#glenbardeasthighschool

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Day 10 The Odd Couple (Female Version). The final show of my senior year of High School we did The Odd Couple (Female Version), the gender swapped revision of his 1965 play. Instead of Felix and Oscar playing cards, it’s Flo and Olive playing Trivial Pursuit. Because why would women like playing cards? (I know). And instead of the Pigeon Sisters there were the Costazuela brothers, Manolo and Jesus, from Barcelona who lived upstairs. I played Manolo. (I know) Two comedies in a row! I hope I enjoyed it. Because it would be a while. The other important thing about this show (to me) is it is my one and only foray into scenic design. I took a scenic design class my last semester of Senior Year, and we all had to design three shows. Mine were The Rainmaker, Bus Stop (I wish I still had those, you move 30+ years in a lifetime and you lose a lot of shit) and then we all had to come up with a design for the spring show, and they would select one for the actual production. And they selected mine! It was a fun show to be a supporting player on. That moustache though. Obviously a glue on. For some reason the moustache, she is a recurring theme. The real ones - now those - those will haunt me. #theoddcouple #theoddcouplefemaleversion #1988 #glenbardeasthighschool #neilsimon #manolocostazuela #iknow #theatre #alifeinthetheatre #actorslife #performer (at Glenbard East High School) https://www.instagram.com/p/B4IJWQDpcen/?igshid=3osg1e8mwcum

[hainsworthy]

Day 9 CW: The final picture depicts a moment from the play. But it could be triggering. The Foreigner, by Larry Shue. I loved doing this show. It was comedy. I have had few opportunities to do outright comedy over the years, so I still look back fondly on this one. I was playing an incredibly bad guy, which would be my comfort zone for the next 30 years. A bunch of racist pieces of sh!t got their come-uppance. Sandi Zielinski came to see it to adjudicate it, and because of that I ended up going to ISU (I was a terrible procrastinator when it came to college, didn’t even take my ACT until December of my senior year, and then only reason I would get into ISU was because the theatre department took me) and the rest of my life happened. I was already familiar with the show since my brother had performed it at College of DuPage months earlier. I still remember certain lines to this day, even though I haven’t looked at the script since 1988. Of course the character I played was, as stated previously a racist piece of sh!t, so there is a picture of me in a Klan robe in the year book. That’s weird. #theforeigner #larryshue #1988 #glenbardeasthighschool #owenmusser #thebeescomesdown #badguy #theatre #alifeinthetheatre #actorslife #performer (at Glenbard East High School) https://www.instagram.com/p/B4FRNEDJpIK/?igshid=12behkmtjfelw

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Day 5 Stalag 17. Set in an allied prisoner of war camp in WWII during a particularly brutal winter, it follows the trials of American POWs trying to survive, stay sane and escape the camp, while trying to figure out who has been informing to the Germans. This was a fun one. Casting 21 guys in a show might not seem like a big deal now, but it was a huge accomplishment in suburban 1987. Half the cast was the football team, so it broke down a lot of clique barriers. We had an all female crew, and one fine Sunday morning they literally kidnapped all of us and took us to Denny’s for Breakfast. I had just gotten home a few hours earlier because theatre had finally given me a social life, and had fallen asleep in my clothes, so I was ready to go. While it was truly an ensemble show, it was the first somewhat lead-ish part I had, only by the metric that it was the “William Holden” role. It also continued the trend of me getting beat up on stage. I also got punched in The Runner Stumbles. By a priest. In the first picture you can see the words AHH WARM taped to the ground to remind us all that outside was freezing and inside was warm and to act accordingly. On one of our four performances, those doors got jammed and we had to reblock the second act on the fly. Stalag, while having moments of levity, is the more serious source material for Hogan’s Heroes. #retrospective #stalag17 #1987 #glenbardeasthighschool #theatre #alifeinthetheatre #actorslife #performer (at Glenbard East High School) https://www.instagram.com/p/B363u-Lpo0b/?igshid=9tz1o5xab8s1

[hainsworthy]

Day 4 - The Runner Stumbles by Milan Stitt. This was my first High School show I actually performed in. My Freshman year I auditioned for The Mousetrap by Agatha Christie and I didn’t get cast. I did get cast in the Studio Production, Feiffer’s People by Jules Feiffer, which was a one night performance of selections from the play, but due to my various emotional, esteem, and commitment issues, I was rightly fired from the show. Two years later, Mr. Hoebel, the theatre director, gave me a second chance on The Runner Stumbles, and it is not an exaggeration to say it changed my life forever. I often have to remind myself of that. That I was privileged enough to receive a second chance and I cannot conceive of a life without it. I can often be “less forgiving” than I should, and I have to remind myself that my entire adult life was based on one person excusing some bad behavior when they didn’t have to. So The Runner Stumbles. Pretty heady stuff for a High School show. A play about a Catholic Priest who has been put on trial for the murder of a young Nun in Solon, Michigan. It’s also mostly told in flashback. True story, I did not finish reading the play before the audition, because there were only a handful of copies you had to sign out (it was 1986) but I did get cast as the Prosecutor. And once I got cast, well why bother reading it now? So my first time through the script was at the first read through on the first day of rehearsal, when and where I finally found out who was the killer. SPOILERS (it was the housekeeper, and she buried her in the garden, and then killed herself in prison by banging her head against a wall until she died, and god bless Dale Heintz for having to deliver that line) It was quite clear by my reaction, that I had not finished reading the play. This particular production was selected to go to the Illinois High School Theatre Festival, which really cemented some life choices early for me. I suddenly had direction. I wanted to be in plays. What that meant, I had no idea. But it was certainly a start. #therunnerstumbles #1986 #glenbardeasthighschool #milanstitt #retrospective #highschool #droppingnunslikehamiltons #notesfortheactor #ihstf (at Glenbard East High School) https://www.instagram.com/p/B34atHWJbwU/?igshid=gsfri6kba60v