Backstage at the Donut Shop

My assistant stage manager is Clark Kent.  Totally serious.  He is tall and lanky with dark hair and glasses and has that 'aw shucks' attitude that I totally associate with Christopher Reeves.  He's also hysterically funny.  He can turn any situation into the most hilarious story.  I wish I could recreate some of them here but I would totally ruin it.

Clark Kent (he has a real name but I'll protect it for the moment) is part of the apprentice program at the Arden.  The chosen few, who make up a class of apprentices each year, work in all departments of the theater so they are not really trained as stage managers.  But I will say this for Clark, he has caught on well and has become the darling of the entire cast.

But he's not the only fun part of this show.  The play starts in the donut shop the morning after it has been broken into.  PUSSY has been spray painted on the door (in our case, on Broadway I think it was on a wall).  This grafitti is wiped off during the course of the show.  So, we (and by we I mean the Production department) had to figure out what paint to use and what would work to wipe it off.  This resulted in a "Pussy Meeting."  Have you ever been invited to a Pussy meeting?  For work?  While my presence was not required, I had to go.  Who gets invited to a pussy meeting?

We decided, Clark and I, that if we get fired we're going to start our own theater company called Pussy Playhouse.  You can imagine the conversations backstage about that one.  Just imagine the marketing:  It's not our pussy it's your pussy.  See, here's the thing about Pussy, it never gets old.  Everything you've thought so far...we've probably already said and then some.  It just doesn't get old.

We also have pot smoking in the show.  We use a nicotine free tobacco product.  I'm not exactly sure what it is but it's not herbal.  You can always tell the cigarette is herbal onstage which ruins it really.  So one night, after a preview, the director says to me, "The joints that Clark is rolling are too thin, they look like cigarettes, can you show him how to roll joints?  I'm sure you know."  How did I suddenly become the resident expert?  Seriously, I have a past, and I've done stuff, but unfortunately, I never did learn how to roll a joint.  Luckily, other people knew and I'm not naming names.  I assume they just did their research on what a joint looks like.

Other than that we have donuts, an awesome fight, and a great cast.  I'm rather sad that the show ends at the end of next week.  Maybe Clark, being so talented, will write about his experiences in a book:  Donuts Pussy and Joints, I'm just thinking out loud here.  He could totally be the next David Sedaris.  I just don't want to be cast as the resident pot expert.