Lesbian Dancing After The Show: An Improviser's Non Improvised Life

The Clown Was Not Amused.

Like in Chicago, I was doing other shows in town outside of The Underground Theatre Conspiracy. I auditioned for the Seattle Gay and Lesbian Theatre Festival for a show. What drew me to the audition was this very simple ask:

Looking for funny actors and actresses with strong Physical Comedy Skills and Clown Work.

This is what drew me in. I meet and auditioned for the woman who said she was a professional clown who just happened to be Bi-Sexual. She wanted to do a clown piece on the idea of "Discovering Sexuality." The role I auditioned for was a role she entitled Sister Gender. She was sort of the arch nemesis of it all. Battling this silent clown.

Sure. Sounded interesting to me, being bi-sexual and all...

Here is what I learned doing years of theatre at a pretty young age: The moment you stand out in an ensemble, is the moment your life becomes a living hell.

I got hired and we went into rehearsals. For all purposes she hired other actors to pretty much be props around her clown piece on Womanhood and Bi-Sexuality. This was fine by me, in theory. She needed women to pull red hankies out of their panties and in turn she pulls out a nonstop train of hankies for comedic effect.

We were props. This was fine. This was her show she hired me for, and she directed it. I followed directions for her Bi-Sexual Clown Show.

A show she wrote and directed that ended up being pretty god-awful.

During dress rehearsal, "The Clown" (which I'm officially calling her from here on out) thought it would be best to let someone come and see the final product. She brought in a few of friends to take a look.

The only laughter that came out of them was at my performance as Sister Gender, with the words she wrote for me and the dance number to Patricia Perez Prado (Now more notoriously known as The HBO Real Sex Series Theme). With me in a long sparkly dress doing a three way dance with her...and another man.

The Clown was told that the role of Sister Gender was the funniest part of the show.

Ever see a clown's face turn sour? Not a pretty sight. The day before our actual performance she cut down The Sister Gender Speech and left in the un-funniest parts. It became a huge skeed that I in turn was to make look less funny and to highlight her being funny. She then built a scrim for me to be put behind as a luminous figure.

Fine by me. My only request as she hacked into her own speech I was doing was to have the new monologue behind the scrim with me on the wall...so I could read it while rememorizing for the rest of the run.

The first performance of a two-week run at that year's festival was what it was. Our show ran with a classic Greco Roman Dance Piece from two men, and with the most incredible comedy ensemble of gay men to ever come to fruition: San Francisco's Pomo Afro Homos.

I so wanted to be a Pomo Afro Homo.

The first night we do our show there was not a single laugh during the thing until The Dance and The Sister Gender Monologue. I played it as I had always been directed: Big and over the top. It was like a release of screaming laughter with me behind the scrim. It was as though that audience after the rest of the show needed to laugh at something.

The Clown was not amused.

An Emergency Rehearsal was called the next morning. The Clown had decided to cut some more. She started to cut all of the ensemble scenes to a bare minimum, including the dance scene. What she left behind in my monologue was rambling and undecipherable on gender.