Dan Posluns

I’ve spent the past couple of months bringing a secret plan to fruition, where I hoped to surprise my mother on her birthday by dropping in unexpectedly on their summer cottage vacation.

I had really hoped to kill two birds with one stone and help my dad out in his purchase of a new van by buying it for him in the States and driving it up to Canada, magically saving him about ten thousand dollars because that’s just how much more things cost north of the border. Importing should be almost trivial to do except that Toyota doesn’t want you to do it, and makes it extremely difficult to do so (with new vehicles especially). My dad compromises on some things, but the make, model and age of his minivan are not up for discussion.

In short, they won’t sell to Canadians, only Americans who are registering the vehicle to an American DMV. The hope was that we could use my residency status and address in America to buy the van, and it looked like it would work except that it takes 6 to 8 weeks to title a vehicle in Washington and without the title we’d need a manufacturer’s certificate of origin to import it, which the dealerships wouldn’t provide us with because Toyota is run by assholes.

We finally gave up on it and I settled on flying to Toronto directly instead of Buffalo. I caught the red-eye which included a stopover in Vegas, during which I played my first ever slot machine… I spent a dollar that someone had given me beforehand and lost it before I was able to even figure out how the machine worked. I failed to sleep on the plane and arrived in Toronto at 7:30 AM local time, all sweaty and bleary-eyed. My mom was nearly shocked senseless when she came downstairs and I was there, and much blubbering followed.

I’m now spending the week with them up at their cottage in Muskoka. I am sad that I’m not getting to see any of my Canadian friends this visit, but the downtime up here has been really theraputic for me. We’ve caught one of the most gorgeous weekends of the summer… it’s been sunny and warm and the lake has been quiet and calm. I’ve gone swimming and boating with my folks and working on my part in Rocky Horror but most of all I’ve just been lounging and resting, and it’s been niiiiice.

My biggest complaint is that we only have dial-up Internet access here, and I didn’t discover until I arrived that my fancy-pants laptop doesn’t actually have a modem in it, so I’m forced to use my dad’s computer for all Internet-related activity. I’m trying to goad them into getting high-speed up here, mostly because I think it’d be fantastic to lounge around on the lower deck out by the water with a wireless connection to the rest of the world. Don’t think they’ll go for it any time soon, though.

For the curious, I have some pictures of the cottage taken a couple of years back in my gallery. Pretty much everything is the same… except the baby ducks have grown big and fat now, and still like to hang around our little bay.

Dan.

So I realize it’s been a while since my last post, but I’ve been keeping busy. I had a stream of auditions and (what I like to think were) near-misses. Then something weird happened last Friday, when a friend let me know that the guy who had been playing Riff Raff in an upcoming production of The Rocky Horror Show down in Burien had backed out, and they were looking for a replacement.

Now Riff Raff is kind of a dream role for me, and I knew at least four of the other people who were going to be in it, so I responded and asked my friend who I should get in touch with about it. After some thought, though, I realized that it was strange that I hadn’t auditioned in the first place for it, and I wondered why. Digging up the theatre’s website and their audition page I soon realized it: they had been looking for a true “tenor rock screamer” to play the part, so when I had previously seen their audition notice I had naturally dismissed it as unattainable, as I am none of those things.

I spoke with the director on the phone and explained this to him, and said while I would love to play the part, I’d never sung any rock before, and without the aid of some kind of futuristic genetic therapy I simply wasn’t of that vocal calibre. He told me that had been their ideal and he had since come to accept that he wasn’t going to find exactly what he was looking for there, and he had seen me perform in a couple of shows before and liked my work, so if I thought I’d be able to hit the notes he’d cast me.

All I had to do at that moment was say “yes”, and I’d be in.

I hesitated, though. I told him I wanted to discuss it with my singing teacher and get back to him. I called Nikki and talked to her about it… sent her some YouTube clips of The Time Warp and Over At The Frankenstein’s Place. We discussed it and I phoned the director back and left him a message, telling him I could hit all the notes but some would have to be in my falsetto and not as strong as when Richard O’Brien sings them in the movie, but if he was okay with me backing it up with strong character choices then we’d be in business.

What followed was about the most agonizing day and a half in recent memory, while I waited impatiently for his non-response and dwelt upon the opportunity that had slipped through my fingers. Riff Raff in The Rocky Horror Show. I could have been the utterly creepy manservant who sings “The Time Warp”. The part so awesome that the writer of the show had to play it in the original stage production and in the movie adaptation. All I’d had to do was say “yes” when I had the chance… sure, I was just trying to do my due diligence, but if he said “no” after hearing of my shortcomings, or used the time to find someone else… well, sure, they were the same shortcomings I’d have anyway if I’d jumped at the offer, but he might have come to accept them more readily after working with me for a while, and I wouldn’t have missed out on what could easily be a once-in-a-blue-moon opportunity…

So I was pretty much shivering with anticipation when I finally got the call and he told me that I’d been given the role, and he’d see me on Sunday.

And just like that, I get to play Riff Raff, easily the coolest role I’ve ever had an musical. Check it out:

So now I’m plagued with insecurities about how I’m going do vocal justice to this character. At the read-through on Sunday he played music from the 2000 revival cast, and it was very clear where he got the idea for a “tenor rock screamer”, as opposed to the original version, which was rocking but nowhere near as… well, rocktacular. The director expects us to provide the usual staples of good theatre but has made it clear that this is a musical about sex, drugs and rock ‘n roll, and the importance of that third element cannot be denied.

I’ll just have to do my darnedest.

Dan.

The past couple of weeks I’ve been feeling somewhat worthless and crappy. Not because of big, sweeping things, but rather little niggling things, none of which individually amounts to much or which I feel compelled to write about in this blog, where I keep trying to accentuate the positive as the song goes. I need more sleep. I’m glad I’m busy most nights… I’d rather be busy than bored. But lately I’ve been questioning if I’m getting as much out of staying busy as the effort I pour into it, and if a happy medium exists it continues to elude me.

I went to traffic court and had the more expensive count of my ticket dismissed “in the interests of justice” (that was cool to hear). The other count was reduced to $99. I think I may have misstepped in that I could have had that $99 fine “deferred” and kept off my record entirely if I managed to avoid another moving violation for a year. But they only let you do that every seven years, apparently, and they don’t let you weigh the option of deferring against whatever leniency the judge might show you… you have to choose and then present your case, not the other way around.

Being in court was a little intimidating, although I learned that you apparently don’t have to dress up nearly as nice as I did for traffic court. Or even be very coherent. Still, there’s something about the formality of all of it, surrounded by a couple dozen of your peers, being asked to give your “excuse”… it’s a bit like being called to the front of the class when you secretly only watched the movie and never read the book you’re supposed to be reporting on. (Tess of the D’Urbervilles, 10th grade, I believe I got the highest mark out of anyone who was assigned that book.)

I went to the farmer’s market that’s kittycorner to me and bought some more Rainier cherries, plums and peaches. The cherries we get out here are excellent, but I’ve had some difficulty coming to terms with the reality that the peaches simply won’t ever be as good as the ones I could get in Ontario or New York… they’re either artificially ripened on their way from California or if they’re local they’re usually undersized and covered in bruises and other defects. Plums aren’t my favourite fruit, but at least they’re usually pretty reliable… I am annoyed by how deceptive fruit can be, and how the quality of its flesh so rarely speaks to what lies beneath. That is, of course, true of so many things… I guess that’s what makes them so ripe for metaphor. (Pun unintended, but still clever.)

Dan.

Well, I finally have the new iPhone and while not the work of pure divinity one might expect, it’s worlds better than anything I’m used to with my old Helio. I don’t even feel that badly that it’s costing me $20 more per month after adjustments to my account in order to get a decent amount of text messages (which were included for me before).

Read about my adventure in purchasing the iPhone

Improv last night was interesting… we were short-staffed for Theatresports so the teams only had two people on them. I was partnered with the talented and skilled Jeremy Richards, which was great, except I think I wound up letting him carry us more than he should have had to. I don’t think there was a problem with our scenework and the audience seemed amicable enough, but it was still kind of an off-night for me and I made some weak choices. In spite of that, though, I really enjoyed the two-person teams, and how it took away the element of choice: you’re always out there performing whenever it’s your turn, so you have less time to think about what you’re doing and don’t have to worry as much about balancing the performers.

I went Friday to see friends performing in South Pacific at Snoqualmie Falls Forest Theater (where I’ve performed in Shakespeare shows as recently as a couple summers back). I was disappointed I missed the opportunity to audition and play with them, but after the long drive out there and thinking about how much time I would likely have been spending in that Quonset hut again I figured that I’m probably better off just camping with them a couple of weekends anyway.

My audition this past week was okay, but could have gone better… I had unexpected breathing issues in my song. I really hope I get called back, but I got a fortune cookie the other day that told me to “manage my expectations”. I’m used to fortune cookies not giving actual fortunes out, but it’s the first time any foodstuff has directly advised me against hoping.

Dan.

I’ve obtained a photo of me in my new suit:

… Dashing.

This past weekend was hectic as a friend was visiting from Edmonton. We ran around the city doing and eating far too much. I performed at Theatresports and it was okay, although the energy was a bit weird in a way we couldn’t quite explain afterwards. I also attended what was hopefully my last wedding this summer… it was beautiful and the ceremony was (mercifully, in the summer heat without air conditioning) about the shortest I’ve ever seen.

My attempts at getting the iPhone have failed miserably so far. I went on launch day only to witness a line of several hundred people that apparently was taking as long as six hours for people to get through, and I was having none of that (although I did know three people in the line who were apparently much more dedicated than myself). I thought I stood a decent shot this morning as I returned from dropping my friend off at the airport… but after an hour and a half in line and being second to the front I was informed that they were all out, which was quite a bit infuriating as they kept insisting they didn’t know how many they had left but when the final answer is sixteen they are either deliberately misleading you or grossly incompetent. There’s talk that they might be getting more by Wednesday. My patience is wearing thin, though… I’m sick of my Ocean.

I grabbed a bunch of pictures taken from the last few hours of the Improvathon and added them to my gallery. Unfortunately I don’t have a more complete selection available. I’m hoping to get galleries online of other shows I’ve done as well… Damn Yankees, Urinetown and the like. Dredging up photos is hard, though.

I was feeling kind of ill today but I think I’m better now. It’s probably from all the sun, food and activity over the weekend. My stomach still hurts a bit though… bleagh.

We’ve been having some beautiful weather. I hope it lasts a while longer.

It’s audition season, and I have an audition every week for the next three weeks (including this one). Depending on how I do at them, I may have three callbacks as well in the final week. I’m also pre-invited to a callback in August. It’s all so much stuff… I’m almost as scared of getting cast as I am of not getting cast.

Dan.