Since I can’t work backstage at shows anymore (last time I tried, I had to take a week off of work because of a manic episode), I volunteered some art for the community theater. For their show Puffs. Two qualifiers:
After I sent the art to the director, I haven’t heard a word back. I don’t know if they’re using it or not.
The subject-matter is problematic, I’m well aware. The good news is, Puffs is a parody, and it walks up to the line of copyright violation, but doesn’t cross it. There’s nothing that miserable c-word can do about it, and all the money this play makes is going to the authors.
Because the play is about the house the Sorting Hat would send me to, and because this play is stealing money from JK Rowling, I take pride in my work.
I received a text from Maddy on Saturday morning, reminding me to watch the door to the auditorium when I worked the play without her that night. The reminder came not because she didn’t trust in my ability to remember, but because a woman almost got clocked on opening night.
They tried to warn her, but she didn’t listen (or hear at all), and she got lucky. With the first half of Maddy’s text, she was telling me that I might have to dive in slow motion to take the hit.
The second half hinted that the Olympic-level quick change at the end of act one almost failed. She put scissors on the prop table in case it came to that. I had a lot to look forward to in the evening.
I had a couple of awkward exchanges on the internet before I headed out for the rest of the day. I missed my Metro train, and I had to wait seven minutes for the next one, so I was almost on time to see my ex-roomie. This was bad.
A habit I had picked up from my Nebraskan ex-wife was to show up early. As they say on Letterkenny, “If you’re early, you’re on time. If you’re on time, you’re late.” I was running late.
After I bought a coffee for the lone protestor at the Heritage Foundation, I became actually late. I became even later when I walked down the wrong street, several blocks past our meeting place. I had a missed call and a text from Nicole, who was worried something terrible had happened to me.
My ex-roomie was telling me that she hadn’t been to the Suffrage Museum, where she volunteered for years, in an age. She is worried, reasonably so, it will be shut down by the president’s boss. I suggested we go this weekend.
We were met by a ranger, a friend of ex-roomie, who took us through the building and showed us everything that had changed since ex-roomie had been there last. They even had her old name-tag.
They were catching up, so I was a third wheel and kind of bored through most of it. While we were hanging out in the gift shop. The ranger pointed at one of their displays and mentioned that no one ever bought the Suffragette Soap. I have a habit of purchasing interesting soaps, so I picked up a bar.
The other ranger, an unusual person with an unusual accent and unusual glasses, cashed me out. I told her that I was excited to smell like oranges, and oh, my god, she loves oranges! I picked up a mini equal rights pin and told her that I want to start a gift exchange with a crow and explained what that entailed. She asked if I like birds, and I told her that I liked owls, and oh, my god she loves owls. I told her that the only owls I’ve ever seen in real life were burrow owls, and oh, my god, she loves burrow owls. If I didn’t know any better, I’d say she was flirting with me. Her name was Jess
Upon the park rangers’ suggestions, ex-roomie and I went to the Folger Shakespeare Library across the street and looked over some amazing old manuscripts. They were always open to their illustrations. However, as with all medieval illustrations, I had no idea what was going on.
She and I tried to get lunch at the café, but it is apparently the most popular study place for college students. We found a seat, but she had to leave for an appointment before her food arrived, which meant I had to eat it.
Maddy had completely reset the props before she went home Friday, so there was nothing for me to do until it was time to relocate the weasel. I wasn’t needed until about a half-hour before curtain, so I sat in the Baxter Room with the cast, and I illustrated Jess.
Lisette and Lucille each breathlessly gave me their accounts of the costume-flip nail-biter. The issue wasn’t the corset, but rather the second dress. It had an extra layer, so Lisette and her petticoat kept getting caught in it. She hung up the dress in a way that she could step into it, and I asked her if she were going to practice. If she went down during the performance, it was all over.
What struck me about the exchange was that she was coming to me as an expert. I hadn’t done theater since early high school. I can barely dress myself. On the other hand, my façade of authority allowed me to talk her out of the hanger idea, which might kill her, and into something a little more reasonable, like safety pins.
That did the trick. At the end of the first act, after I rescued the weasel, Lucille and Lisette were a well-oiled machine. I got to hold the flashlight. Apparently, I did that well because Lucille gave me a double thumbs up as Lisette stepped onto the stage.
After the show, we had to break down the set and the seating so the Episcopalians could worship in their own damned church. Ernie from load-in directed us with military precision. Within forty-five minutes, the set was in the closet downstairs, the risers had been relocated, the prop table wrapped up, and the boulder put into a very large plastic bag. All the chairs and the piano had been restored to their original positions.
It was like we weren’t even there. It’s guerilla theater.
Also, it wasn’t until the fourth time I listened to this play that I heard Lisette say to Lucille, “All tits on deck!”
The end of Tech Week (https://jrmhmurphy.com/tag/theater/) started out with smarm. Specifically, I arrived at the church and stepped into the empty nave before a slick man in a suit appeared somehow without opening the door. He asked if he could help me. I said I was with the St. Mark’s Players and we were meeting at six. He said, and I quote, “It’s not six yet.” It was 5:57.
I quickly found them in the Baxter room, which was the kind of place you could hold a wedding reception. We’d been using it as a dressing room and a place for the cast to hang out.
I want to give mad props to Arianna, the costume tech. I have a lot of respect for people who sew theater costumes (I dated one) because they are some of the craftiest people you’ll ever meet. Looking closely, you can see that the costumes were purchased off the rack, but they have been seriously altered.
Arianna sewed snaps on the petticoat and dress for Lisette. This was useful because Lisette, as I’ve mentioned in the past, has a quick-change out of a corset and into the royal dress. Tuesday night, Jane and Maddy struggled with the removal part, so Arianna reduced the size of the string holding it together and turned a few fasteners into snaps and that made all the difference in the world. She had a minute and forty-five seconds to switch it over, and after a few rounds, Maddy, Jane, Lisette, and I managed to do it in a minute fifteen.
Another area of improvisation I was stunned with was how she handled Damis’s jacket. Because Arianna had sewn a cape onto it, it kept falling off, so she added backpack straps to the inside, and it stayed together.
I know you were all (both of you) anxiously anticipated the arrival of the metal codpiece. I am happy to announce that it arrived, and it was glorious. I asked if it was bulletproof, but Arianna didn’t know.
I forgot to tell you this, but act one ends with a pair of cast members bursting out of the nave, swinging the door with gusto. It’s my responsibility to wait in the lobby to keep people from getting smacked in the face with it. I’ll be honest, though, I kind of want to see someone get walloped, so if I saw someone approaching the door, I’m not sure I’d rescue them.
Maddie gave me a spreadsheet of my duties, and one of the items was “Fluff the Weasel.” Since that sounds like a full sentence, I had to ask exactly how to fluff said weasel. No, its name is Fluff. That meant I was singing, “Fluff the magic weasel, lives on the stage …”
Wednesday’s rehearsal went off without a hitch, including Lisette’s big change. Maddie let me do the work because I’m going to be by myself on Saturday, which means I will have to help them strike the set for church Sunday.
Meanwhile, I’ve been getting three or four hours of sleep, so I’m ready to collapse. I’ve been working, and with the help of my friend, Monsieur Adderall, I’ve been able to make it through, but I’ve hit a wall. I’ve had so much fun, I feel like a five-year-old after a day at the beach.
Metromaniacs opens Friday, 21 February, at St. Mark’s Church on Capitol Hill.
Last night was the dress rehearsal for Metromaniacs, and it was worth the price of admission. From the gold and white of Francalou to the red cape on Damis, they went all out. There were buckles. So many buckles. Everybody had buckles except for Mondor, who was a filthy servant and didn’t deserve any.
The problem with working backstage is that I can’t see a proper performance, and that made me sad. The performances were very physical, especially the women. Lucille posed across the stage like an Instagram model, and Lisette imitated her, but I’d only seen them do it in twenty-first-century clothes. In fluffy Sun King dresses, I’m sure it was a sight to behold.
I was there for a reason, though, and Maddy walked me through this. There wasn’t much. I will mostly be sitting in the back, reading my proofs on my phone, and waiting for the very few things I need to do.
First, we had to check the props table, with the fake quill pens and the feather fan and the hat Yankee Doodle named Macaroni. Everything was in its exact space and labeled, and the cast tended to leave them right where they belonged, so after initial setup, we only straighten them out for the next show.
Next, we plug in the running lights and the backstage blue lamp, so nobody breaks a leg. Next, we prop open the secret door so cast members doing costume changes don’t get locked out. Next, we set the trumpet. Next, we reset the beanbag boulder for the first act.
The next thing we have to do is retrieve the weasel. Lucille tosses it backward, over the curtain, where it lands right in the path of the actors’ mid-stage exit. If we don’t want anybody to break a leg, we have to grab that right away.
We hit a wall during the quick change at the end of act one. I observed so I can try it out tonight, but Maddy, the professional, dove right in. In less than two minutes, Lisette needs to drop her drab, black maid’s dress and step into a royal pink one. The problem was that the maid’s dress had a corset, and corsets are shifty.
Every time Maddy and Lucille thought they had loosened it, they found themselves struggling with more string. The play had to be paused to figure this out. The fancy dress, petticoats, and wig went right on with no opposition. Tomorrow, Maddy and I are going to practice unlacing a corset, which I haven’t done since I was married.
And finally, in the second act, we have to grab Macaroni when Dorant flings it, not because we don’t want people to break a leg, but we didn’t want anyone to smash that delightful product of haberdashery.
That was it. We left everything where we it started, unplugged the lights, reset the weasel, and headed home in the freezing cold.
There is an issue, though. I’ve been getting home three or four hours past my bedtime and waking up at my normal ungodly hour. A sudden disruption of sleep patterns can trigger a manic episode. I should have called my doctor, I said, lamenting that I have to call my doctor to work with the community theater.
All I can do is continue to have fun and hope for the best. I need stimulation! I need excitement! I need one of those fake quills.
The name of the play is Metromaniacs, which sounds like cartoon set in the DC Underground. It’s actually set in a mansion in Paris, in the eighteenth-century.
The metro in Metromaniacs refers to a metronome, and therefore meter. It’s told in rhyming couplets delivered with such casual ease that it took me half of the first scene to notice. The theme of the play is poetry and the power of words to seduce.
The plot is convoluted. It’s a farce—it’s supposed to be convoluted. What follows is the general breakdown of the characters and the first part of the story.
1. Francalou, rich man and scorned poet, created the alter ego of Meriadec, a reclusive lady poet. As her, has become quite the celebrity in the literary journal circuit, despite that the work is objectively bad. He has written a play so utterly noxious, the cast got sick. But the show must go on!
2. Lizette, maid and master manipulator, is the sassy voice of reason. To put it bluntly, everyone in the play is an idiot except for her, but even she is a slave to her needs. She was my favorite character and performance, hands down, because the chaos of the first act was almost all her doing. From behind, she looks exactly like Francalou’s daughter. Not that this will come up later or anything.
3. Mondor, Cosmo’s loyal, frustrated, and creepy manservant, tries to corral his boss, then gives up and steals his fake identity to woo Francalou’s daughter. His heart truly belongs to Lizette, but she spurns him at every opportunity.
4. Damis is a wannabe poet and man in debt. (He is played by a guy named Oscar.) He wrote a play under the name Bouillabaisse, opening this very day. He is deeply in love with Francalou’s alter ego, but he thinks Meriadec is his daughter.
5. Lucille, Francalou’s daughter, played by everybody’s favorite actor, Jane, is aloof, yet overly performative. Poetry makes her all tritterpated.
6. Durant is a rugged man’s man who wants the rich man’s daughter. He gets his old friend Damis to write him a poem, but this backfires. (Don’t worry, it turns out well in the end.)
7. Angry Uncle Baliveau. He paid for Damis’s school, and Damis has been going to school for ten years. Before Baliveau can have Damis arrested, Francalou maneuvers him into starring in the play as a character based on him.
From there, it gets weird. Mistaken identities, deception, fourth-wall-breaking, love at first sight, three weddings at the end (there are two women and five men in this play; do the math), this is a classic Shakespearean farce, and I don’t think I’m exaggerating to say that. It doesn’t have the substance of the Bard, but it has the delirious energy of his best comedies.
The actors were having a great time, and they each brought their own level of expressiveness. Francalou was manic, Lizette confident and amused, Mondor was sleazy, Damis was twitchy and deluded, Durant was a doofus, and Angry Uncle was angry. Jane was a lot of fun as Lucille, with her influencer vibe. Performing as someone who is performing has got to be a challenge, but she stuck with it.
The trees we spent so much time painting for the set are actually for the set within the set, but we never see the play. Probably for the best. It sounds like Vogons wrote it. I also found out the purpose of the beanbag boulder: Mondor falls face-first onto it; as a connoisseur of pratfalls, and having been a fine practioner of them in my youth, I was remarkably impressed. He went straight down like a two-by-four. I’ll be setting up the boulder during intermission, and I probably shouldn’t screw that up.
I’ll be working backstage with my sketchbook, which might be a problem. The most important prop is a notebook with a leather cover and a long strap to wrap it in. In the dark, it is identical to my sketchbook. That won’t go badly, will it? On the set of a farce? Nah.
I returned to St. Mark’s Church on Capitol Hill this weekend for the beginning of Tech Week. The cast of Metromaniacs has been practicing for weeks now, and it’s time to do rehearsals onstage. A stage, therefore, needed to be built. The trick to this is that St. Mark’s is an active church, so stage must be disassembled every Saturday. Sunday was the day it would be built for the first time, using the trees and moon I’d helped decorate in January (https://jrmhmurphy.com/2025/01/13/paint-no-rest-for-the-wicked/ ).
I didn’t have as much fun as the first time. In fact, it was kind of a drag during act 2. This was because a call went out for volunteers, and lots of people showed up. There were about twenty of us there in total, and no one knew each other, aside from the director, the producers, the cast, and the crew, who all had ther own in-jokes.
The volunteer named Elizabeth had the right idea. She introduced herself to everybody and asked them where they’re from. It’s a legitimate question in DC.
I hate when someone asks me that, because I have to respond with a high-pitched, “Welllll…” I could always continue and say “Lots of places,” like Connor McLeod, but I always list them. They usually zone out after the first three.
Elizabeth was adorable, with her platinum bob, pink hoodie, clear-framed glasses, and her fearlessness. If you meet someone like this, you’re likely to assume that, once you got them started, they were going to talk you into unconsciousness. Not Elizabeth.
She answered questions quickly and efficiently, so you had to steer her in the right direction. She was born in 1997. She’s from Montgomery, she went to college in Birmingham, and she moved here because she needed more culture in her life. She likes backstage work, but hasn’t done it since high school, and she will be my rival from now on.
The other person I met immediately, who was not afraid to talk, was Jane. She was somewhere in her mid-twenties, and had a Barbie figure. Her hair was long and straight, from the nineties (formerly from the sixties), and her voice squeaked like Betty Boop, making it difficult to understand the words she was saying. She was in the cast, and she’d never done community theater before. She was spirited away early on.
Ernie spoke. Ernie reminds me of my tenth-grade communications teacher, who was a compact, swarthy man with a mustache and an aggressive hippy vibe. He assured us that once he finished giving his speech, he would be giving the whole thing over to Monique, the stage manager.
He did not. He led us through the transformation of the seating from church seating to bleacher seating. First, we stacked the chairs already there.
Then we set up the risers. (That’s Elizabeth with her back to us.)
And finally, putting seventy-six of the chairs back.
With twenty of us, it was easy to get the work done instantaneously. The problem was, by the time you can get something to do, someone sweeps in and grabs the job. It was a full-contact sport trying to be useful. You’re tripping over everyone, and everyone is tripping over you.
Elizabeth, as always, was the vanguard of activity. She just went to people and asked them questions. I tried this, but if you’re awkward, and someone calls out for volunteers right when you ingratiate yourself into a conversation, it might be discouraging.
When they started hanging the curtains in front of the altar, I realized that I was only getting in the way. I sat in the bleachers and counted down the 127 minutes until we were done, but then it got interesting.
When we were painting last month, Ruth, the bouncy producer, was disbelieving and thrilled that I was interested in working backstage. When I arrived today, the other producer, the assistant stage manager, the director, and Monique, the stage manager, were thrilled to meet me.
As I sat there, feeling useless, Maddy, young and concerned, and Monique, middle-aged and amused, sat on either side of me and explained what I’d be doing. Monique, as you might remember, was the stage manager, and Maddie was her assistant. My job includes moving the “beanbag boulder” during intermission.
After that: stuff to do! The three of set up the backstage so we wouldn’t be seen from the bleachers, wouldn’t get in the way of the cast in this manic farce, and would be in a lot of light because there would be a lot of downtime, and they’re encouraging me to draw.
They also showed me the props, among which were a feathered fan, a plushie ferret, a glass clock, and the contents of locked box. The contents of the box were a pouch full of (fake) blood, a pouch of (fake) silver coins, including three British pounds, and a pair of (fake) dueling pistols, which were the reason the box was locked.
They sent me home early, which I realized when I looked at my phone, was eighteen minutes early. On my way out, I bumped into Jane, who was in full costume, which I can only describe as Marie Antoinette. Monday night, I’m advised to do nothing but watch the rehearsal so I get a feel for it. This is going to be a breeze.
A couple of months ago, I volunteered to be an usher at a community theater production that in no way needed an usher. They told me they’d be in touch if they thought I could help out on their next production. Right before the holidays, a group email went out, rife with reply-alls, soliciting volunteers for set painting.
I like my life. But I need to get out. I need to have conversations with people who can answer me and don’t bite me at random. I’ll take one or the other.
There was a Saturday and Sunday slot. Because I greet the world like a vampire if you wake him up in the afternoon, I volunteered for the two hours Saturday, and not the four hours Sunday. My contact was Ruth, which is one of those wholesome old-person names that you rarely hear anymore. I had a picture of her in my head.
I arrived a quarter after because I timed everything badly. And most of the work had been done because the rehearsal ended early, and the cast had decided to attack the primered foam trees with rollers. They were baffled by me, I was baffled by them, until Ruth showed up.
Ruth was not an old person. Ruth was a perky, bouncy, thirtysomething, cute as a button, who threw herself into the work. She had no idea what was going on, but she was going to take point because someone had to. The woman with the plan was Kathryn, who was a hippie from the sixties and fussed like Piglet. She was what I thought Ruth was going to be like.
One of the volunteers was a house-painter, so he was available to coach, which he was more than happy to do. He didn’t even need prompting. He would just show up behind you and point out an uneven patch, then stroll away for the next tree trunk where they awaited his wisdom. He was a silver fox with no neck, a fitted T-shirt, and wranglers he kept pulling up.
He and I bonded over the Doors. One of their songs started playing on the radio station (I didn’t know they still had those), and he couldn’t identify it. I asked, “Want me to tell you?” It was “LA Woman.” He explained to his companion that the Doors were from the sixties more than the seventies because Jim Morrison died in the early part of the seventies. Was it ’71? ’72? ’73? He then rattled off a bunch of the Dead at 27 Club.
I spent most of my time in the storage closet with Ruth because it looked like someone emptied a giant junk drawer into it. The storage closet is about the same size as the one Kate dumped my stuff in after the divorce, which is to say it’s very small. The theater troop were there by the grace of St. Mark’s Episcopal Church, with a Sunday school in the room the next day, so all the trees were going to have to be put away. Apparently, the stage had to be broken down and stashed every Saturday night for mass.
I have no spatial reasoning, so I don’t know how to make things fit, until Saturday night, when I was directing Ruth to move things into the best space. She laughed a lot, which was good because I was supposed to be funny.
When everyone went home, Ruth hung out with me while I waited for my Uber. She asked me my favorite part of community theater thirty-five years ago, and I told her working in the wings. I’m the first person who didn’t say acting, so she is going to talk to the stage manager, who might need an assistant, as the play is a farce.
I made it to bed and woke up the next morning to continue the project I was working on Saturday. I asked myself if I wanted to stay home all day like I’ve done for the past bunch of Sundays. I did not, so that afternoon, I headed out to St. Mark’s Church and met more people.
I arrived early because I overcompensated, so Ruth and I cleared up the chairs from Sunday school and learned stuff about each other. She told me her husband was a novelist, with one book self-published, and he was interested in trying out his hand with traditional publishers. I offered some tips.
She was very excited to introduce me to Jess. Jess is on “The Board” with her husband, and she’s an artist. When she was showing off the samples she wanted to do, she turned to me for my expertise, even though I explained I am not an expert. When I asked what kind of art she did, she sheepishly told me crafts stuff, as well as a large bus for a karaoke competition. She was way more of an expert here than I was. In fact, I did two things all afternoon. First, I attempted to sponge over the base layer in a way that looked like leaves. It did not work. I attempted to add highlights. It looked like Jackson Pollack had rolled around on one of his canvasses. The second thing I did was paint over it with the base color and left it to Jess, whose trees looked magnificent.
Meanwhile, Kathryn, who assured us she was no artist, singlehandedly added a level of depth to the tree trunks that was uncanny. Ruth painted the moon, using a video on TikTok for a reference, and Kathryn was there to help. But she was not an artist. No, sir.
When I showed up, I told them I could only stay for two of the four scheduled hours because I would need to return to my cave with my cat and shun the outside world. We were done within two hours.
Now, all I have to do is wait for Ruth’s email, and maybe I’ll be able to hang out backstage and juggle, while surrounded by weird people.
Jeremiah Murphy 