When Your Whole World Is Actually A Stage #scintilla

16 Friday Mar 2012

Posted by Riayn in Life

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I spent the great bulk of my childhood and early adulthood as a stage actor. Musicals and Pantomimes to be precise. If I wasn’t performing in a show, then I was rehearsing for one. Nearly all of my school holidays were spent doing 8 shows a week and I couldn’t have been happier. I never fitted in at school. I was the butt of all the bullies jokes, but all that melted away on the stage. I was comfortable there. I knew precisely what I was doing.

I can listen to a showtune and I’m immediately swamped by memories of performing in that musical and the going ons in my life at the time. This is why today’s prompt is very meaningful for me:

Talk about a memory triggered by a particular song.

The song below takes me back to my early adulthood. When I was 20 to be precise. I was studying at University, teaching drama and of course performing. The cast for Snoopy was selected, we didn’t have to audition (a first!). We were deemed to be the most talented bunch to perform this musical. This musical was not like all the ones we had done previously. We were experienced enough to work with the director on all aspects of the show, rather than to be told what to do. Our first taste of being adult professional actors.

The time spent off stage was just as exciting as the time spent on stage. A time of house parties, never going home and lots and lots of confusion. I was still struggling with my sexuality. Something I would struggle with for a further 5 years before feeling safe enough to come out. Gay men did musical theatre, but lesbians most certainly didn’t. I grew up in a culture where it was perfectly okay for guys to be gay but not for women. Therefore, I didn’t know what to do about the crush I had on the girl playing Peppermint Pattie and this was further compounded by the crush I had on the guy playing Linus. Since I was playing Sally Brown, it was easier for me to work on that crush on Linus, in fact it was method acting. The fact that crush was in some way reciprocated made it easier again to forget about that troublesome same-sex crush.

Linus & I never got it together to start a relationship but the sexual tension caused us to part on bad terms two years later. Pattie never knew about my feelings for her. I kept that well hidden.

But this song takes me back to this time in a heartbeat. Standing on chairs, being seen on the outside as belonging to this amazing talented group and on the inside being confused and scared that someone will find out my secret.

Bilingual Technical Rehearsal

07 Tuesday Feb 2012

Posted by Riayn in Life

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German language, Theatre

Last night was our technical rehearsal for the play ‘Beyond Therapy’ for which I’m doing sound production. At the technical rehearsal, we had to set up the entire sound system from speakers to mixing boards. It took four hours and involved climbing up and down multiple ladders. Whilst wrapping my head around how much sound production technology has changed in the past 20 years, I also had to wrap my head around all the German names for everything as naturally in a German theatre all the signs are in German. I’m now making friends with words like Saalbeleuchtung and Steuerung (although no one seems to know what the Steuerung button does).

What I also found wonderful and somewhat terrifying is how everyone around me was switching between German and English as the make-up of our crew is both Germans and expats. I think I’m one of the very few people who do not speak both languages fluently as I’m the only ‘expat’ who hasn’t been living in Germany for at least 10 years or was fluent in German before moving here. I was able to follow parts of the German directions, thanks mainly by knowing the German word for curtain (Vorhange), so that felt pretty good. However, I think this production, which is in English, might have the unforeseen side-effect of helping improve my German.

Coming Face-To-Face With My Teenage Self

24 Tuesday Jan 2012

Posted by Riayn in Life

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My Teenage Self, Performing arts, Theatre

Tonight, for the first time in 16 years, I was at a theatre rehearsal. When I walked in and was handed a script to take production notes, it was like running into my teenage self. You see, from the ages of 7-20 I lived and breathed theatre. It was my entire life. When other kids had a break over school holidays, for me, it meant working doing 8 shows a week. All my life, especially every single teenage drama took place backstage in the dark or upstairs in the dressing room or at the local park where we spent time between the matinee and the evening performances.

In my teenage years, my parents would drop me off at the theatre on a Friday night and not see me again until Sunday afternoon when I turned up at home. Looking back on it, I was given a hell of a lot of freedom, but they knew I was working. If I wasn’t acting on stage, I was working backstage or doing sound or was a highly caffeinated stage manager. Life was lived in between scenes in hushed whispers, homework was done by the dim shine of a flashlight, and romances were conducted in secret.

When I was almost 21, I walked away from it all and headed off to university to study science. I told myself that it was time to grow up, but part of me always missed that life. Today, I reclaimed that part of me and my teenage self is happy again.

Surviving Cocksucker

19 Saturday Nov 2011

Posted by Riayn in Life

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Auditions, Fear, Hamburg, Theatre

When I arrived in Hamburg just over a year ago, I promptly joined the English language theatre group, The Hamburg Players, and have been doing Improv with them every since. The Hamburg Players also do three players a year, but I’ve been way to scared too audition for any of them. I really don’t enjoying auditioning, it’s my least favourite part of acting. In auditions you are judged and assessed and whilst I know that is what has to happen, I really don’t enjoy the process. In fact, I’m downright scared of it. I shouldn’t be, I’ve been doing theatre shows since I was 7 and have been to hundreds of auditions, but a 15 year break does strange things to your psyche, hence a fear of auditions.

Today, the Hamburg Players held auditions for their upcoming play, Beyond Therapy, which is being directed by two friends of mine. If there was ever a time to get over my fear of auditions, it was now. So, despite some heavy duty fear, I went and I auditioned and I didn’t die.

As an actor, I’m fairly reserved. I have a real issue with just letting myself go and trusting the process. The first scene I was asked to read was quirky and fun, but nothing too terrifying. I was then asked to read a second scene and this where I had my fear of letting my go were tested to their limits. In this scene, the character goes a little insane and starting screaming out ‘cocksucker’ multiple times at the tops of her lungs, laughs hysterically and has an orgasmic experience eating a cookie, all within a single monologue. I couldn’t play this reserved without looking a total fool, so I let go and just went with it and again I didn’t die.

I didn’t end up getting a part (there were a lot of really good people auditioning), but I’m not upset in the slightest. I went and really challenged myself this afternoon and I’m proud of myself for doing so. Next time the Hamburg Players hold auditions, I will be there and whilst I’ll be nervous, I won’t be scared. I can do it.

The Audition Debate

17 Wednesday Nov 2010

Posted by Riayn in Expat

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Audition, Theatre

The theatre company that my Improv group is attached to is having auditions for their upcoming production of “Play it Again Sam”. The members of my Improv group were trying to convince me tonight to audition with them next Wednesday, but I’m really in two minds about it. Here are the pros and cons about auditioning:

Pros

Theatre productions are so much fun to be in and I’ve really missed doing shows.
It will be a great way to meet new people and make some more friends
Being in a show would be fantastic motivation to keep exercising during the winter months cause I really don’t want to gain weight before I have to go on stage.

Cons

I still haven’t received a decision about my visa yet. What if it doesn’t get approved and I have to go home? It would so bad if I actually got a part and then had to pull out.
Auditions are absolutely terrifying things to have to do. I really hate auditioning.
What if I completely embarrass myself??

I really don’t know what to do. One half of me is telling me to forget all my fears and just do it, whilst the other half is kinda terrified. Then there is the whole visa issue…

Advice? Thoughts? Tell me what I should do.

Late Night Improv

03 Wednesday Nov 2010

Posted by Riayn in Expat

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Improv, Theatre

I normally do Improv on Wednesday nights but our theatre company has the opening night of their latest production today (Wednesday) so we switched our class to last night. This meant I had to do a mad dash from Stephansplatz where my German class finished at 7:40pm to Mundsburg where Improv started at 8pm. I just made it.

Improv was, as usual, heaps of fun. We had three new people that I hadn’t met before in the class so it was lots of fun working with them for the first time and learning their style. One of the new girls T provided the running gag for the rest of the class. She had referred to her partner in the scene as Mr Jefferson and then partway through the scene forgot his name and started calling him Mr Jeffer. Every scene from then on contained some reference to the poor Mr Jeffer which just got funnier as the night went on and the more tired but hyped up we all got.

All of us being in this tired hyped up state decided that at 10pm when the class finished, we would go to the pub. In hindsight, this was a very bad idea, but at the time, it was great sitting around with fellow theatre geeks talking theatre. Ed, one of the new guys there, is a musical theatre geek like I am, so we spent a great deal of time discussing the merits of different musicals. We eventually left the pub just after midnight.

Such a late night meant I didn’t get to bed until 1am and even though I slept in until 8am (& still made it to work by 9am), I’m feeling absolutely exhausted this morning, not even Coke is helping. I really should know better than to stay out so late on a school night. Every morning after a late night out I promise that I won’t do it again, but every time I get an offer to go out I completely forget how crap I will feel the next morning.

Improv!

07 Thursday Oct 2010

Posted by Riayn in Expat

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Amateur theatre, Hamburg, Improv, Theatre

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I used to do drama as a kid, in fact it was my entire life from age 7 to 20 when I then moved away from my hometown to go to university and left that world behind. Therefore, when I discovered that there was an English speaking amateur theatre group here in Hamburg, I decided to get back involved in the world of theatre as I have really missed it.

The Hamburg Players run an improv class every Wednesday night, so with some trepidation and a more than a mild case of nerves, I took myself along last night. I honestly shouldn’t have been so worried – I had an absolute blast and also I didn’t embarrass myself. A huge win in my books.

The people there, who were a mixture of native English and German speakers which was really great, were so lovely and welcoming that I felt at ease shortly after we got started. We played a few games that I played as a kid and taught my own drama classes and a few new games as well, including Party Quirks that if you are a fan of Whose Line is it Anyway? you will be very familiar with.

One of the games we played was Drama a la Carte, where one person has a script and reads out lines from one of the characters and the other person has to just react to the lines they are being fed. The resulting scene can end up quite surreal. I was the person without the script and actually didn’t find it too challenging to just go with it.

In fact, I was surprised at how much fun I had and how I actually wanted to get up and do things. Usually I always hang back not wanting to draw attention to myself in fear of making a complete fool of myself, but last night, I wanted to get in there and give stuff a go – so totally not like me at all.

I definitely will be going back next week. In fact, I have a sneaking suspicion I agreed to be part of the improv group that performs in front of the club’s Annual General meeting in a couple of week’s time. Yikes!

Geek Mädel

~ An Aussie Geek Girl in Germany

Tag Archives: Theatre

When Your Whole World Is Actually A Stage #scintilla

Bilingual Technical Rehearsal

Coming Face-To-Face With My Teenage Self

Surviving Cocksucker

The Audition Debate

Late Night Improv

Improv!

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