What Part Were You in the School Play?

In My Humble Opinion
41

I think this should have been a multiple choice poll, because in my experience there is a lot of multitasking in theatrical productions.

Probably my biggest part was Radar my high school’s senior class production of MAS*H. The TV show was very popular by then, but the play by Tim Kelly was based on the movie plot. In the play, there were two separate characters, Radar and another guy, who seem to have been combined into Radar for the TV series. So our director did that, giving me a bigger part. (There were other ways we modified the play a bit to match the television version–adding Klinger, for example.)

I do a lot of public presentations now, but it’s been about 25 years since I last performed a character in a play onstage. I miss it.

42

Stage crew.

I had no interest in acting or even the plays, I just needed an extracurricular activity to put on my college applications, plus I liked hanging around school and I didn’t feel like going home.

It did allow me to learn and practice some pretty advanced carpentry, as one of the sets I built (and I practically built it single-handedly) was for Noises Off, which involved a 2-story set that needed to be able to pivot 180 degrees to show the “backstage” area (it’s a play within a play).

43

I played a rock in high school. A boulder, actually. The play was called The Ice Wolf, and the scene was a magical forest where the rocks and trees come to life. I basically sat stone still (heh) in a spray-painted laundry sack until it came time to come to life and move around. There were three of us rocks, IIRC.

44

In Elementary school I was always the narrator. I could speak loudly, clearly, and memorize a lot of lines.

In high school I had a supporting role in one, and a lead in the other.

College went the same as high school with a supporting and then lead role. Then I switched departments, studied technical theatre and worked backstage professionally for about 10 years or so.

So “other” I guess…

45

I was in a lot of plays but I put “THE LEAD” because I did that once. Usually I was a supporting character, though. Once I was Snoopy in “You’re A Good Man, Charlie Brown.”

46

I was never in a high school play but when I was in eighth grade, I got to do the costuming for the high school’s production of “Grease”.

In girl scouts I got to be the lead in “Ladies First”. That’s the story about the spoiled girl who always wants to be first ( hand over a full mango, please) and in the end, she’s the first person to be eaten by tigers. If anyone is having a flashback, it was featured on the 70s “Free to be You and Me”.

47

I’ve played a variety of roles, but those twice included the lead, so that’s what I picked in the poll.

The first play I ever tried out for was A Christmas Carol, in 7th grade. I was Scrooge. The director had a (sensible) policy of rotating through the kids for major roles, so I had minor parts in the other three middle school plays.

Later that year, we did Annie Get your Gun, my first musical. I was Pawnee Bill, a role with relatively little singing (I only had one solo line).

In 8th grade, it was Our Miss Brooks. I was some student or another; I don’t remember which one.

For the spring musical that year, we did The Sound of Music. The director learned from his mistake the previous year, and gave me the largest non-singing role in the play. Admiral von Schrieber-- He was on for about two pages of the play, and didn’t even make it into the movie at all.

When I got to high school, I mostly stayed off the stage, but by 12th grade, the urge bit me a bit too hard, and I tried out for The Day they Kidnapped the Pope. I was the kidnapper. Or rather, one of the two kidnappers: The director at my high school double-cast all the major parts, and rotated from performance to performance, so nobody hogged the limelight too much (this also provided built-in understudies).

Then, in the spring, the drama club did a play the director wrote himself, a murder mystery called Catch me if you Can (no relation to the movie). I never actually tried out for that one, but one evening when I had stayed after school for a different club, I stopped in to say hi to my friends in the drama club. It turns out that the largest part who hadn’t been double-cast had just quit on them, with three weeks until opening, and they offered me the role, since I’m good at memorizing lines. That play was a lot of fun: I had a very convoluted role, and I ended up getting shot (a story I think I’ve told on the board before).

48

In the eighth grade play, I had the plum supporting role of Pierre Duval, master detective.

I got to say things like “Mon Dieu!!” and “Sacre Bleu!!” a lot. :slight_smile:

49

Sup, sup, supper time!

50

In my one and only audition (for the part of Bets in Oliver!) I sucked so badly I didn’t even look at the posted cast list. And I never auditioned for anything again.

However, for our Senior Follies, I played my accordion in a skit. So I voted “Other.”

51

I avoided drama like the plague.

I was stuck with Christmas pageants in elementary school and couldn’t get out of them. One year I was an angel, one year a sheep, and one year a turnip. Don’t ask.

52

I was Klark Cent in Superduperman - ‘Look, up in the sky it’s a bird, it’s a plane, it’s SUPERDUPERMAN! Oh, no wait…it is just a bird’ - in year 5 in primary school.

Since I had written the play, I was pretty pissed off that I had to audition and didn’t automatically get to play Superduperman.

53

I forgot about college. We did the Jean Anouilh adaptation of “Antigone.” I played Haemon, Antigone’s lover.

It was in this play that I heard Euridice’s name pronounced as “uterus.”

54

The one and only “play” I was in was in 5th grade. I was Tonto in a Lone Ranger skit.

55

In high school, I stayed at the “one or two lines” level, which was fine by me.

Our church would also put on dinner theatre plays/musicals and I played supporting cast or even leads from time to time (which was a stretch for me). The biggest part I ever had was probably the Van Johnson part in “Brigadoon”.

56

I can’t believe this has gone to a second page.

57

Musician. Both onstage and offstage in various plays.

58

The school play was Iolanthe in the only year I was eligible to take part - my “Lower Sixth” as we called it then, which would be “Year 12” in the modern UK system and “eleventh grade” US, more or less. As Strephon, I was the romantic lead for the first and only time in my life. Too bad that Phyllis detested me, but oh well.

59

I was one of the commercials between acts.

60

The one play I was in, I was the professor who taught the kids about the planets. And, yes, the planets were also kids. I was somewhere between a narrator and main character. I was on stage, but I was easily able to cheat and read a lot of my lines.