Cast Party For Life

The play opened last night without a hitch, as they say, and the audience loved it. It was the first comedy in a semester, after a series of all-too-serious plays about abortion, corrupt governments, etc. etc. etc.

All the other plays this semester ended with a death; ours ended with a wedding. We also took every cheap gag we could find, so characters were continually getting hit by doors or tripping over things or taking... um... "the nut shot". We managed to do it all by maintaining the period style of "presenting," e.g. standing and walking around like this:


... and the incongruity of physicality and action prompted some delightful responses from the audience.

Afterwards, we got our official ACTF adjudication. (First of all, I have to mention that one of our cast members asked the adjudicator, very politely, if he thought the toned-down seduction scene was "period," or if we had gone too far -- to which he responded "Too far???? You didn't go far enough!")

The adjudicator prefaced his remarks by saying "I'm going to keep this short, because I know you all want to go out and drink and party."

Our cast looked appalled. Then again, they had all changed from their costumes into matching Relay for Life t-shirts, with one member proudly displaying the slogan "You can survive cancer. I'm living proof."

"Excuse me," one of them said. "We're not going to drink tonight. We're going to cure cancer."

So after our opening night performance, the entire ensemble went to Relay for Life, and it was probably the coolest cast party idea ever. Instead of getting drunk and congratulating one another all night, we rocked the quad and luminarias.

And now... am very sore. But well worth it.