Day 259: Opening Night

Well, tonight was opening night of The Elephant Man. It went wonderfully and a happy accident with a prop happened but I'll explain that in a later post. In this post I want to discuss our pre-show. Before the real performance begins there is a tiny show that goes on in the lobby to prepare the audience for what awaits in the theater. For those who don't know the show, it's about a man who is half man half elephant and is forced into early 20th century freak shows. The host(ess) of the freak show does a little routine of welcoming and singing. He(she) is a bearded lady. Of course it's one of the show actors in drag. He sings songs in head voice and I accompany on a rickety old upright. While he is welcoming I'm playing ragtime to represent the setting and setup the rags that will be heard in the show. It's so much fun and a great way to kick off the show and a great way to kick off my series of elephant man performance posts. Here's pics of me and the bearded lady and some shots of the lobby.