{"id":82384,"date":"2012-02-19T21:22:52","date_gmt":"2012-02-20T02:22:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/friendburst.com\/blog-new\/82384\/ladies-gentlemen-step-up\/"},"modified":"2012-02-19T21:22:52","modified_gmt":"2012-02-20T02:22:52","slug":"ladies-gentlemen-step-up","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/friendburst.com\/blog-new\/82384\/ladies-gentlemen-step-up\/","title":{"rendered":"LADIES AND GENTLEMEN! STEP RIGHT UP!"},"content":{"rendered":"

SIDESHOW BARKER:<\/span> STEP RIGHT UP, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN!\u00a0 Prepare to be astounded <\/em>when you witness an amazing achievement of the human senses!\u00a0 The Sideshow is proud to bring you kind, generous and curious people the story of an infant boy raised in the animal kingdom,\u00a0 his incredible adaptation to the skills his cetaceous adoptive family gave him, and how he uses those super-human abilities to overcome his human disability.<\/font><\/p>\n

A boy child was born, blind, some score and ten years ago.\u00a0 Who can say what horrible blackness of heart inhabited the mother, the family, the people who would do this to a helpless infant, but as they did in the days of the Old Testament with the sick, lame and disfigured, this baby boy was discarded by his birth parents.\u00a0 Instead of being left out in the desert, he was cast into the ocean from boat or dockside. Only God knows what truly happened.<\/font><\/p>\n

But the baby boy did not drown.<\/font><\/p>\n

\"\"He was saved. Nursed. Adopted.\u00a0 He became one of the family\u2026 on the teat of no mere fish this boy was rescued… by a pod of dolphins<\/strong>.<\/p>\n

As our ocean scientists will tell us, dolphins, smarter perhaps than any animal that walks on dry land, use sound to \u201csee\u201d around them and find what they need to live and navigate their oh so different world.\u00a0 Like the sonar of our submarines, the echoes of their voices illuminate their world as richly as do our eyes.<\/p>\n

And to a boy whose eyes do\u00a0 not work, this language of the dolphins let him SEE at last.<\/p>\n

LADIES AND GENTLEMEN, I present to you, for the first time on the dry land of his ancestors\u2026DOLPHIN BOY!!!
\n
\n:::DOLPHIN BOY<\/span> (Joko) emerges from stage left with a blindfold\u00a0 (see-through) over his eyes and a one-piece swimsuit.\u00a0 A dolphin is printed on the blind fold and the suit.:::<\/em><\/p>\n

SKEEEEEAAYAYAARRRAAAK!!!! <\/strong> (dolphin noise)
\n
\n:::DOLPHIN BOY crosses to stage right, swerving back and forth between a slalom course of chairs and\u00a0 other obstacles::::
\n<\/em>
\nSKEEEEEAAYAYAARRRAAAK!!!<\/strong>!\u00a0 (dolphin noise)
\n
\n:::DOLPHIN BOY crosses to stage left, repeating slalom course:::<\/em><\/p>\n

BARKER<\/span>:\u00a0 He cannot see the chairs in his path, ladies and gentlemen, he can only picture them in his mind from the sounds he\u2019s making!!<\/p>\n

:::Ball gets tossed onstage from stage left.\u00a0 DOLPHIN BOY screeches one more time, intercepts ball and bounces it, soccer style, on head, screeching the whole time:::<\/em><\/p>\n

FADE TO BLACK.<\/p>\n

___________________________________<\/p>\n

What the heck was that?<\/p>\n

Well, I am auditioning this Thursday for a role in a new play, entitled \u201cSideshow<\/em>\u201d.\u00a0 It\u2019s experimental theatre and the script isn\u2019t entirely written yet.<\/p>\n

Inspired by the tradition of the old-fashioned circus sideshow, this original dance-theater work features characters whose physical abnormalities bestow them with special powers. Rather than disabilities, they have super-abilities. The Bearded Lady is a contortionist who displays the remarkable magnetic powers of her mysterious beard. The Hunchback has super-human strength but dreams of being a beautiful tightrope walker. A girl with jaundice has the ability to imagine things that then come true. (Craggy trees grow love notes. Swimming pools become giant bowls of green Jello. Fish can fly. Sea sirens are real. . .) Supported by a chorus of sideshow performers singing haunting Appalachian ballads, “Sideshow” is whimsical with somber undertones and a tingling strangeness. Blending dance, theater, and elements of puppetry, it toes the line between being magical and haunting, simple and fantastical.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I\u2019m auditioning for the chorus, and I needed to write my own audition piece.\u00a0 Here\u2019s what they\u2019re looking for:<\/p>\n

These performers will be singing unaccompanied Appalachian ballads and will be used in a variety of small roles throughout the show. We’ll be looking for people who can sing in this style and ideally also have circus-related skills (juggling! hula hooping!) or play a musical instrument. For the audition, please sing us a song and show us your special talent<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Now, the song part I got down.\u00a0 I\u2019ll be performing \u201cMan of Constant Sorrow\u201d<\/em> on ukulele.\u00a0 I\u2019m pleased with how my rehearsing is coming along with that\u2026 but juggling?\u00a0 Hula hooping?\u00a0 Umm\u2026 I have to think of something else.<\/p>\n

Hence, DOLPHIN BOY<\/strong> was born.<\/p>\n

I have\u00a0 second talent idea I\u2019m going to be sharing, but I\u2019ll wait until Thursday to reveal that.\u00a0 It’s even more outrageous and ridiculous than this Dolphin Boy thingie…<\/p>\n

Wish me broken legs.<\/p>\n

<\/font><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

SIDESHOW BARKER: STEP RIGHT UP, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN!\u00a0 Prepare to be astounded when you witness an amazing achievement of the human senses!\u00a0 The Sideshow is proud to bring you kind, generous and curious people the story of an infant boy raised in the animal kingdom,\u00a0 his incredible adaptation to the skills his cetaceous adoptive family […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,21],"tags":[81,2509],"class_list":["post-82384","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-life","category-literature","tag-joko","tag-theatre"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/friendburst.com\/blog-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82384","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/friendburst.com\/blog-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/friendburst.com\/blog-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/friendburst.com\/blog-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=82384"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/friendburst.com\/blog-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/82384\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/friendburst.com\/blog-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=82384"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/friendburst.com\/blog-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=82384"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/friendburst.com\/blog-new\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=82384"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}