Tonight I am making my theatrical “comeback,” after not having acted on the stage in some 35 years.
I enjoyed acting as a teenager and thought I was kind of good at it. I always felt I might like to try it again someday. I auditioned for a production of Woodland Theater Productions here in Kettle Falls, WA, in part because I wanted to get involved in the community. Despite extreme shyness, I wanted to cultivate some social life because I feel as though when my husband and I have only each other to interact with, we have the potential to get on each other’s nerves.
I was cast in a small role in one of three one-act plays comprising “Readers Theater,” which is more or less synonymous with a staged reading. Readers Theater usually entails “no memorizing, no props, no costumes, no sets.” In our production, we are using minimalist sets.
I didn’t really think of the production as having that much to do with storytelling until I got an e-mail promoting the plays to the public. It read:
Like storytelling, reader’s theater can create images by suggestion that could never be realistically portrayed on stage. Space and time can be shrunk or stretched, fantastic worlds can be created, and marvelous journeys can be enacted. Reader’s theater frees the performers and the audience from the physical limitations of conventional theater, letting the imagination soar! [These words apparently come from the site above that defines Readers Theater.]
I’m telling myself to “break a leg,” not only for my comeback but for participating in a storytelling activity.