My acting career

My wife, Mandi, is a theater education minor here at BYU-I. She is fantastic at both acting and singing, and I'm constantly in awe of her talent.

So far I've been a spectator to her on-stage exploits; participating in plays and musicals has never been interesting to me, possibly stemming from a traumatic experience I had in 6th grade.

All four of the 6th-grade classes at my elementary school were assigned a Shakespeare play to put on. My class was required to do Romeo and Juliet. My teacher allowed us certain leeway in choosing our roles; at least she took our input before assigning up parts. I wanted to be Mercutio... dying in a sword fight seemed really cool at the time.

A problem cropped up before I was able to voice my opinion, however. I fell in the playground during morning recess and tore up my knee pretty well. I ended up having to go to the doctor to see if I needed stitches. I didn't, but I missed the chance to tell Mrs. Burt of my dreams to play Mercutio.

I came back to school the next day and to my horror, Mrs. Burt had chosen me to play Romeo. Romeo? There are few fates worse than being labeled Romeo for the rest of one's school career.

Anyway, long story short, I complained about wearing tights, I complained about wearing makeup, I complained about playing Romeo. But I remembered my lines and did escape without having to kiss anyone. So that was nice.

Thus ended my thespian career for the next fourteen years.

As part of Mandi's minor, she's taking a directing class. It's really an interesting concept, actually; she works with students who are in acting classes to produce, design, and direct short plays. For her final, she's working on a one-act play named Lot 13: The Bone Violin. She picked four students to play the major roles in the play but was in need of someone to play a minor role.

When Mandi initially asked if I'd take this minor part, I was uneasy. After all, I didn't ask her to play forward on my intramural basketball team. But after some work, she persuaded me to accept.

I play an auctioneer, and my part consists of three lines. The hardest part is remembering when to say them. It's a very interesting and somewhat morbid play, and I like it quite a bit. Anyone in Rexburg on the 13th can see it at 7:30 p.m. in the Snow Building for free!

Maybe I'll switch majors if this goes well. :)