I came home tonight pretty energized.
My city’s local community theatre is putting on the musical City of Angels in April, and I was cast as Stone, one of the lead roles. I’ve done a few other shows there, but this is my first lead role, so I’m already pretty psyched about it.
There’s a scene where my character, a film-noir style private detective, gets pretty much roughed up and pummeled by two thugs. The director brought in a friend, a guy I’ve seen in many shows (and who is a fantastic actor, especially in comedies), to choreograph the fight portion.
So we started with a crash course, many useful stage fighting moves – stuff that he teaches to kids in a course at a local junior college, I think. According to him – “We just did about a semester’s worth of moves in an hour”.
The scene is going to be fun. Since it’s two thugs against one private dick, I’m the one who ends up taking most of the punishment. But, here are some of the fun things I will end up doing (or pretending to do):
- throwing a punch that gets twisted around, with me getting thrown roughly to the floor (“Stwike him, centuwion! And thwow him woughly to the floow!”)
- getting kicked in the ribs/gut, multiple times
- pulled up and around by the hair, followed by some body punches
- get menaced with a rolling pin, then brained with a skillet
- I do get to turn the tables at one point and whack the smaller thug with a skillet, and throw what he called a “Popeye punch” (hitting two thugs with one punch, in succession – yes, cheesy, but funny).
- get chased across room and over the bed by a thug brandishing an eggbeater / hand mixer kind of thing (I have no idea what the thug intends to do with it, but I don’t stick around to find out!)
That last bit came about because the director told his buddy, “I want you to work these three props into the fight scene”. I thought he was joking at first, but no… and those bits are going to be hilarious.
I think I’m going to be sore tomorrow, from practicing so many falls…
…but it was a blast! And I’m getting more charged up about this show the more we put together. Woohoo!! 