Opening NIght!

Tonight was opening night. I went a bit early to let Bob practice being eaten. He’s just never quite figured out how to get chomped. Today he finally did. There was some difficulty. During one try, he rolled backwards when he stepped in and pulled me on top of him. I couldn’t move, belted to the lower jaw and all. Eventually he figured out how to take his time, step in, and get chomped properly. He did a great job during the performance.

I worked my glue gun magic to fix the tears from our practice while everyone else was getting bouffants and make up. Glue from a glue gun is not ideal because the glue just soaks into the foam. But it worked for the performance. Tomorrow a tailor will make more “permanent” fixes. This is a good thing because Matt’s head penetrated the foam inside the top of the mouth. I just hope this poor puppet makes it through 3 more performances.

The performance was great. I can only go by audience reactions I heard and what people tell me because I’m either under a table or in a foam puppet for all but 2 songs in the play. Yet, from what I could hear, the acting and singing was great.

I don’t often toot my own horn, but I think I rocked the house with the “Feed Me” song. Many people told me that they thought the plant was alive and singing. I reckon a month of practicing in front of a mirror while listening to a Broadway recording on my iPod paid off. It’s just funny to think that we received the puppets less than 2 weeks ago.

The biggest puppet was my biggest concern. It’s very heavy. I can’t “lip sync” the way that I can in puppet #3. Ben (the voice) tends to talk fast, so it’s especially challenging. I certainly made some mistakes, but I think it was ok. It’s actually kind of amazing to me how I’ve been able to strengthen muscles and contort my body in many different ways to make this plant seem alive and chomp on people.

The coolest thing was the curtain call. Matt, Kelly, and Ben hold the plant so that I can unstrap and pop out of the plant’s mouth. People actually cheered for me when I popped out tonight. It was really cool. I can now understand why people perform. I’m pretty shy (puppeteering is about the extent of how I can be on stage). But I did like the cheering. I was drenched in sweat and still sucking on the CamelBak tube when I popped out (I drink 3 liters of water per performance).

Juise, the puppet maker, was at the performance tonight. He got to take his bows as well. I need to call him tomorrow. I’d love to hear what he has to say about how I made his wonderful creations come to life, especially since the last time he saw me in a puppet I was rolling around on the floor.