Twisted Fingers

Who knew the life of an actor could be dangerous?

What feels like ages ago

Last Autumn I had a pretty good month for dinner theatre work. I had three gigs over the course of a couple of weeks. Not great, but good compared to the usual consistency of work. The last performance we had done was for some Dutch finance company at a posh hotel downtown. A few days prior, they had requested that we alter our murder mystery to censor all murder and even suggestion of violence from the narrative. I ended up having to teach these serious bankers in suits how to do an 80’s dance while dressed up as Richard Simmons! I’ll add a photo of him for reference. fortunately for me, I don’t think I had any photos taken of my get-up during the event. The organizer actually reported me to my manager on site claiming I was “dressed unprofessionally”. I guess they had forgotten to warn them that I would be dressed like an 80’s workout instructor.

This is what I looked like. Or at least what I was trying to channel.

The Eglinton Grand

After that gig I thought I was ready for any wild murder mystery scenario they could throw at me. I’ll do an accent, I’ll pretend to be a banker, I don’t care! I was acting and getting paid and that’s all that mattered to me. The third gig was set to be at the Eglinton Grand, this fancy old hotel in Eglinton. All the guests were dressed in their best roaring 20’s outfits as that seemed to be their theme. We were ill-prepared. Our organizer who had all the props was extremely late and the actor playing the detective was somewhat new to the role, not the guy we usually had. I was playing my usual two roles, the hitman, and busboy/killer.

The main hall where everyone was seated was massive and loud. We were meant to perform in there and somehow grab the attention of all these people. I knew it was going to be a difficult task, and since I played the hitman I was the inciting incident. I run in with a prop gun claiming I’m here for two people and the detective ultimate shoots me, collects clues off me and then drags me away. The nearest hall to drag me to was like 25 feet away, so I already knew that would be a challenge too. Thank God I’m tiny.

This is what the main hall looked like. I had to bust into the room from that little door on the right.

Bring the Thunder!

I knew I was going to have to be big for this scene and really grab people’s attention. I was nervous so I pumped myself up, did a bunch of pushups, really got into my hitman zone. When it was my time I donned my ski-mask, and pulled out the stage gun which looked almost identical to a real revolver. I remember looking at it and thinking, is it even legal to do this? But when you’re in character you’re in character, and I was getting paid for this after all, so I felt I needed to just focus on giving a good performance. I busted into the main hall yelling bloody murder, waving that pistol left and right and just behaving like an overall menace. I don’t think those people were given a proper head’s up about the murder mystery, if any, because a lot of people looked genuinely scared and bewildered. Now I’m just a man with a ski mask on in a crowd of over a hundred people waving around what looks to them to be a real firearm.

Put the Gun Down

Suddenly a tall man approached me. “What is this? What’s going on? What are you doing?” He’s asking me all these questions as he approaches and suddenly he lunges towards me, grabs the gun in my hand and pulls it towards his chest while twisting. My finger was stuck in the trigger and I had to let go before he snapped it right off. Just like that he disarmed me.

He was scared and confused and to his credit he saw a dangerous situation and acted quickly, I respected him so much for it. But in the moment, idiotically and maybe because I was in a bit of shock, I tried to stay in character. “You think I need that gun? Do you know who I am?” I thought about dropping character but the other actors that came to my aid stayed in character as well. The detective even lied and said he was with O.P.P! (Ontario Provincial Police). They just wanted to take the prop gun from this scared, confused man but he didn’t trust any of them, and rightly so!

I took a small rest after that and then finished the rest of the show. My finger was bleeding but I was still too shocked to feel any pain. I realized later as the pain set in that it was sprained pretty bad. After that I told myself I’m not going to be doing anymore dinner theatres anytime soon. I was more frustrated than I was scared. Getting paid pennies to get beaten up? If I had wanted that for my life I would have trained to become a boxer.

And the Moral of the Story is…

Don’t pretend to be a hitman for money or else you’ll get your finger twisted! Or at least that was my take away from it all. Honestly, it did take it out of me for a while. I stopped doing the dinner theatres, my night-job got super busy as the holidays approached and my career as an actor didn’t feel center stage anymore. I had a long hiatus from doing any acting, and it didn’t feel good. When I’m not acting, I lose my confidence and slowly start to question if I should even be identifying as an actor. That’s a downward spiral, because the more that I feel like an imposter, the less I put myself out there.

On a Positive Note

I’ve been building that confidence back up with the aid of my co-worker/acting friends. It’s important to remember the joy of performing, which is the reason I chose this path in the first place. When I perform I feel alive and I feel like I’m doing what I’m supposed to be doing. I needed to stop beating myself up for not being where I want to be, and start from scratch. That’s why I signed up for a background agency. In my next post, I’ll get into the weeds about being an extra and what my experience of it has been so far. Stay tuned, and remember to make time for what you love.

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