"Is He Dead?"
"Is He Dead?"
#1"Is He Dead?"
Posted: 9/6/08 at 9:48am
Know anything about the play "Is He Dead?" I've looked it up online, but I can't find a whole lot of information about it. Basically all I know is it's by Mark Twain and that Norbert Leo Butz was in it. Can anyone tell me about the female roles in the show, or anything else I might want to know?
It's my junior year in high school, and I've had some really fun comic relief roles my last several plays (Mrs. Darbus in "High School Musical," Lydia Bennet in "Pride and Prejudice," the ridiculously drunk Gay Wellington in "You Can't Take It With You," etc.), and I'm usually typecast as batty and eccentric older women with vaguely pervy tendencies. Though I've also played my share of Sheer Evil, Utter Harlot, Total Airhead, and Pompous Windbag. If I get a role in this one, it'll be my twenty-fourth show.
Thanks so much!
In my pants, she has burst like the music of angels, the light of the sun! --Marius Pantsmercy
Updated On: 9/6/08 at 09:48 AM
#2re: 'Is He Dead?'
Posted: 9/6/08 at 4:58pm
This show is soooooo funny. It recently played on Broadway and I got to see it. I believe there are only 4 female roles in the whole show. It's about a starving artist who realizes his work would be worth more if he were dead. He stages his own death and then dresses up as his great aunt, Daisy. Unfortunately, for you, the batty, ecentric older woman in this show is a man pretending to be a woman.
Go to http://www.playscripts.com/play.php3?playid=1365. There's a huge synopisis and you can read a sample.
#2re: 'Is He Dead?'
Posted: 9/6/08 at 5:06pm
WOW! Thank you so much. This is why I love this site-- it's so darn helpful. And I'm glad to hear the play's really funny; I didn't think it'd be possible to top last year's "You Can't Take It With You." That was CRAZY.
Wouldn't it be funny if I got to be the male lead... a woman playing a man playing a woman...When I did "You Can't Take It With You" and "High School Musical," both times people came up to my director to ask if I was a drag queen. 
One of those old ladies, Bathilde and Caron, sound pretty promising, though.
In my pants, she has burst like the music of angels, the light of the sun! --Marius Pantsmercy
#3re: 'Is He Dead?'
Posted: 9/6/08 at 5:13pm
haha. You'd be a woman prentending to be a man pretending to be a woman. Kind of like Victor/Victoria. It could happen. I did You Can't Take it With You last year. I really wanted to play Penny but my director said she couldn't picture me as a mother and I was more of the ingenue type. So you know what part I got instead? Depinna. The 50 year old, fat, rocket building, bald man. Yeah. That's high school theatre for ya. IMO. I think Is He Dead? is funnier than YCTIWY. You can really ham it up in this show.
Updated On: 9/6/08 at 05:13 PM
#4re: 'Is He Dead?'
Posted: 9/6/08 at 7:44pm
OOoh, wow. Your school certainly has interesting casting. Our DePinna looked exactly like a cross between Dobby from Harry Potter and Pirelli from "Sweeney Todd." And talked with a thick New York accent. And our Paul did a very strange, mucousy, nasal voice that everyone in the entire show was obsessed with impersonating. "MIST-ERR DEPINAAAAAAAAAAAH!"
I should probably mention that when I played Gay Wellington, I was a little bit sillier than the script necessarily indicates. Our director wanted me to be VERRRY over-the-top. First of all, I was wearing this tight black velvet dress over black tights, but underneath the dress were red bloomers with black lace, which was very visible to the audience when I 'passed out.' Over the dress, I had on an incredibly sleazy-looking red silk bathrobe and a ratty fake leopard coat. And sparkly red high heels and cats-eye glasses with rhinestones. And a big cane with an enormous fake diamond on it. And loads of jewelry.
I passed out on the table rather than the couch, and spent the entire second act shifting around to bizarre contortionist poses and making odd noises and muttering strange words at inopportune times. Sometimes, I'd knock things off the table or smash them, or randomly burst out laughing. At one point. I scratched my bum with a plastic banana and threw it into the audience. Later in the play, Essie forced me to dance with her. And when I re-entered when Tony's family was over, I started singing "I've Got A Lovely Bunch Of Coconuts," doing a strip-tease, sitting on people's laps, and kissing them on the cheeks. When I was arrested, I sang "The Merry Old Land Of Oz," handed flowers to Henderson and the G-Men, and constantly did suggestive poses like I thought I was in a glamour shoot.
Needless to say, my church friends were shocked when they came to see the show. Especially when I lay on the table with my legs wide open to the audience doing a very hump-esque motion.
In my pants, she has burst like the music of angels, the light of the sun! --Marius Pantsmercy
#5re: 'Is He Dead?'
Posted: 9/7/08 at 8:29pm
Is He Dead? is a wonderful show! Good luck with it!
And add me to the people who have been in You Can't Take it With You. I was Mrs. Kirby. I was 11. It wasn't appropriate. Even so, that is definitely one of my favorite plays. I'm considering applying to direct it next year at my school.
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