The Puppet Switch

January 24, 2019January 24, 2019 valmanwillLeave a comment

This is my all time favorite theater mishap story to tell. I can’t help laughing anytime I think about it.

So I was in this darling children’s play. My friend had written a stage adaption for the children’s book Ferdinand the Bull. And in this play, we had puppets. When the bull characters are kids at the beginning of the play, they are portraited with puppets. The actors would be on stage with our little puppets walking them around… almost as if we were out there playing with stuffed animals (just to give you the idea). Then at the very end, we would get into our full bull costumes in order to become ‘the adult versions”.

It was a day play. And since we performed for school kids we typically held shows in the morning. One of my fellow actors had a night job as a security guard at the time. We’ll call him… Ryan, or something. So more often than not, Ryan would work a graveyard and then come straight to the theater right afterward. So in his defense… that would make any human being just a wee bit more than loopy!

I was supposed to come barreling out with my puppet (Torpedo) run him around the stage and start fighting with Ryan’s puppet. We had this like goofy little fight choreographed where the puppets got up on their hind legs and kick each other, spin around and flip! It was really cute and the kids loved it.

So I get ready to bust out through the curtains like any other day. I hear my cue. Bam! And what do I see? I don’t see Ryan with a little puppet. Oh no. I see Ryan in his grown-up bull costume on all fours.

Ummmmmm kay.

There was this weird moment where the play just froze. I completely stopped dead in my tracks and stared at Ryan. Ryan looked back at me with this freaking unforgettable face. His smile said this is perfectly normal. But his eyes said I’ve made a serious mistake, please help.

help

Um, the show must go on, I guess? I kept going with the scene. I ran around and fought Ryan with my puppet. Everything that we had blocked out with these little toy puppets, he now had to do himself. I can’t even begin to tell you how awkward that was. Slamming my little-stuffed animal into his head and him like wiggling his arms and batting the puppet around. I don’t know how it was even possible to keep face and not laugh at how confusing this must be to the audience. Like, why?? What is the artistic direction in this? Why are these kid bulls hanging around this creepy adult bull? I don’t even know.

The best part is, he was in too deep. He couldn’t even fix his mistake, because now the audience thinks that’s part of the show. He had to do THE WHOLE REST OF THE SHOW in this adult bull costume that’s only supposed to be at the end. Every weird thing we had blocked with the puppets, he had to try to mimic.

… Whenever I have a bad day, I just think of this.

Walking In On Someone During a Quick Change

January 17, 2019January 9, 2019 valmanwillLeave a comment

Senior year, there was this new transfer student and he was *flame emojis*. Me and other girls in the drama class would always gossip about how good looking he was, like some Greek statue or something. Some of the girls thought he looked like Zac Effron, Personally, I think he kinda looks like Dacre Montgomery if I’m being honest.

So somewhere between these two actors, except like 6’4”.

He was generally referred to as “Hot Guy”, because of course. Anyways, when Hot Guy made the school play I was really surprised. I honestly hadn’t ever heard him so much as sneeze so I couldn’t imagine him on stage shouting lines with some booming voice. Well nonetheless, Hot Guy was in the cast and I was in the cast.

The play was See How They Run, which if you aren’t familiar, is a “six-door comedy”. In other words there are lots of people running in and out, mistaken identities, twists and all the shenanigans you could ever hope for.

SeeHowTheyRunposter

So because of the loony nature of the play, almost every single actor had at least ONE costume change. And in my high school, all of the non-musical plays were shooed out of the auditorium and crammed into a smaller theater room. Our backstage was not big enough for like separate dressing rooms, so we just had one trifold panel in the corner.

And also because the backstage was a tiny little area, we basically had to find a square inch to sit in and wait for our cues.

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Well, one performance, I was having a problem… an underwear problem. Like I don’t even know what brand or type I was wearing but whatever it was IT SUCKED. I was riding the train into wedgie central every time I so much as BREATHED. I needed to take care of this uncomfortable situation stat. And this kind of situation could only be taken care of in the most discreet way… if you be picking up what I be laying down…

I was like, HEY. Here is a gleamingly, brilliant idea. I’ll just slip behind the trifold and take care of this cotton mess of a thing… I’m sure you’ve already guessed where I’m going with this. I don’t know what I was thinking. Actually, yes I do, I wasn’t thinking at all. There were so many kids going in and out of the changing area, it would have been a miracle to not have caught someone back there.

Well, I did. I straight up WALKED IN ON SOMEBODY. And not just anybody, oh no. It was Hot Guy. HOT GUY. I just waltzed back there while FREAKING HOT GUY was in the middle of a quick change.

aah

Any second, sooner or later, would have been better. But he was at his most undressed point at the time of the walk in. Yup. Nothin’ but a tight pair of boxer briefs. (I just had to stop typing there to facepalm.) Like effing BURNED into my memory, the jingling sound of his belt as he desperately tried to cover himself back up and whisper-yelling, “Hey, hey, hey!” Ohhhhhhh my gosh. I think I said sorry like a hundred times in thirty seconds. A twenty-one-gun salute of apologizes as I RAN AWAY.

Walking in on anyone would have sucked. But walking in on hot guy was THE FREAKING BLUSHIEST WORST THING EVER. I couldn’t even look him in the face for a long time. People actually believed that I had walked in on him on purpose. !!!

Like as IF I had actually planned out the moment that hot guy was going to be taking his pants off and just whoopsie daisy, lookie there, looks like I’ve accidentally gotten an eye full, oh darn. Even if I was interested in him at the time, like how would that creepy icebreaker even benefit me? “Hey, remember me? I’m the socially-demented girl who walked in on you almost naked. Here’s my number.” AND I COULDN’T even explain or defend myself, because SORRY I actually was just going back there to PICK SOME PANTIES OUT OF MY BUTT, OKAY!

Then again… I did end up dating Hot Guy for a couple of years… so I guess the whole thing wasn’t totally scarring.

MY LIFE AS AN ACTRESS: A TIMELINE

January 10, 2019December 5, 2018 valmanwillLeave a comment

Before I start, here’s a warning: I started writing this post before I realized that… This is probably not very interesting to anyone other than me… But I wrote it anyways. Sometimes I just write stuff to archive for myself, so take it as it is. Maybe it WILL be interesting to you. Or at the very least you can get a general idea of my love affair with acting through the ages.

4 or 5 YEARS OLD – My passion for acting (and writing consequently) really begins with my sister. We used to write our own plays, figure out the blocking and costumes, then put them on for our mom or sometimes a camera. It was all I wanted to do all day, every day. The games/plays that I would put on with my sister were almost always hilarious. We loved comedy. Strangely enough, though, it was the opposite when my sister wasn’t available. The games that I played by myself were incredibly melodramatic. Things like trying to survive a shipwreck (wading pool) or saving people that had been swept away from a tornado (getting my toys back out after my mom had come and cleaned up). Playing pretend was just the beginning.

9 YEARS OLD – I still LOVED putting on plays. So much in fact that I would write and direct plays at recess and then beg my teacher to let me do performances for the class. After a long while of interrupting class time, my teacher told my mother that she should consider enrolling me in acting lessons. She did. And I fell. In. Love. Head over heels.

14 YEARS OLD – Still ALL about acting. Writing and putting on plays for my church talent show. I could FINALLY take Drama in Jr. High… so wrote more plays for that even though it wasn’t a requirement to do so. 9^th grade was my first ever experience with Shakespeare. Unforgettable. I was living the dream in my awkward gawkward middle school body.

16 to 17 YEARS OLD – Okay, here’s where things get crazy. So I’ll just try to break this down as best as I can. Like a timeline within a timeline… Junior year, I performed in the school play. Then I got into filmmaking with my friends. Then I had an internship teaching theater at a Jr. High. Then I performed in another school play. And then finally I auditioned for my very first professional performance and got the leading part. And that theater couldn’t get rid of me for a long time after that.

18ish YEARS OLD – I worked a lot with Utah Children’s Theater. I acted in a few more plays there. I also worked regularly as a House Manager and had a couple of opportunities as a stage manager.

this is better

19 YEARS OLD – I went to school at Southern Utah University where I studied Classical Acting for a year. So, obviously, my schedule was jampacked full of lovely theatre things. I decided that I missed Utah Children’s Theater, plus I ran out of money so I came back home.

20-21 YEARS OF AGE – The following Salt Lake years I spent more time at the Theater I had adopted as my home. I was an off and on stage manager, house manager, actress, teacher, assistant director, and tech person. I even came to every rehearsal of a play that I wasn’t in or managing in any way… I just loved that play so much that I kept showing up even though no one was paying me or asking me to. That’s a true story.

charlie

23-24 YEARS OF AGE – When I returned from my mission, I got another job at the theater I loved so much. This time as a Box Office Manager. I also started studying Elementary Education at the University of Utah as well as pursuing a K-6 theater endorsement. During my time at the U, I was introduced to THE BEST PROGRAM EVER. ArtsBridge! (Here’s a video of me talking about how great it is). I began training to become a “Theater Specialist” and worked with a lot of REALLY COOL elementary schools in the Salt Lake area. I loved this job so much! SO SO MUCH!

26 YEARS OLD – After I got married, I became the sole provider as my husband was in graduate school and the stage was put on hold. There soon came a time where we had saved up enough money for me to be able to quit my full-time job and go back to school. When I did, I immediately ran back to ArtsBridge and did a ton more cool stuff at Pacific Heritage Academy (all big and pregnant with Jack).

After having my darling boys, I had to hang up my acting cap for a while and become a theatre patron. I don’t feel like it’s the end. I just feel like it’s “a break” while my kids are little. Ultimately, I imagine never truly giving up acting. Anytime I see an old woman on a TV show or a commercial I’m like THAT WILL BE ME.