Show Business

Before I got involved in the games industry and moved to Holland I spent a lot of time working in the theater business in England. However, I never got to play Romeo or even Juliet because I was one of the many people working behind the scenes as a member of stage crew. It was a great job but for someone who can be a little accident prone it was work that should have come with danger money.

I’ve been made deaf for two days after working on a music concert, I’ve fallen into a lighting rig and I’ve had a speaker dropped on my hand which in itself was not as worrying as the rather camp first aid person who tried flirting with me as he bandaged my hand.

However, the most cringe worthy incident probably happened during my work on ‘They shoot horses don’t they?‘ It was a show about a marathon dance set during the 1930s great depression. Since the stage crew was going to be seen quite a lot as they changed the scenery the director decided to incorporate us into the show by having us in costume as janitors. It was a chance to move from back stage to center stage.

My real chance to show my star power came when the crew got to play an integral part in one of the scenes. I got to play a post, a boxing ring post to be more accurate. The scene required the actors to race around the inside of a boxing ring so four of us (the crew) stood in each corner and held ropes between us. It was my big chance. There might have been talent scouts in the audience looking for someone to play a tree or lamp post in the next Robert Deniro movie.

During the rehearsal the director warned me that several members of the cast would collapse at my feet as they ran around. Using my method acting I stood as still as a post should when this happened and resisted the urge to flinch. Every night the scene took place with out a problem… Until the night my parents came to see the show.

The actors fell at my feet with out incident as they had done every night but on the following lap one of the cast members tripped for real and fell towards me. It is a natural human instinct to reach out for something to steady your self with when caught off balance but another person’s genitals are not a good choice. Her arm flung outwards in an attempt to break her fall but her fist connected very hard and painfully with an area that she did not know me well enough to be touching. She had twisted her ankle but was not in as much pain as me who suddenly had a new career option as a Bee-Gee impersonator. I had to stay on stage trying to look like I was not in deep and intense pain. Dogs from miles around probably heard my high pitched sounds of suffering. When the scene was over we both limped off the stage but unlike her I could not sit down for a while.

Sitting behind a desk might not always be as interesting as working back stage but at least it means my genitals are a lot safer.