Go eat rocks and DIE!!!

I drove down to Orem late Saturday afternoon feeling pretty prepared for the Grassroots workshop I was involved in- Twelfth Night. My lines were memorized, I had collected some performance black clothes, and I even remembered deodorant. Then I pulled into the parking lot of the church where we were to be performing... and my stomach dropped into my toes. Nerves. Clammy hands. The sweats. The whole works. I was so out of practice that I had even forgotten what it felt like to be nervous for something!

Fifteen minutes later the workshop began and we were hastily blocking and running scenes for two hours. Never mind that I had the fewest lines of anyone in my scenes and somehow I still forgot them! But, that is what this workshop was all about. Raw theater. When we were attempting to complete a run-through of the show before our performance I was wondering if I should call Dallas and tell him not to come. I was slightly embarrassed by what I saw- missed cues, lines dropped, fudged blocking, not to mention how slowly each scene was going. We didn't even get to run the entire show before we had to break to eat. Too bad by the time we were released I knew Dallas was already on his way, along with our good friends Katie and Mitch Nelson.

After a quick run to Burger King for some comfort food (thank you Whopper Jr. and fries!), it was time to start. Don't worry that when we were introducing ourselves and our parts, I forgot what parts I was playing... bad sign, right? The show went on, and I was shocked by what I saw. The show was funny! Hysterical even! We raced through the show in a little over an hour, and I was very impressed with what we were able to pull off as a group. We worked together and put up an entire Shakespearean production in 4 hours including the actual play. I had never seen anything like it. It was awesome not only because we actually pulled it off, but because we were able to say lines like, "Go eat rocks and die!" and the audience had no idea that it wasn't written by the Bard.

So, in summary, it was was completely out of my comfort zone, scary at times, funny at times, and totally rewarding. Thank you Grassroots for allowing me to take part in such an incredible learning experience!

First Officer

Clown

Sir Andrew