Just Off Center

Throughout all of high school I was quite the prolific thespian. I’ve performed as Tevya in Fiddler on the Roof. I’ve learned sign language in preparation for playing a deaf mute. I was awarded “Thespian of the Year” for the state of Indiana in 1993. I held nearly every lead role on stage for my last two years in school. Not only did I sing, dance and act, I was also a choreographer, singing coach, and blocking director as well. It was my teenage glory time to be sure.

Those people who have never been involved in a theater performance probably don’t realize that not every role a person receives is one that is wanted. In fact most actors are forced to do things on stage that are embarrassing or at least completely out of balance with their real life. Doing the hand jive with a big cheesy grin is one of those things. But what would Grease be without the hand jive? I’ve had to sing a retarded song about fruitcake with equally retarded dance steps. I’ve pranced in my underwear, and made out with a woman whom I despised. But it’s all done in the name of the arts.

One of the most humiliating things I’ve ever done, however, was never intended to be a part of the performance. In the spring of 1992 I was cast as one of the baseball players in the musical Damn Yankees. This show was one of our most successful, but the role I had was smallish and carried very few opportunities to show any character development. Generally, all of my lines were intended as cheap laughs. But then again, I was a sophomore, and probably wasn’t ready for the Actor’s Guild.

As a side note I should mention that around this time I was dating the first love of my life, a fellow actor named Shannon. She and I shared our virginities and disappointing home lives. With every day I was learning more and more about the minds and bodies of women (assuming you can call a 16 year old a woman). One of these discoveries was that women don’t necessarily like their men to walk around wearing tidy whities. No, it seems that Shannon preferred that if I was going to wear briefs, that they should at least be colored. Upon learning this, I took a trip to the local JC Penny’s and bought myself four three-packs of colored BVDs. Now I felt like a real stud. I could stand there in the room, and with supreme confidence, start sliding my jeans down inch by inch, alternating sides while popping my hips as though there was a thick pulsing bass in the background.

I only mention this because it bears on the show I was performing. When I was in Grease, I had several fast costume changes to perform on the sides during scene changes. I was an absolute quick-change artist. I was able to switch from my T-birds outfit to a tuxedo in sixty seconds flat. After the first dress rehearsals I stopped caring who was around to see me in my skivvies. There was a show to do, and their minds should have been focused on the job at hand anyway. In time, I became skilled at jumping out of one costume and into another in seconds. However, the change I had to perform in Damn Yankees was a bit more challenging and left me open to all kinds of embarrassing moments. One of those moments occurred.

It was near the end of the first act. The scene was set in the baseball team’s shower room, after the game. All the players are sitting around in various states of undress, some donning shower apparel. My character was to walk onstage wearing nothing but a towel, as though I had just come from the showers. I say one line and walk offstage. Now I have only the time it takes for the actor playing the coach to walk onstage say two lines and walk off before I have to be back onstage wearing socks, slacks, belt, a t-shirt, and a button down shirt, unbuttoned. Once I arrive back onstage I say some only mildly funny line that yields the most courteous of crowd chuckles and then the scene continues.

Normally the guy playing the coach took his time saying these lines, giving me upwards of thirty seconds to get dressed. This made me hurry along, but I always got dressed just fine. However, on the second to last performance (one which my girlfriend’s parents had chosen to attend and were taping from the audience), the coach ran onstage, blurted out his two lines and left. Being a serious thespian at the time, I couldn’t allow the dead time to spoil the audience’s experience. I was willing to forego the t-shirt, belt and one sock and walk out as I was. When I walked onstage and faced front stage I was met with a slight gasp, followed by an outpouring of laughter. I hadn’t even said my line yet. Why were they laughing?

In my rush to get back onstage, it seems I had forgotten to zip up my fly. And on this particular day I had chosen to impress my girlfriend with my new colored BVD briefs…hot pink. As I’m standing there, pink bulge front facing, it dawns on me that there might be something amiss with my quick dress results. The director had blocked the scene so that I was standing next to a bench where two other actors were seated. When the actor closest to me turned he was met with a hot pink cotton crotch five inches from his nose. As he started to stifle his laughter I realized what was wrong. I brazenly turned around and zipped up, but the damage to my reputation was done.

At intermission I was confronted by the director and music teacher who had thought that I had done this on purpose. It took them all of two seconds to realize that, by the look on my face, this cheap laugh was not planned. And now my girlfriend’s parents had this memory to treasure over and over again on the miracle of video. I have to attribute this to one of the main reasons we didn’t work out.

I no longer wear the hot pink line of BVD briefs, and my seven-year anniversary is a few months away. It seems I have solved the problem and all is right with the world. But every once in a while, I wonder if I still have the gumption and the nerve to don, once more, the hot pink briefs of yesteryear. Alas, I may never know.