Randoms by Rach

Queen Dolores

Late actor Bob Denver (known for playing Gilligan on the tv show Gilligan's Island ), who would've celebrated his 82nd birthday today, once said "You know, I have no worst experiences." What do you think? When have you had to turn a potential "worst experience" into something positive?

Ooh, I like this prompt. There are a few occasions I can think of, but this is really not the place to share them . So I will tell you about my experience of acting in a play called "Piper's Mountain."

I was ten years old, and still at my local Primary School. At the end of every school year (mid July), there was an end of year "spectacular." That's the only way I can describe it. It was a small school, with only four classes. The younger classes (1 - 3) performed songs and small skits, but the main performance was always the top class. I was moved up to this class a year ahead of my age (I actually had a few working braincells in those days!) and the first year I was in the class, our play was "Joseph & His Amazing Technicolour Dreamcoat." I wanted the part of the narrator so badly, but it went to one of the older girls. My job was to stand next to Pharaoh with a rubbish fan thingy and fan His Royal Highness. That was it. I wasn't happy.

So the next year, we had been studying a play called "Piper's Mountain" for a while. It was a musical and the lead was a character called Queen Dolores. I thought so hard about her character. I considered how unhappy and tragic she was, whilst always putting on a fake show of being the life of the party. At age ten, I knew this character inside out. Our teacher, Mrs Middleton, said there would be two performances. The first night, one set of children would act, and another set would act the second night. Well. I auditioned my heart out and won the prized lead for the first night's performance. I was so happy. I learned my lines in a couple of days, and practised her voice and actions non stop. I like to think I was employing Robert De Niro's character acting techniques, as I lived and breathed Queen Dolores.

As rehearsals moved along, Mrs Middleton spent more time watching me and telling me how much she liked my performance. Within a couple of weeks, the girl who was the Queen on the second night had been dropped, and I was to be Queen for both performances. Looking back, this was mean, and I apologise to Sarah. I'm really sorry. But she got revenge.

The first night's performance went really well. The audience responded with laughs and teary handkerchiefs in all the right places. The second night was a little different. There was a part of the play when I had to faint and fall onto a camp bed. Sarah (the ex Queen) volunteered to assemble the bed and move it on stage on the second night. However, she didn't lock the legs into place. So I swooned, fell, and the bed collapsed. Every single person in the room (audience, pupils, and teachers) laughed. I was an overweight ten year old with serious weight issues and I was so heavy I made the bed collapse. I wanted the ground to swallow me up. I screwed up my eyes; I didn't want to see all the laughing faces. I knew everyone was thinking how my vast weight collapsed the bed. I was so ashamed.

After what felt like an hour, but was probably only a minute, I figured I had to take control. So I stood, held my stomach, and said, "I shouldn't have eaten all the cake." To which, everyone laughed again. But this time, it was with me; not at me. I then fixed the bed, and said, "I need a lie down with all this fun." Or something like that. And the play continued from there. It went really well, and I got a standing ovation at the end.

I came from a small village and for, literally, years people who were in the audience would stop me and tell me what a great performance I gave. It's simultaneously one of the worst moments of my life, and one of the proudest moments.