Evidence I've Gone Bat-Shit Crazy

No, I didn't distribute pamphlets for Mitt Romney or Newt Gingrich, nor did I  attend the World Ag Expo in Tulare , California. Any of those things would have proven that I'm certifiably in need of being locked up for good. What I did was not much saner, though.

Some professor talked me into showing up for an audition of  "Fiddler on the Roof." He thought they needed children, and I look the part. It's better in many ways to use older teens who still  look like children because we have brains that function and know left from right in most cases.

Once I got on stage, the director asked me to read a few lines. I can read, although I don't know that I have any great dramatic flair to my style of oral reading. Others went on stage. Then he called me on stage with several older girls. He had us do dance moves. I'm not really a dancer, but I was a gymnast in a former incarnation, and gymnasts need at least a minimal level of dance instruction to succeed. Then the guy asked about who had gymnastics backgrounds, as he wanted to throw  a  few slow and graceful gymnastics maneuvers into the dance. Only one other girl and I had gymnastics training. We did our gymnastics things, which were not all that challenging. Next came the singing. The other gymnast couldn't sing on key. The director pointed at me and said, "She's Chava." No call-back, no posting, no anything. I'm Chava.

Vocally speaking, Chava has by far the least challenging role of the three major sisters in the play. "Matchmaker" the only song in which she has even a short solo. It's a good song, though, with opportunities for harmonies. The director keeps telling me to tone it down because my voice is stronger than Hodel's or Tseitel's. Hodel really needs to have the strongest voice of the three of us, but what an I do?

Dramatically, Chava has a reasonably full role. She defies her father and marries a Russian soldier. There's a nice dance between the sisters mainly featuring Chava as Tevye sings his lament about her leaving the family. That's where the gymnastics comes in. It's nothing like back handsprings; that wouldn't be fitting. More like some front and back walkovers and a little balletic gymnastics. Tevye sings about Chava being a little bird. The director says I look like a little bird, which is why he wanted me for the role. I suppose there are worse things I could look like, but the idea of looking like a bird is less than appealing to me.

Now I have something besides academics about which to concern myself. I'm still doing my a capella group thing, but the play performances and major rehearsals have priority.

I'll tell you how it goes.