Play

Because I’ve been a drama geek for most of my life, for me, “The Play’s the thing,” just like Willie said. It all started while I was in high school when I finally got the courage to audition for “West Side Story”. As fate would have it I was cast as a Shark named Indio. The Sharks were the Puerto Rican gang, which is kind of funny because I have blond hair and blue eyes. I only had two lines, but appeared in the show a lot because of all the songs, fight scenes and dance numbers.

The biggest dance number in the show takes place when the Jets and the Sharks show up at the high school for the sock-hop and try to out dance the other gang. In our production the scene turned into a giant synchronized dance number with all the actors freezing in place at the end with outstretched arms and legs facing the audience, then Tony and Maria had a duet while the rest of us remained frozen in the background.

One night, just before the big dance number, the crotch in my pants ripped. In a panic I asked the stage manager what I should do. She quickly grabbed a safety pin and pinned the hole in my pants together. I ran on stage and did our dance. Everything went fine until the end. Just as I froze, the safety pin went “POINK”, became unfastened and stabbed me right in the nut sac.

Not wanting to ruin the show, I stood there frozen, sweating bullets, quietly whining, with a pin stabbing my balls, as Tony and Maria sang their song. Luckily the duet was only a few minutes long and I was able to limp off stage afterwards. Before limping off stage I must have looked a little bit like this.

To this day I’m still proud of myself for just standing there taking the pain and not ruining the play. I mean it turned out better than the production of “Jesus Christ Superstar” I saw, where near the end of the show while Jesus is on the cross, one guy playing a Roman soldier got a little over zealous when poking Jesus with the spear. He actually gave a puncture wound to the actor on the cross who cried out, “Jesus Christ! I’ve been stabbed!” then he jumped off the cross and ran off stage ending the show.

Hmm… I guess I was tougher than Jesus. Heh, heh.

Anyhow, this is my picture for Illustration Friday; the theme is play. “Play” was drawn on a scrap of multi-purpose copy paper with my Gel-Roller, then colored in Photoshop.

Have you ever been stabbed in the nut sac? Do you want to leave me some love?