A Life in the Theatre
As part of my "role" in this play, I assisted the director during rehearsals. Once the play was running, I moved props, changed scenes and created a bit of a character onstage while doing it.

This David Mamet play is the story of two actors; one young and one older. As the play progresses, the struggling young actor's career begins to take off while the once successful older actor's career declines.

I learned a lot about theatre during this show but I'll always remember it for another reason. This play marked my first mentioning in a professional review. Here's how it happened.

One night, in the middle of the play, the 'wardrobe mistress' (who took care of all of the clothes during the multiple on-stage and backstage wardrobe changes) came backstage very upset about the large mess of clothes onstage. Trying to be helpful, I told her that, as soon as I finished what I was doing, I would go onstage and quickly pick up the clothes.

Well, either she didn't hear me or forgot but, when I got onstage with the laundry basket, there were no clothes on the stage whatsoever. Thinking fast, I grabbed a hanger and pants off the rack and threw them in the basket.

Annoyed, I got ready for my responsibilities of the next scene. Several scenes later, as the older actor changed backstage, the younger actor started to change onstage. Midway through, he started yelling to the older actor that he couldn't find his pants and it became a bit of an argument between their characters. This went on back and forth for 30 seconds before I realized what had happened and I retrieved the pants. The older actor brought out his pants and the play went on.

After the show, I apologized profusely to the actors and they weren't too upset about it. I figured that was the end of it.

Until a review appeared a few days later in The Boston Globe.

The reviewer felt the script was slowly paced and wasn't helped by the neccessary quick changes. In his commentary on how director Robert Heinlein dealt with these challenges, I noticed these few lines:

Heinlein fills the lulls with songs like "Brush Up Your Shakespeare" and an awkward scene (that isn't in the script) about an actor looking for his pants.

I felt really awful at the time but I think everyone involved found it pretty humorous — especially that the reviewer thought it was a planned part of the show!

I remember thinking: "Wow. My first mention in a professional review. Well, there's no place to go but 'up' from here."