Friday, May 8, 2015

King Nebuchadnezzar







So this is happening tomorrow night, which is, of course, May 9th in case you were unaware. There's a theatre group called The Bridge, which puts on shows every now and again in the performance space here at First Trinity Lutheran Church. Here's the FB link in case you're interested...

https://www.facebook.com/pages/The-BridgeBridgeport/473306519468272

The Bridge puts on a show called Follow Spot, which is a monthly performance art showcase.

Why am I bothering to tell you all about this?

Good question, please allow me to answer.

My roommate, Bob Leone, has created this King Nebuchadnezzar musical which will close out the festivities tomorrow night at Follow Spot. He's been working on this twenty minute epic production for quite a while now and I've seen the rehearsal...it's quite impressive.

King Nebuchadnezzar, besides being a pain in the ass to spell, is a musical based on the first four chapters of the Book of Daniel, which is in the bible somewhere. It's basically about a King who kills a bunch of people by throwing them in a furnace because they are not bowing down to him and the God he created for them to worship. There will be aliens and a flying saucer and a briefcase full of Babylonian money and there's probably some sort of moral lesson to be learned as well, but I'm not all that good at lesson learning, so I probably missed it. I also think Bob might be going a bit crazy, but please don't tell him I said that. I'm sure he's not, but I just want to play it safe in case he actually is and this sets him off for some reason.

Regardless of his possible sanity, he did manage to hire some of the top performers in the Chicagoland area in order to bring his vision to reality. My other roommates, Greg and Alex, are involved. Greg plays an alien watcher and will have a singing part. Alex created the flying saucer and I'm not sure what else he's doing. My favorite eleven year old, Roxy, will be playing the role of the red guard, and believe me, she's quite an intimidating presence. She's also has an ego the size of Texas. Just ask Bob to show you her rider for the performance....item number 17 - six dozen white roses, each of which contains three flaming hot Cheetos delicately tucked inside the delicate white petals. Jazmyn and Ana will be belting out songs with their beautiful voices and Lauren will be advising the King, as that's what she does best...advising royalty. Tewz will be creating some crazy sound effects and just being pretty cool in general. It's a solid group of folks.

Now you're probably saying to yourself, that's all great and good, Dave, but why aren't you involved?

Another good question.

As you can see, I was not listed on the flyer.  Bob mistakenly thought I was way more awesome and talented than his musical deserved, so he left me out of the mix.

Until he didn't.

That's right. I'll be taking the stage for the first time tomorrow night since Frank Dazzo and I were the stage hands in the sixth grade variety show at J.B. Nelson elementary school. I totally kicked ass at opening and closing the curtain back then, and I'm going to totally kick ass playing the one percenter from the future tomorrow night. Bob thought so highly of my acting skills that he gave me the most important non-speaking role in his musical! He realized I was the only one capable of conveying meaning to an audience solely through the use of facial expression.

I have no idea why he would think something like that.

So that's what I'll be doing with my Saturday night. I hope each of you has something amazing lined up as well, but if you don't and you want to stop by for what will probably be the one and only time I'm in a musical, please do. You're more than welcome.


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