“Who is this Theatre Geek guy? What is this blog all about? Why the fuck should I care?” These are all excellent questions you may or may not be asking yourself right now. And as you read this you’re probably wondering if it will be worth your time to continue or should you move on to the next cat video. Well, I’m going to be perfectly direct with you. I really don’t give a shit if you keep reading or not. But if you’re OK with crude humor mixed with funny stories and the occasional life lesson, read on. You are my kind of audience. Which by default makes you awesome. I figure if I scared off the snowflakes who can’t handle my sense of humor at the offset, that leaves just you and me. Wow, this got intimate pretty quickly. I didn’t know you felt that way. Alright, let’s give you what you came for . . . answers.
So who am I?
Hi, I’m Mike and I'm a Theatre Geek. “Hi, Mike.” I was a jock in high school but my knees and I had a conversation in college. It went something like this, “You quit playing football or we won’t let you walk by the time you hit 40.” It was a short conversation and fairly one-sided. But I stopped all the team sports and just happened to turn 40 last November. And guess what, I can still fucking walk! I consider it a tiny victory with all the damage I’ve done to my body. It was there in college that I discovered the theatre.
In the middle of summer only a few months after graduating high school, a good friend just happened to jog to my house. He lived close but not close enough for a sane person to think it was a good idea to jog that distance. Plus it was a hot day so he looked like absolute hell when he stumbled up to my house. Once we got some water in him and he could form full sentences again, he explained how he was working jobs as an extra in movies and TV. He was getting paid to sit in an audience or walk through a crowd. All I could hear was a cash register sound effect when he spoke and I demanded he tell me how I could do the same. So I signed up with a few agencies and I was off to the races. And I loved it. I was an actor now. Or so I thought. Really I was a well-animated prop. I just filled in the empty space in the background. Here I am in my first ever job as an extra playing a construction worker in Multiplicity. Look for me in the white hardhat handling some guy’s lumber from :50 to about 1:25.
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Riveting, I know. However, it really was a lot of fun. I loved the idea of being someone different every day. I got to meet so many great people and go to so many great locations. And then pretend to have conversations with those people in those locations for hours and hours.
When I registered for my first semester of community college I figured I should take a beginning acting class so I could get better at my ‘trade’. Little did I know that they would make it a requirement for all acting students to take a theatre production class as well. It turns out they were low on stagehands and needed some warm bodies to build the sets. Well, my dad taught me how to use tools and I’ve always been good with my hands so it sounded like fun to me. I soon realized how much goes into producing a show. It was a humbling experience.
There is something profound about knowing intimately what everyone else does to make a show happen. In the theatre, it’s fairly common to learn or at least try out every position backstage. You can be a carpenter, electrician, board operator, costumer, designer, stage manager and much more. Plus you can try a different role for each show. I had small acting roles in the first and last scenes of Fahrenheit 451 while running the fly rail throughout. It was a blast. And it really helps to understand what your colleagues are doing because you’ve done it before. I’ve done practically everything you can do in a theatre. You could hand me a script and a budget and I could design and run every aspect of that show. Although having a few clones like Michael Keaton did in Multiplicity would be awesome!
Pretty soon I was working in small local community theatres and eventually getting paid for it. AND I LOVED IT! I got to be something different every day as a stagehand too. I was a rigger one day, a carpenter the next, etc. And it never got boring. I love everything about the theatre. I love the people. I love the culture. I love the stories. And I love the lessons I learned along the way. So that’s what this blog is all about. I am writing this to preserve and pass along my stories, my lessons, my fuck-ups and my triumphs. I hope you can learn something from my many misadventures. I hope you can share a laugh or two with me. I hope you can be inspired to get out to your local theatre and just enjoy the experience with a little more insight.
I’m taking on the mantle of The Theatre Geek and I wear the title proudly. We’re all geeks about something or maybe a few things. Regardless, passion is required and participation is encouraged. I look forward to pulling back the curtain and sharing my world with you. Please comment and share as we go. It’s going to be a wild ride. So let the show begin.
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