Dan Posluns

Well, Rocky came to its bittersweet conclusion this past weekend. I had somehow talked myself into the responsibility of making gifts for everyone who had been helping out on the show, and this proved to be a fairly monumental task, as there were no less than 17 people helping out at every single performance, plus five others we wanted to suitably honour: the director, producer, stage manager, music director and costumer. My initial plan called for a cast photo to be taken, which would be turned into photo-greeting-cards that we could sign and distribute to everyone. I was then going to find five inexpensive collage-frames for the others and load them up with photos of the show.

I ordered the greeting cards online and they arrived on Wednesday, but were printed at about a quarter of the resolution of the original file I sent in and looked horrible, so without sufficient time to place another order I wound up spending an evening designing them myself, going to Kinko’s and getting them printed and cut there. Meanwhile I was unable to find suitable collage frames in the budget I’d requested from the cast, so at one person’s suggestion I undertook the task of making the collages myself and fitting them into generic 16×20 inch frames, which was of course a much larger project than I’d originally signed on for or imagined.

In addition to these, in a stroke of luck/genius I’d come across mad scientist alphabet blocks which seemed like a perfect cast gift, but in order to give everyone blocks with meaningful letters on them I would have to order several sets. In a quick correspondence with the business, however, I found out that not only for a small price increase per block I could select individual blocks, but for a slightly greater increase they would let me pick all six sides for each block, which meant I could custom-tailor a block for each cast member. So for a smaller price than ordering multiple sets I was able to get each cast member their own customized mad scientist alphabet block with letters that I found meaningful to them. Sweet.

On top of this, I wanted to give the cast members a framed cast photo, so I had to get that taken care of as well. So last week was pretty much spent embroiled in getting all that together, and my condo looks like an arts-and-crafts tornado ran through it as a result.

Emotions ran pretty high for closing weekend. All three shows had sold out early in the week, so we knew we’d have good audiences. It was a long run and a good run and of course the only alternative to ending it while still wanting to do more would be to end it once we were sick of it, so there’s no option but to grieve and move on. My only frustration was that after many months of pristine health that was nothing short of miraculous I finally succumbed to a cold on our closing weekend, which of course had to be when they decided to make a video recording of the show. Boo. Fortunately the cold hasn’t affected my throat much, but it hit my lung capacity pretty badly, which wreaked havoc on my solos. The various meds I put myself on also impacted my acting in general, I think. Oh well.

I’ve added some more photos of the production to my gallery, including a whole slew that were taken when we went to see the movie version at the Admiral Theatre, and a couple of the cast with our most famous guest narrator, United States Congressman Jim McDermott:

Some newspaper came and snapped photos of the event as well, but I haven’t heard anything yet about the article.

As sad as I am to see Rocky pass on from my living world and into my life’s history, I finally made it back to an ensemble workshop at Unexpected yesterday and was startled at how much I missed my life there and doing improv. As much as I love doing scripted work, there is a naked honesty that improv provides that other forms of theatre cannot, and the people over there are so excellent that it pains me retroactively to have been removed from them for so long.

I suffered from the usual I’ve-been-away-I-sure-hope-I-remember-how-to-do-this syndrome, but I managed a couple of really decent scenes (and one spectacularly terrible one, but that’s how the improv cookie crumbles) and once I got into it and the feeling of it started flooding back to me, I was almost shaking from how much I missed doing it. I really look forward to sinking my teeth back in over there.

Dan.

The vacation was good. The more extended family came up for the last weekend, which was nice, as I get to see them even less often than my parents or brother. It was especially nice to see my grandmother, who has been in and out of the hospital these past years and is now pretty much confined to a wheelchair. My aunt also brought up Izzy, who is now 16 years old and getting a lot more bony and less active (but just as curmudgeonly as he’s always been… it’s as though his body has finally grown into his personality).

More blabbering on about Izzy… with pictures!

I got back Sunday evening. The flight was exhausting, as usual… I have a knack for somehow getting rearranged and shafted to the rear of airplanes, as both legs of my journey to Canada had already done so. When I saw the same thing on my boarding passes for the return flights, I spoke to the ticket agent and he was able to improve my seat on the shorter leg to Detroit, but was apparently unable to even access the much longer flight to Seattle on his computer. So the second leg had me at row 36 in a middle seat… the good news was that a family of four traded me the aisle so they could sit together; it should come as no surprise, though, that the bad news was that half the family was composed of a baby that wouldn’t stop crying and a little kid that wouldn’t stop talking.

So naturally much of the R&R I managed to accrue over the vacation was forfeit, and now between work and trying to catch up in the rehearsals I’ve missed for Rocky Horror I’m pretty well spent. It’s good to get back into rehearsing, but last night was my first time singing “The Time Warp” with the cast there and it was scary as pants for me, even though I’d worked on it just about every day while on vacation. Turns out most of what I’d worked on needed to be thrown out anyway, since there are a lot of nuances to the specific version we’re doing I didn’t know about (I only got the vocal score this week and have been working off of various recordings in the meantime). Everyone is very encouraging and supportive but the gap between myself and the others is dizzyingly wide… our Magenta especially has a stunning rock belt, and while I’m fortunate to have her backing me up, between that and the stellar vocals of the rest of the cast it’s all rather confidence-shaking.

Of course, my greatest dilemma is that the one thing this kind of music absolutely demands above all else is confidence, so I have no choice but to fake it and try to fool myself. Thankfully that’s an acting challenge rather than a singing challenge, so I’m better equipped to handle it.

Would that I could still fool myself in the moments between performing, though.

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.

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.