Favorite and/or Most Challenging Role you EVER Played

I think the subject states the question. What is your most favorite role ever???

Favorite because it was so much fun:
Cookie/RUMORS

Favorite because it was more of a challenge:
Christine/BAD SEED

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Updated On: 1/8/04 at 03:12 PM

That is a really demanding role.

Christine in BAD SEED breaks down a lot haha. It was fun!

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Breaking down is always fun.

My high school director was really tough on me. He took me aside one day and told me he only did it because I was the only one he really saw potentional in to make it in the business, which was flattering to a degree, but he still drove me insane. He was one to use the screaming method.

I will never forget one day in rehearsal... we were working "Before I Gaze At You Again". At one point he wanted me to cry. I just couldn't do it. I wasn't feeling it and couldn't get the water flowing. He stood there at the back of the auditorium, I was standing up on stage, all alone... millions of kids sitting in the front row... now this is a TINY man, but damn, could he project.

He stood up and looked microscopic, but all you could hear throughout the large room was his voice bouncing back and forth from wall to wall.

*calmly at first* "You are going to cry. I don't care what you have to envision, but you're going to do it. I don't care if you have to picture your mother dead. Your cat getting hit by a car...

*screams* YOUR FAVORITE ICE CREAM CONE FALLING ON THE FLOOR BESIDE YOUR FEET! YOU'RE GOING TO *beep-ing* CRY!"


I stood there... and bawled. There was a moment of silence and the entire cast was PETRIFIED.

Then...

He smiled. "Yes, that is it. Let's take it from the top."


Um, suffice to say I NEVER had a problem crying during that number again. Or crying EVER again... in anything. In fact, during the course of the performances, I cried in parts where it wasn't even directed I was so caught up in the moment. He approved, especially since the entire audience was bawling, too. LOL!


I had a lot of fun with that show... and a LOT of interesting stories, as well. I can't wait for the revival.

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Updated On: 1/8/04 at 03:38 PM

Most challenging role to date: Sheila in HAIR - since the character plots are not the best in HAIR, it was difficult (but fun) to really take her and create someone that was strong and believable.

Favorite role to date: Narrator in JOSEPH...DREAMCOAT - LOVED this fun and energetic role.

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LOL!!!

My friend directed the Sound of Music a few years ago and was having trouble with his cast so he called me in. I was covering a MILLION different roles. One night I was the maid, the next I was Liesl, the next I was Maria... the next I was a nun. It was crazy... he called me in the week of tech rehearsals... and I had like three nights to learn all those parts. Everyone was like, "How did you have time to learn the lines, let alone figure out each character??" I was like, "Ah... professionalism, my friend." No, really... I just... pulled it all out of my ass!!! GOOD thing I'm an instinctive performer, I guess. I was like, "Um, better just suck it up and do it!" I was like his everyman... whatever he needed, he just threw at me. He also made me teach all the Von Trapp children all their harmonies... I was like, "It's a WEEK before the show and they don't know this?" We pulled that together quickly. They sounded pretty damn good, if I do say so myself.

That was my random Sound of Music story. LOL! Quite the experience, but it taught me how to stay on my toes... it'll come in handy some day if I'm ever cast as an understudy... I had a LOT more respect for covers after that point in my life. They have to always be... "there".

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Updated On: 1/8/04 at 03:56 PM

Favorite: Sterling in "Jeffery" - All the great lines, and a fabulous hospital mourning scene at the end.

Most Challenging: Ned Weeks in "The Normal Heart" - playing Larry Kramer.

Favourite Role would be - Scarecrow "Wizard Of Oz"

Most Challenging - Jenny "ThreePenny Opera" This woman had this unbelievable amount of baggage on her, and it was hard to be so unhappy and bitter 24/7, but I loved it.

Favorite: Joanne in Godspell
Most Challenging: Donna/Oolie in City of Angels and Ella in Bells Are Ringing.

Favorite Role: Lucy in Snoopy

Most Challenging: Callie in Stop Kiss. I had this killer monologue in which Callie relayed the events of a hate crime that left her best friend Sarah (who she was starting to have romantic feelings for and she had never had romantic feelings for someone of the same sex before)in a coma. To add to the complexity my classmate playing the police officer that I was recalling the events to was playing it in a way that seemed to completely conflict with where I was going at first. The director and the two of us spent a lot of time on table work to get us on the same page. Lot of work but very rewarding

Favorite Role - Seymour in Little Shop

Most Challenging but I also enjoyed it - Dickon in Simon/Norman's The Secret Garden

Most Challenging-Scarecrow in The Wizard of Oz. I wanted to do a different take on it than the classic movie that everyone knows.
Most Fun-Boy Scrooge in A Christmas Carol.

Eliza Doolittle- My Fair Lady...the accents and music in general are so much fun to do, but it is such a challenge to play (in essence) two polarly opposite characters in one show.

and Im currently Marion in The Music Man..and though it is one of the corniest roles in theatre history, the songs are challenging, not nec. to sing but rather to convey the emotion of the character. Fun role though!

Kate

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Favorite -- Ali Hakim -- when you stick to the way Oscar Hammerstein wrote the role, it's a wonderful parade of genuinely funny gags and one-liners.

Most Challenging -- Donal in Sean O'Casey's "Shadow of a Gunman". An insane (but brilliant) director completely miscast me as a failing Irish poet courting a young rebel by making her think he's a gunman hero. After years of playing comic relief in musicals it was the most difficult and rewarding thing I've ever done.