What up pirate folk! We have been open now for two weeks and arrrrggggghhhh having a blast onstage. Each run we learn new things about our characters, and it is a really cool to watch our company take some new risks out there. We have had to shuffle a little bit around to accommodate Eddie Curry, who is out of the show right now, but planning on returning for the Saturday, April 25^th show – but nothing has really thrown us. Rather than give you all the details on the changes we have made, just read about it on Eddie’s blog, here. I will say that I take my hat off to John Vessels, who was put into the show in a single rehearsal on Tuesday afternoon, then performed Israel Hands and Ben Gunn that evening. He had a boat load of stuff to learn and not only learned the entire show in two days, but is giving wonderful performances. Also, John Armstrong is really keeping it real as Blind Pew and Mark Goetzinger has easily stepped into the ASM duties that Eddie usually does. Such is life aboard the Hispaniola – we find solutions, and the show goes on, brilliantly, I might add.

You may wonder what it is like to be a part of a cast of 18 guys… it does have its perks. I never joined a frat in college (not really my scene), but I assume that if there were such thing as musical theatre frat, our cast would be it. We’re not the typical group of theatre guys. We play tons of poker, drink lots of “water”, and play catch in between shows on our two show days. The TV in the green room is continuously tuned to ESPN, and we have already begun to set lineups for the Broadway softball league. That’s right: watch out Mamma Mia, Little Mermaid, and Hair – there’s a new show that is about to own you! (Props must be given to Jay Elliott, here, who is heading up the B’Way softball operation, pending our New York run, of course.)

I share a dressing room with Jamie Jackson and Curt Dale Clark, and I must say they are great. Our room is very laid back; there is no stress about what is going on onstage and we do our best to keep it real. In Eddie’s absence, I have been forced to keep Curt and Jamie entertained (both need constant supervision), so I’m eagerly awaiting Eddie’s return so that I don’t have double duty: entertaining our paid audience on stage and Jamie and Curt off stage.

One of the fun things about our show is the varying audiences we get at B&B. Some houses tend to be full of laughs, others, not so much. I have heard some interesting things said while performing, though. (Yes, audience members, when you talk during the show, the actors can hear you ). Tonight, we had a giggling group of high school girls that seemed to have a thing for both Sam Weber and myself, though of course I will take most of the credit for their constant giggling anytime either of us was onstage. At our Wednesday matinee, when Billy Bones dies, I heard one kid sitting in the front row say to his friend, “I dare you to touch him!” The same kid also said, “Take the black spot,” which at this point has fallen out of Billy Bones’s hand and rests just inches from the audience. On several occasions I have been grabbed by audience members while playing a scene in the house. I think I scarred the crap out of one woman, who put her hand on my leg when she didn’t realize I was hiding behind her. Hehe. I laughed on the inside. Whatever ends up happening onstage, it’s important to remember that we are there to entertain and tell our story. The audience is really the missing character, and if you listen they will tell you just how they want to hear what we have to say.

Hunting for Easter Eggs...

On consequence of being an actor is being away from home over holidays. I actually don’t really see this as a bad thing, because it means we are doing what we love, but I digress. Anyways, Easter was on the 12^th, and since many of us are from out of town, we decided to take matters into our own hands and celebrate Easter as any pirate would: with a massive Easter egg hunt. We all met at the Beef and Boards farmhouse, where several actors live and the theatre has some storage space, and proceeded to have the most awesome day off in the history of days off. Here is how it went down: we partied from about One PM on Sunday until about One AM on Monday. The day consisted of tons of barbeque, food, “water”, poker, touch football, and of course our Easter egg hunt consisting of about 100 eggs. We couldn’t even find all of them, it was that huge – an actor years from now will probably find an egg and think what the @#$% is this egg doing out here!?!

I promised that I would give a personal shout out to one of our wonderful spot-ops, Kayla, in the blog. Kayla is super cool and along with her spot-op partner in crime Sandy (who incidentally seems to kill all of us in poker), does a great job – nothing is more irritating than a shaky spotlight, and these women are great at what they do. Actually as I think about it, I really need to give a shout out to the entire crew for Treasure Island, and more over everyone at Beef and Boards. I’m having an absolute blast here in Indy, and I hope that audiences can come share some joy with all of us!!!

Alrighty, that’s all for now – come see our show, and feel free to ask questions!!!

Peace!

Rick