First Performance Chapter 30

Rehearsals went pretty smooth and I was given liberty to find the charactor on my own. The style was fast paced , so any pauses or slowdown of delivery had to be completely justified.

Now as I said , I was playing a homeless guy in this comedy and when we had rehearsals and run throughs anyone watching my scenes would laugh and this gave me a lot of confidence in what I was doing. I knew if I did well here in this cathedral of theater, it would open up many doors for me in acting and life would be rosy after that.

The first performance came in this workshop production but the audience was full of people. I had the first scene in the play. This was my big moment. Even though it was still a workshop production, that was good enough for me.

I entered thru the audience while the lead character was on stage hailing a cab. I was to walk thru the audience, walk up on stage and ask for a quarter.

Well. the play started and the lead was out yelling "Taxi Taxi". I walked in and just as I was about to step on the stage, an arm grabbed me that I didn't expect and I swung around angry. It was the security guard thinking I was a real homeless and tried to throw me out. I whispered loudly and angry that I was in the show. The guard not sure let me go but stood right there ready to jump on me if I was lying. This was witnessed by the whole audience and put a sense of danger in the scene. This would have been good in a drama having the audience's acute attention but this was a comedy. I said my first line and the security guard went away but no laughter from the audience at all for the whole scene. (continued)