In an Itchy Costume and Wearing Stage-Makeup

Being behind the scenes of a musical is complicated. It can be fun, boring, monotonous, or bothersome and there will always be some who are doing nothing, and those who are running for their lives to get on stage. In my case, it’s mostly boring. Being an extra in a musical is harder than it looks. I’m always attempting to put expression on, but it’s much more difficult when your character doesn’t have any backstory and is crammed into tiny corners and expected to dance. However, when it all comes together on stage, it seems worth all of the boring, extra hours of sitting/standing and doing nothing. It’s refreshing to see some of the scenes that I’m not in be perfected, and it seems worth it to work my way up from being a slightly useless extra to having a part, someday.

Moreover, the costumes and stage-makeup make things almost unbearable at times. The inability to even rub my nose at times drives me half-insane and the itchy feathers don’t help. After half an hour of pains-taking stage-makeup and painful bobby-pins securely keeping my hair in place, I go to CYT and carefully eat my home-made meal as everyone else puts on their makeup. After I eat, I wiggle out of my everyday clothes and carefully squeeze into my costume and put another costume on over the original one. After this, since I still have about ten minutes of spare time, I realize that I’ve forgotten my kindle (once again) and have to borrow some paper and a pencil from a friend to ease my easily-provoked boredom.

Finally, I’m out on stage. I run as quietly as I can up the stairs with everyone else, and scurry out of the wings with the rest of the crowd. After the first song, I remove myself from the glaring lights and down to the changing rooms, only to realize that I’m on for the next song; and I’m late. Giving up on it, figuring that they can live without me, I carefully lift my outer costume off and put a hat on for my next time on stage. I’m constantly moving so that others can reach their bins which have necessary articles in them, so my drawing goes slowly and I don’t accomplish much except for the fact that I’ve managed to get my mind off mind-controlling boredom, for a few minutes.

But despite the itchy costumes and unbearable makeup, being in a musical is worth it just to be on a stage and in front of other humans is worth it. And in case you’re interested, here’s the link to buy tickets the Seussical the Musical! Buy the tickets under my name (Emily Smith) and be quick! There’s not much time left!

http://www.cytsantacruz.org/shows/