MoTab Idol

At rehearsal last week, Jeff approached us crew ladies and asked if we would mind acting as audience members in his skit, MoTab Idol. We were supposed to cheer and carry on while the performers sang and all that. I haven't watched American Idol in over a year, so I turned it on one night to see what the audience members actually do. Turns out they don't do much. Some of them sing along or clap to the songs, but not much else. So, I was prepared to be kind of a lame addition to the skit. However, the first time we ran it, I found out that at the end, they had Nick come out as Sanjaya in the trademark Sanjaya fauxhawk. I remembered from last year that one time when Sanjaya sang, the camera panned to this girl in the audience who was just sobbing. So when we ran the skit, I said, "Can I be the little girl that cries?" and started fake-crying. They said that was pretty funny, so we kept it in.

Jump to Thursday night at tech rehearsal. Apparently one of the cast members suggested that one of us be a super crazy fan wearing a wedding dress to show how much she loved one of the performers. Our props mistress came up to me just before it was time for that skit and asked if I wanted to be the crazy fan in the wedding dress. I said, "Sure," and put the dress on. (Ok, side note: It smelled disgusting.) When I stepped out onto the stage during lights out, the cast members who saw me laughed really hard, and I just kept saying, "What?" The skit started, and I tried to do my best American-Idol-audience-member character. Then Matt came out, and, as we'd practiced before, I started to run after him while being pulled back by Mary (and sobbing all the while). However, when she pulled me back, my feet got tangled up in the train of the dress, and I fell onto my knees. I could not get up. So, I stayed on the ground and kept reaching for Matt, pounding on the ground, and sobbing the whole time. After it was over, I asked the other cast members if I needed to tone it down, but they said they liked it. I asked Mary if it looked okay for me to be on the ground, because I honestly didn't think I could stay on my feet in that dress. She said it looked good, so we decided to roll with it, and that's what I did each night in the shows.

My knees are completely bruised, and my hands are torn up from pounding my fists on the stage, but despite that, I liked being up there with the cast and getting a laugh. They were all very complimentary about my performance. I think they were all genuinely surprised that I was willing to get up there and perform. I was glad I got the chance, because it was a lot of fun!