The most challenging roles I ever took on, on stage: Getting killed by a vampire

I was very heavily involved in acting when i was in high school and a bit beyond as well. It is kind of tough to get involved in acting not because they wont cast you because you have no talent - trust me, we have plenty of that - but because it is a LOT of work and you almost never get paid for any of it.

Why does anyone do it? Well for me I found it fun and also getting a bit of localized "fame" was a good part of it as well.

This play that I had to be murdered on stage was called "The Kiss of Rowena" and it was written by a college professor that basically sucked at his job of being and English teacher and wanted to branch out a bit. I'll never forget Dr. Micah because his class was absolute bullshit but I got along with him because he was into some seriously geeky stuff like Mystery Science Theater 3000 and we connected on that level despite the 30-40 year age difference between us.

When he informed me that he had written a play that he was going to shop around and see if anyone wanted to do it on stage I was intrigued, and later on I tried out for a supporting role of "Brad (don't remember the surname" who was a playboy of sorts that enjoyed meddling in the life of others and I ended up getting the role.

I kind of knew that this was going to guaranteed me an "A" in his class and I was correct about that even though his class was basically nonsense and everyone hated it.

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The really fun part about being involved in community theater is that you are going to meet a ton of really cool people. Between the other actors, the director, the set designers, and the special effects people there are a ton of passionate people involved that are almost all of the time donating their services for a little blurb on their resume or just a shot of some localized fame.

I admit that I really enjoyed being in the "Playbill" and having my history of all the other things I had starred in and of course we exaggerated a bit to make me sound a great deal more accomplished than I actually was.

Brad was not a major character in the story. Brad kept trying to swoop in on his friend's girlfriend and succeeded on a few occasions in the story. This wasn't the first time that I had to kind of make out with a girl on stage in front of a bunch of people and I'll tell you this, it is a lot easier when the actress in question is smoking hot. We developed a tiny bit of a relationship with one another despite the fact that we both had other partners at the time and now I kind of understand how this happens to real celebrities on a regular basis. You spend so much time together working on lines and rehersing and when that rehearsing involves making kissy face on a near daily basis, well, one thing leads to another.

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The portrayal of a playboy isn't that tough actually, even though I am the opposite of that in real life. Being able to act arrogant and a like a womanizer is pretty easy when the results are guaranteed, that is for sure. In real life is a considerably more risky, especially in today's times where everything is recorded and then you get arrested simply for talking to a pretty girl.

That part of the play was easy for me, and it was easy to "Cerisa" as well, who is who I spent most of my scenes with.

The tough parts of the play for me was when I had to be on stage with the secret vampire of the story, "Rowena". Brad (my character) was a scumbag, there is no way around it, and even though Rowena was meant to be 13 or 14 years old in appearance, that didn't stop Brad, who was meant to be a legal adult. I would flirt with her and one day through various interactions Brad tries to force Rowena away from a house where her obviously fake "father" has her captured. I don't recall how Brad ever first encountered Rowena and her fake father, maybe the smoking hot blonde Cerisa lived next door in the story.

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But one day when Brad is attempting to drag Rowena away from the building and she is halfway attracted to Brand and halfway resisting because of her devotion to her fake father, she pulls away and when Brad grabs her a second time in a sort of rapey kind of way, Rowena unleashes her vampire superhuman strength. This involved me doing something on stage that looks like if am thrown but it is a stage trick involving a moving floor and me jumping in the air at just the right moment. I don't remember what it is called but it is frequently used in stage productions. It's kind of like a treadmill that goes from standstill to the highest speed immediately. It's actually quite dangerous but we practiced it with pads in the landing zone many times before we removed the pads a week before we had opening night and then I was just falling on solid wood.

I learned how to fall without genuinely hurting myself and that was kind of fun that I got to experience that.

The hard part was where Rowena had to kill me by attacking my neck and coming up with blood all over her and all over me. This was accomplished by having a collared shirt that had blood packets on the collar, It was very important that when I was thrown that I not impact these becasue the membrane on them was really weak by design. When Rowena is attacking me she has to spend some time working on my neck while easily holding me down and then bite, then put a great amount of this peanut butter, red dye, and corn syrup mix in her mouth then she crossed over my face on the side of me the audience cant see and as she passes over she quickly spits a bunch of this into my own mouth.

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Once again, the actress that played Rowena was smoking hot (and a legal adult, so don't worry) so this "transaction" didn't bother me a great deal.

I start to convulse at this point and right before I die, I look at the audience with a pained look on my face and spit the blood in my mouth at them. It got some screams from the people in the front rows.

The girl playing Rowena then got to work on the other "blood packet" on my other side and and then sat up, lost her rage moment, had blood dripping profusely from her mouth and another blood packet that was hidden on her own neck and she starts to go from extreme rage to terror and starts to cry.

This was all pretty difficult to pull off but I haven't even told you the worst part for me: After I spit all the blood at the audience, I have to lie there with my eyes open as people who recently died tend to. I don't know about you but there is a limited amount of time that I can keep my eyes open. So what we did was when I felt as though I could no longer keep my eyes open I would tap the actress playing Rowena on the side of her body the crowd can't see and she would attack my neck and head again pushing my head facing away from the crowd while continuing to drool blood all over my face and neck.

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It was actually pretty gruesome and it ended up making the papers on the first page and we ended up having a full house for the next two weekends.

All the money that was made went to the local Drama Club fund and I wasn't expecting to get any of it. We did get to hang out with patrons after the show though and there was a rather elaborate party on closing night as well, it was all worth it in my mind.

I do recall that my girlfriend at the time came to opening night and she was extremely jealous that I was getting so much action from extremely attractive women on stage... That's part of the business babe! She brought a bunch of roses to present to me on stage at the end as is often done and I think it really got under her skin that on one side of me was "Rowena" and on the other side was "Cerisa"... two women who I had essentially made out with in front of 200 people... haha.

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This would be one of only 3 plays I would end up doing while I was in college because like i mentioned at the start of this all, it takes a ton of free time and seriously interferes with social life and oh yeah, studying for what you are in college for.

I have zero regrets about ever doing it though. It was awesome. Unfortunately I lost contact with all of those people many years ago. I would like to be reunited one day but I don't even recall any of their full names. What can I say? A lot happens in college.

I'd like to hear about any tricks of the trade that you might have experienced in your own acting past, if you have any.