There’s a light…over at the Frankenstein Place…
Over a decade ago, I walked off the stage for the final curtain call of Kaleidoscope Theatre’s production of The Rocky Horror Show. I had no real idea at the time, that it was to be my last live show for 12 years. I didn’t know that I would look back on that production and feel physical pain at times because of the fact that it became a closing chapter.
So many things happened after that. What was supposed to be a flexible job with the cruise line became a full-time, long-term, commitment for my life. The initial promise I was given to flex around local performance commitments vanished when the corporate team changed and I realized – perhaps too late – that there is never any flex for any life outside the line.
Too short for the cast onboard and never home for audition season, I faced the cutting truth that my days as any kind of performer – even a community one – were over.
And then Covid hit. And the line shut down, and my job folded, and immigration happened and life…spun out of control for a long and challenging time…
And when the world finally stopped spinning quite so fast, I steadied myself, and found myself – at 39 years old – looking at the audition notice for VOS’s new staging for The Rocky Horror Show. And I thought…why not? Why not try? If I even make the chorus, at least I will have done something, at least I will have walked back out there again and tried, and after all this time, that alone would be worth it.
So Amras set up the camera and the tripod, and I dug out the voice (though my range has suffered from a decade of lack of use), that I used to welcome people to the Science Fiction Double Feature Picture Show all those years back…and when, after multiple takes, I was finally satisfied with it…pushed send.
And got a call back for Magenta…
And a second call back…
And then found myself staring in shock at the email that offered me the part. Not as big a part singing wise as I had ten years ago (I mean, only the Usherette can sing the opener, and I had that chance a long time ago – time for someone else to don that pillbox hat and rightly so), but a named lead…a fantastically fun part to play…
A lead…after ten years…
There was a point when I was in the midst of the dance call, when I *felt* my body remember what it was supposed to be doing, I *felt* that part of my brain wake up and shake itself down and go “oh, you need me now? Kay…let’s do this”…
And I find myself remembering what one of the cast members onboard said to me ages back when I had just finished sitting in at the piano bar
“You know this is what you’re supposed to be doing right? This is who you are. Don’t ever let them take that from you”
Welcome back…