On a scale of 1-10 I consider my job a definite 9.5 with that last .5 points deducted only because it doesn't involve living somewhere tropical and getting paid more. It's fun, it's creative, it's rewarding, and since I spend the majority of every day in a costume and wig I can leave my room each and every morning wearing a baseball cap and sweatpants.
That said, it is still a job, and while performing musicals and directing a show about zombie penguins beats the pants off sitting at a computer all day, waitressing, and basically any other career known to man (come on people zombie penguins) there's still a bit of monotony involved, just a hint of that day-to-day grind, just a little taste of the "Monday's" (or the Tuesday's in my case). And when monotony hits, and it does hit, there is no better place to be than doing live theatre for an audience of 12 year olds that don't understand what you're saying.
Here at EV we run our shows 10 times a week for 3 months and while that's nothing compared to a tour, cruise ship, or Broadway production doing a show where the entire plot line is centered around whether two kids can rescue their football from their neighbor's yard before their mom gets home isn't exactly on par with Sondheim. It gets old. It gets boring. And when that happens the only choice you have as an actor is to find ways to make the show exciting again. Lucky for me I work with two other actors who are extremely talented, extremely energetic, and extremely devious. Add in the fact that, as I previously mentioned, our core audience are Korean speaking 12 year olds, and you can start to imagine the world of possibilities that opens up.
For example....I'm standing backstage Friday morning waiting through the last five minutes before the show starts when I see my castmate Candy pulling a blow up children's swimming pool full of plastic balls behind the scrim and towards the side of the stage where my character's house is. The pool, which was used in a former game show, then found it's way into my character's house and several of the balls rolled their way onto the stage. This is just the tip of the ice berg. I've come off stage into the house after my opening scene to find orange traffic cones, a giant plastic stump, a fully made bed with pillows, and most recently printed out pictures of animals mating, the cover of a book titled, "Giant penis's", shirtless firemen, and signs reading, "Mrs. Blankenship loves big cock," "Mrs. Blankenship only reads the Giant Penis Book," and my personal favorite, "Mrs. Blankenship loves animal love." Try being caught off guard by something like that and then having to go on stage playing an angry 80 year old woman and you'll get an idea of the type of incredible self control I possess (or try to possess).
It doesn't end there..far from it. One day Candy found this enormous broom that the cleaning ladies must use to get into the far reaching corners of the ceiling. It was seriously 4 broom sticks taped together. Thinking she was oh-so-sneaky she stole it and put it in my house completely blocking the door so that I had to maneuver my way around it to get on and off stage. Lucky for me there's this scene in the show where Candy is getting attacked by a rabid skunk (yes, a rabid skunk). She's asking me for help and my response after trying, and failing, to dislodge the skunk with my cane is, "Hold on, I'll go get something bigger to hit it with," before returning with a broom. Well on this day, that something bigger, was a lot bigger. I came out swinging that twenty foot broom and laughing so hard I almost peed my pants.
One day Candy decided to tap dance the entire show. One day I decided to drag my right leg. One day I picked up the stuffed cat that sits on the porch of my house entirely as decoration and used , "Snickers the Skunk Killer," to defend Candy from the skunk instead of a broom. One day Evan brought a bouncy ball on stage and we threw it at each other back and forth for the entire 40 minutes, it inevitably flew into the audience which prompted Candy to run off the stage and ask the kid in the front row, "Umm can I have my ball back please?"
The best part about all this is whether because they're 12 or because they have no idea what is being said the audience loves it. Kids are just kids no matter what language they speak or what country they live in. They roar when Candy makes farting noises..they go crazy when I trip and fall throwing my legs over my head so my blue shorts under my skirt show...they ask for autograph's and pictures and high fives afterwards.
Oh, the other thing you should know about Korean children is that they are blatantly honest when it comes to beauty. If they think you're beautiful they will tell you. If they think you're ugly they will tell you. If they think you're a man dressed as a woman they will say "Man or woman?" This is probably my favorite comment. Yes, it's nice to have the girls come up afterwards and say, "Oh beautiful, beautiful," but my favorite times are when between the 10 or so, "beautiful's" some fat kid with glasses and a sponge bob t-shirt comes up, stares me straight in the eyes, and says, "Man or woman?"
This is particularly great because I'm wearing a very tight spandex dress over my very large breasts and, as my voice is usually quite tired by the end of the show, I'm speaking in quite a high pitch. At first I would just answer, "Woman," and laugh it off, but now I've branched out. Somtimes I say, "Man," sometimes I say, "What do you think?" sometimes I say, "Well biologically speaking I'm female but I've felt since a young age that I was born in the wrong body. I've been taking hormones for years but I haven't had the opportunity to really go the distance and surgically become all male. Lucky for me however, plastic surgery is dirt cheap in Korea and as soon as my vacation day request form is processed Dr. Kim is going to finally give me the penis I've been missing my whole life." Kidding.
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