Scintilla13 Day 10
Sometimes we wish that we could hit the rewind button. Talk about an experience that you would do over if you could.
I’m not sure if by “rewind” and “do over” this prompt means something I would go back and change, or something that went so well I’d like to go back and experience again. Because the latter is less depressing, I’m going to go with that interpretation.
As an amateur actor, I could list any number of of stage experiences. There are a few that stick out in my mind most however, and if I had the chance to rewind and experience a performance of one of them, there’s a good chance I’d pick a local performance of the musical Scrooge!
To begin with, I had two solos in that show, and it was the first time I’d ever had any amount of singing on stage. I still don’t do musicals much, but that was the first time I ever sang by myself. I had multiple roles, but the one that included the solos was that of Tom Jenkins. You may recall his most famous number from that show. It’s called “Thank You Very Much.” It’s played a lot on Christmas commercials.
I’ve rarely been more nervous before a performance, or more satisfied and proud of myself afterward, especially after that number. Eight nights and only one mistake that I recall. I had the entire huge company singing behind me for that number, and my first number, (the lesser known “Father Christmas”, though that one wasn’t as big a moment in the play.) Felt good.
I didn’t befriend everyone personally. But by the time we opened, the company showed me great respect by working so hard to get that number right. I won’t lie and pretend their attentions were always so sharp as a group throughout the play, but they always came through for me in those big moments, and I always did my best to come through for them.
I was told it was because I was seen to take such pride in my work that I inspired the similar commitment from the 30 or so others in the scene. I can’t explain it directly, but I’m grateful it happened. Some of those people I never saw again, but the scenes meant more to me because they meant more to them.
Sadly, the musical director of that show changed the ending, thus eliminating the chance for the audience to give us the applause we were due. I never liked the choice for obvious reasons. It wasn’t at all fair to us. But the commitment that the company showed me during the performance of that scene almost made up for the fact we were denied our applause for one of the biggest numbers in the show.
So, I’d rewind and do that again.
But not just because of the power of performing. Like I said, the magic of just getting to know people that become friends, (some of them important friends even all these years later) made that show unique in my career. It was the largest cast I’ve ever been a part of, and again, most of the local theatre friends I have now, of any level, were connected with that show somehow. If I had never been in that one, I would know considerably fewer people today.
Some of those people have betrayed me. Some are still casual friends, and a few are intimate friends. But to experience them entering my life again…to see those first few awkward moments of talking, getting to know each other, complaining together about something in the show…I’d like to rewind that. Even knowing how some of the chapters would end.
Finally, it was a better time for that theatre. The current terrible management of that venue has sort of turned it into a corporate shill these days, and I don’t perform there anymore. But I’d like to go back to a time before all that happened, and enjoy that venue once more.
So there you have it. Respect, making friends, building my own confidence, and memories of a better time in some ways. All reason I’d rewind and play my performance in Scrooge! if I could do so without negative effects.
Scintilla13 Day 9
What is the longest thing you know by heart (for example, a prayer, speech, commercial jingle, etc.)? Why did you learn it?
I don’t think I could recite it now, though I haven’t tried. But for a while, I had committed to memory the first 15 minutes of the one-man script, “Give ’em Hell, Harry!” 15 minutes may not sound like much, but as an actor I can assure you, it’s more than you think when you have to commit it to memory.
Not that I had to commit it to memory. But I own a copy of it, and a few years ago I toyed with the idea of seeing if I could perform it, either in local theatres, or in schools or something like that. Truman is one of my favorite historical figures, and with a one-man show, the only person you need to be on board is yourself. A natural win.
But I wanted to see if I could commit such large amounts of text to memory and still perform them well. I committed about five minutes of it at a time, (still a lot). About once a week, I’d then add the next five minutes, recite that to myself, and then recite the previous parts, with the new section tacked on the end.
Like I said, after about a month or so, I had committed about the first 15 minutes of it to memory. I then took a break from adding more sections, and just performed that 15 minutes once a day or so.
I wouldn’t always get all the way through, but I did about half the time, and I have little doubt that if I had continued, I would have not only mastered that chunk, but eventually the entire show.
I gave up on the project as other things presented themselves in my life. It’s time consuming to be in any show, let alone a show when you are the only actor. But I am glad I did it, because I learned not only an even greater appreciation for Truman, (a lot of the words are really his) but for theatre and language, two things I already value highly.
The project isn’t dead, by the way. I still have my copy of the script, and may yet give it a try in the future. My opportunities for such things are slightly greater now, and the time may come where I once again commit the first 15 minutes, in addition to the rest of it, to memory.
(This post is part of the Scintilla Project.)
Scintilla13 Day 8
Write about a time when a preconceived notion or opinion (about a person, place, thing, etc.) turned out to be wrong. What did it take to change your mind?
It wasn’t a long standing or especially strong preconceived notion, but I suppose it qualifies.
A few years ago there was an outdoor performance of Taming of the Shrew in a park down the street from where I lived at the time. Free admission. It’s not one of my favorite plays, and in fact, i don’t much like it at all. But it was free Shakespeare, so I went.
As predicted, the show was okay. My notions about that story haven’t changed much. But during intermission, one of the actors came out on stage with a microphone and started singing.
It was part of the plan. During the break, actors from the show would come out and sing songs that had some small relevance to the action of the play. Or parodies of same, such as “I Wanna Tame a Kate”, sung to the tune of “I Wanna Be Sedated”. (Yes, really.)
When I realized what they were doing after the first song, I figured it would be terrible. Not funny. Ham-fisted. Not well done. For the most part it was all three of those things.
The third or fourth actor to come out had nothing but a ukulele. The visual was memorable in its own right, because he was playing the dorkiest character in the show, and he dressed the part. (Literally.) Wild, almost Einstein-like hair. Thick glasses. Stupid tie. After he strummed a few chords, he opened “Total Eclipse of the Heart” in the most passive, nerdy, but surprisingly competent voice. And extended riff and falsetto note ended the piece.
By that time I had already laughed more than once, which I presume was the point. I hate to say it, but I enjoyed that ridiculous moment more than the play itself.
The resat of the singers were adequate, but what I expected. The ukulele guy alone proved my prediction of disliking the halftime show quite wrong.
(Though if it hadn’t been for him, I think it would have been accurate.)
Preconceived notion, (mostly) shattered.
Scintilla13 Day 7
Write about someone who was a mentor for you.
The issue of mentors is one of the most sensitive for me. Reason being, I’ve never had one.
You can read that again, or you can read this sentence wherein I repeat that staggering claim: I’ve never had a mentor. Not a teacher. Not an employer. Not someone from a chance meeting, or someone to which I was introduced. Not in writing, not in acting, and not in life. Nobody has ever once stepped up and taken me under their wing to guide me towards a more successful application of my talents and personality.
This is a bit of a sore issue with me, particularly given the fact that I was fatherless by the time I was seven, and despite many men within my family and nearby, nobody stepped up to be a male guiding influence in my life.
Not that a mentor has to be a male. It doesn’t. I only use that particular circumstance to show how much opportunity and necessity there would have been for a young me to have a mentor. But women failed just as much to fill this void as men did.
The result is that almost anything I have done, I’ve had to do on my own, for the most part, or had to quit before it was realized. I liken it to being dropped in the middle of a Siberian forest with the sharpest ax ever made, and being told to hack my way through until I find shelter. I’m not told which direction to start hacking, or for that matter how to hack. I just have an ax and a vague knowledge as to how to use it. I start swinging and hope I fell enough trees in the right direction to get out of the woods.
In my life, especially when I was young and most in need of a solid, invested mentor, I did seek out, ask, and plead for guidance, and usually received none. In my younger days a few people poked around in my life for a while, found me quite interesting or even inspiring based on my abilities and passion at such a young age, and then proceeded to walk out of my life without barely a nod, leaving the dancing bear to start hacking away at Siberia again.
In some ways, I’m still hacking. But I’m older now, and more tired. More likely to just build my own damn shelter out of all the wood laying around, shoddy as the craftsmanship may be.
This issue is also a sticky one with others I know. I’ve been told that anyone without a mentor has nobody to blame for it but themselves. That a mentor must be sought out. Pestered. Followed about. That I must become like the world’s loudest but most interesting fly, buzzing in the face of someone whom I admire, convincing them that I in fact have more to offer them then they can offer me.
Through such obnoxious supplication I would have, so I am told, convinced an otherwise busy successful individual with whom I desperately wanted to work to deign to allow me to bathe in his/her magnificence. (So long as I didn’t ask too many questions and express too many opinions about what was going on…another trait of mine I have been told keeps mentors away.)
If you know anything about me at all, you realize that this is not acceptable to me. I don’t understand people who seek mentors in order to make the mentor’s life better. After all if I were that good at fixing lives, I wouldn’t have needed a mentor.
No, to me the concept of a mentor is someone who has not only a specific expertise, but someone who is able to recognize that expertise in someone else that is less fortunate than they, and is willing to share of their own experiences to spark the forward progress of the protege’. Someone who does so for the sake of service, not somebody who stands around saying, “well, how are you going to make my life better, punk?”
I don’t suggest that a mentor is supposed to travel the earth looking for people to guide. That’s a bit too much like a cheap kung-fu movie to be real. I do however think that when someone worthy seeks you out for advice on how to accomplish something for which they have the talent but not the wisdom, you should make an effort to guide that person. Be discerning, yes of course. Don’t do everything for everybody. But at least take the time to look into what the potential student is capable of doing. And if he is quite capable of doing good things, help him out.
Mentoring need not be the 50 years worth of sharing every step and watching the grasshopper succeed from a distance routine. (Why does this always come back to kung-fu??) Frankly, I’d be a little weirded about by that kind of mentor. Still, at some point the “what’s in it for me” attitude of those who have already achieved success, or at least knowledge has to be set aside for the betterment of people in general. Or at least the answer to that question ought to sometimes be that what’s in it for you is an improved world.
No doubt, this happens quite a bit everyday. I read stories about people finding mentors, and the glorious paradigm shifts toward enlightenment brought on by same. In fact I read so many of these mentor/protege stories that the concept, at this point of my life can sometimes make me sick. Call me bitter, but damn, enough already with the wonderful mentor stories to which I cannot relate at all. (One reason I cringed when I read this prompt.)
In closing, please don’t conclude I have never gotten help from anyone. Any given moment, somebody in my life has shared a thought, referred me to a website, or relayed information to me. (Though sadly, not as often as you might think.) That sort of thing is, in my estimation, just being helpful, which is admirable in its own right. But mentoring? That extra, extended investment one certain person makes in another certain person who shows promise in a given endeavor? I wouldn’t know it.
Is this because of my lack of charm? Lack of wealth? Lack of desire to kiss someone’s ass? Is it luck? Is it where I live? Was I just never meant to have a mentor, so as to develop into the person I have become as a result? I don’t know. I’ve never known. It’s a question I’ve been asking for years. And though it’s never too late for a mentor to show up, I tend to think that by this point in my life it may all just be academic.
(Part of the Scintilla Project. )
Scintilla Day 6
Write about a chance meeting that has stayed with you ever since.
This doesn’t happen to me often, because to be frank, strangers don’t find me interesting, charming, or worth the time to engage. I don’t play social games often, and when I do, rejection is usually the result, so I don’t bother. When people first meet me, they can either take me or leave me, and they usually leave me.
So when it comes to in person chance meetings that have had a permanent impact on me, I’ve thought all day and couldn’t come up with one. Make of that what you will.
It does, however, happen online sometimes.
A few years ago, I was on YouTube looking for Christmas music. I encountered a home movie, with an odd thumbnail. (I won’t say which song or video, in order to protect the privacy of those involved.) I clicked on it.
I will say it was a woman that was “performing” a Christmas song in a unique way. A certain charming goofiness to the video. So much so that I commented, (mostly in response to someone else’s derogatory comment on the video.)
The woman gave a thumbs up on my comment, and I replied again. We started what was first a comment chat, which moved into a private message chat over the next few weeks. Which is where it stayed until after about a year we exchanged phone numbers, and talked on the phone several times, me still commenting on her new videos.
With the rise of Facebook, we agreed to friend each other there, where for the next several years our friendship evolved and blossomed. We shared certain large differences of opinion but otherwise felt on the same wavelength for many things.
She and I don’t talk as much as we used to, but we are still in touch, and I still consider her an important friend in my life. Someone that has at least altered the trajectory. And it all happened because of a goofy youtube video she happened to make that I happened to find.
Ty Unglebower 