2002-08-04 - 10:21 a.m.

Only in live theater...

Last night I had one of my proudest moments onstage ever. An *extremely* hammered bachelorette party, composed of *extremely* hot women came stumbling into the theater and sat in the front row. They were loud, and raucous all night long. They would interject their own commmentary on scenes at the worst possible moment. One of them pointed at my crotch, and started laughing loudly during a song. Which sucked, though I managed not to miss a note. During the curtain call, that same woman pointed again and yelled "Your fly's down". (For the record my fly wasn't down either time, she was just hammered.)

Anyway, our show is a sketch comedy show (think Saturday Night Live, only tasteful and funny) and there's one scene where I play a total lady's man. Just a greasy, oily, totally confident nasty dude. I was so nervous about that, because I *knew* that the ladies in the front row were going to be very verbal during that scene. I was so afraid I was going to break character and start laughing, or get thrown off or something.

So I go out, and my first line (there's a video dating premise to the scene) is "My name is X, and I have come to find a wife."

The bride to be piped up "I'm right here."

So I looked her dead in the eye and said "Yeah, and you're real pretty, too, baby." I figured that they'd been breaking down the fourth wall all night, and it was time for someone to call their bluff. They figured they could mess with the people onstage and we wouldn't acknowledge it.

SK, who was onstage with me turns to me a few lines later and says "That's my assistant Tiffany, please don't flirt with her." I'm glad she backed me on my decision. And I'm glad neither of us chose to insult them. They were annoying as hell, but they weren't being malicious, they were just drunk. The rest of the scene went pretty much as usual.

I was a bit worried that the director would be pissed. But I heard him laughing, and he actually make a point of coming back during intermission to compliment SK and I on our handling of the situation. He's a great guy, really. He gives us a lot of leeway, as long as we don't break certain rules.

The point of the story for me was that both of us onstage managed to turn a distraction to our advantage. We kept character, and worked them into the scene in a way that not only didn't impede the scene, but improved it. Of course, SK is a consummate pro, and I knew beyond doubt that I could rely on her no matter what happened. But I was very proud of myself to have risen above the adversity during that scene, and the show in general.