The 39 Steps

Or..."Ze Serty-Nine Shteps" as my German spy character, Annabella, would say.

This just a blog of self congratulations. I saw a notice of audition for this play. I bought said play. I made an audition appointment for said play. I rehearsed German, British and Scottish dialects for said play. I attended TWO callbacks for said play. Now I have BOOKED said play! Hoorah and hooray! Huzzah and kazoo.

I'm most looking forward to the following spokes in the wheel:

1. It is an intimate cast with only four folks - I play three characters within the play - all love interests, fleeting to slightly more involved. The main squeeze, Richard, stays himself throughout. The other two guys  tackle a whopping 150 roles combined filling in every other character in the show - at points they are playing two to three characters within a single scene.

2. Physical comedy in the round - this play moves FAST because our  hero, Richard, is running AND pursuing AND just going going going until the end. There is little room for a moment of boredom, even for the cotton-candy-haired.  Time to pull out some heroes of physical comedy and get a-studyin'. 

3. Dialects! Yeah, I know, I won't shut up about them. Well, I LOVE THEM DADDY! I LOVE THEM AND YOU CAN'T DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT! (Runs away sobbing to bedroom, slams door.) Other languages can not only be fascinating but hilarious. The mouth is a keyhole, the voice a key, and suddenly there you are unlocking perfectly wild characters from inside you. 

4. I haven't done a play in over 4 years!  Whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat? That is absolute craziness. I miss live theatre horribly - oh, the stage! - and I have a feeling this will sort of purify my acting spirit.  All that distracting stuff floating around inside my head and chest? It will be shaken out and the good stuff will compress at the bottom near the diaphragm. That's where it needs to live. 

Of course I will remind everyone when this show is going up and I will personally strangle anyone that doesn't show in what will be a 5 weekend run. We open JULY 13th at the Glendale Centre Theater and run until August 17th. Very much excite! 

Here is a fun history of the theater if you are so inclined. A long-standing staple of La La and Glen-Glen.

GLENDALE CENTRE THEATER ABOUT

Also, here is the entire film of the same title on which this play is based, an early Hitchcock endeavor.