Happy Halloween 2009!

Happy Halloween 2009!

So much happens so quickly backstage on a Broadway show that it's hard to keep up sometimes:

*Last Sunday we began an in-house scavenger hunt game titled "Bats, Rats and Riddles" (put together by our brilliant stage management team headed by the incomparable Andy Fenton!), consisting of clues in a book that lead to more clues, located inside AND outside the theater (often at OTHER Broadway shows) that concluded Friday night with the best team winning a top prize of a clothespin memento in the shape and form of a witch. A fun game meant to enhance the morale of the company - mission accomplished! Five teams of five or six members fought for supremacy, and yes, it's true, my team won. Hail to the victors! Clues were as cryptic as "Travel where it was red and blue - but not anymore, now yellow and blue will open the door" [Answer: the Broadway Theater where The Color Purple (red and blue) once played, but now Shrek (yellow and blue) is playing.] Or "Travel quickly through the stormy night, to see the NHL and NFL fight" [Answer: the Palace Theater, home of West Side Story and the (NHL San Jose) Sharks and the (NFL New York) Jets.] Told you they were cryptic. But fun none the less!

*Wednesday we began collecting for Broadway Cares/Equity Fights Aids by stopping the show at the final applause and making an audience appeal for donations. Our "Sky", Eric Morris, well spoken and articulate, made a generous and gregarious speech to a very appreciative crowd. Not just seeking donations, items are also sold, including our signed posters ($40), CD's of various Broadways casts singing Christmas carols ($20), a Mamma Mia apron ($30) and a Mamma Mia recyclable grocery bag ($10). The sentiment is well placed and altruistic, but (and I know this is an unpopular opinion) I think it's a bit much to do it after every show for six weeks. Talk about gilding the Lilly!

*Amidst all the offstage hoopla, I do enjoy my time onstage enormously and often, still, find myself looking at other actors in various moments and find some small discovery of joy or happiness. I think, ultimately, that the core of my character "Bill" is all about joy and adventure. He's a real man with many dimensions, but he's an action taker who doesn't wait for things to happen to him. He goes out there and looks for it. And that's what appeals to me!