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Originally Posted by JohnW
So, what takes you backstage Billcat? Are you a musician or an actor?  |
I've done a lot of performing with various community theatre groups over the years. Started doing shows when I was in high school, so I've been at it for quite some time. Over the years, I have played Nicely Nicely Johnson (Guys and Dolls), Captain Hook (Peter Pan), Sancho Panza (Man of La Mancha), Dayy Warbucks (Annie), Marcellus Washburn (The Music Man), Sir Joseph Porter (HMS Pinafore), Teddy Brewster (Arsenic and Old Lace), Elwood P. Dowd (Harvey), Santa Claus (any number of Christmas shows), Major Metcalf (The Mousetrap), Inspector Belsize (Night Must Fall), Colonel Gillweather (Something's Afoot), W.C. Fields (The Ziegfeld Revue) plus many more.
Found this on the web about whistling backstage, "Regarding the superstition that whistling in the theatre brings bad luck. According to a Terry Pratchett book (Masquerade?) stage hands used whistling signals to communicate with each other while a performance was in progress. This way they could move props etc with sandbags and pulleys without disturbing the performers. If you whistled on stage, you risked having a sandbag land on your head."
Another story I have heard say that in the early days of flying scenery, sailors did a lot of the work getting the rigging set up, and that the whistles they used on ship, they also used in the threatre.
Time for a question: We don't have magpies where I live, so what is the superstition that has folks counting them?