Curtain Call

For the past six weeks, I have been in a play on campus here at BYU-Hawaii. My audition, which I felt was a disaster, landed me a role in Arms and the Man. Well, closing night was tonight. The audience laughed, we bowed, we put our costumes away, striked the set, sat around and ate pizza and laughed at all the mishaps, said our favorite lines, left the stage, and then I breathed a huge, thankful, sigh of relief!

This play has been the best of times and worst of times. For the BEST, I got to skip around the stage (someone even asked me if I was a dancer in a former life. HA!! Well, I did tour with the Dance Factory when I was 11). I got to flounce and flirt and tease. All the men in the play were in love with me. I was the only one who really told the truth. I got the guy, AND I got the best compliments of any of the female characters. I was called, "a provoking little witch," "a remarkable looking woman," and a woman with "a soul above her station." I also got to be on stage with really, really talented actors who made me a better actor, too. I got to live in the pretend world and see where words could bend to characters and how large characters could grow. On the other hand, it would be a lie to say it was easy and stress-less and always fun. For the WORST, I met with my limitations, my inexperience, my insecurities, and my lack of focus (switching from preschoolers to George Bernard Shaw with no transition between the two). I don't generally like to display those parts of myself, but there I was. Bless Dan's hide . . . he really got me through that last week of rehearsals into opening night.

But every night was better than the night before. I feel like I loosened up, let go, and had fun. And I learned from being in this play. Two thoughts:

If I feel good about my performance, it doesn't matter what anyone else says (or doesn't say).

In art (such as theater), you can do whatever you want. There is no right and wrong. It's just a matter of what I want to do, and how I want to do it.

And I am so grateful to feel good and happy at the end of this run! That is a tender mercy!

Good bye, Louka!!! I love you for your wit, spirit, honesty, and laughter! Thank you for letting me have all those traits, too, through you!






Here are some of the funny stories that may not be funny at all in translation:

One night, Captain Blunschli (Anthony Ing) accidentally skipped from a line at the beginning of the scene to the end of the scene, skipping much of the important information the rest of the story is based on. They had to circle back to try and get it to make sense. At one point, they doubled over some lines, and Jessica Jane said, "Oh. I already told you that." And Anthony, lost and floundering, kept saying, "I'm really very sorry." She came off stage saying she was going to kill him with her bare hands! But it was a running joke for the rest of the nights. One night, he actually said, "I am really very sorry," just to scare poor Jessica Jane.

I gave Anthony a heart attack Friday night. He came out after the show had started. I was back stage waiting to go on. He is also in the first scene. He raised his hands to ask me something. I thought he was asking if it had started. And I shook my head "yes," and mouthed, "She's on the bed now." Well, he took off like a mad man, thinking that I was saying it was already his time to be on the stage. He raced around and was about two seconds from jumping out onto the stage before he realized it wasn't his turn.

One night, the beloved "electric bell" ringer missed her cue, so when Catherine rang the bell, she had to do it three times, and then she just banged the wall and said, "I swear it works."

Drew, Sergius, gulped down his drink in one gulp. But it was rootbeer (not real coffee), and it gave him an air bubble in his throat, and he burped as he said his line.

There was a loud laugher that came one night and sat right in the middle. It was great. It's so nice to get audience response, but this laugher was laughing at the littlest things. We were all backstage laughing, trying to figure out why she'd laugh (and laugh whole heartedly) at random spots.