STOP TALKING. Even I have mouthed hurried words in the wings moments before my entrance. (It was to a fellow actor, and was needed!) With our microphones on, the rule has become "be quiet until you get down the hall-take the mic off-and be quiet still."
It's really hard to follow, especially for a talkative chick like me.
Ah, backstage is such a loverly place.
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