Chris Shannon [Aug 29 2002]

I was looking through the history and I'd like to clear up my introduction to I Sebastiani. I was slated to be in "Oratio's Education" as Cinthio-man, the amorso superhero. I didn't replace Paul for this show. This, being my first role in commedia, was not great. I had strange ideas about what made good comedy and wooing.
I recall being too wordy and studied and not very spontaneous. My bits with Clark, the protective Pedrolino, were OK, but my scenes with Jennifer were stiff. I threw a punch at Fuji as Arlechino, who mistakenly thought Isabella(Jennifer) was a man. This was hard and took lots of practice. I had a hard time delivering the cheesy superhero line, "That's no way to treat a lady!" I remember Sebastian's free bit that helped me understand that commedia is not art, but vaudville and melodrama. It was a scene where I was envious of Oratio's (Yevsha) schooling.
Cinthio: "Ohhh, rhetoric! Please, Oratio, say something rhetorical." Oratio : "You want _me_ to say something rhetorical?"
Cinthio: "See, I never would have thought of that."

Was there a third scenarii in '94? I can't remember and I guess no.
Did "The House of Love" come before "Oratio's Education" and thus secure my famous first show of two practices? That's the story and I seem to remember doing Oratio's Education after, but my memory could be wrong. The AoA ceremony was a surprise and appropriate either way.

Jay Cross [Aug 31 2002]

This is the show in which in the last scene, I did some unrehearsed stage combat in the last scene, and hit Alex Newman [Oratio] in the chest with the flat of a book. I discovered days later that I'd really made an impression. Until then I'd thought he was vulnerable only to Kryptonite and magic.

When we were casting this show, we had an interesting issue come up. A blind woman named Masha had been coming to rehearsal for some time, and was interested in being in the cast. Jeff offered her the part of Cinthio's poor blind mother, and she became angry that we wouldn't consider her for a sighted role, and that we were wrong to treat blind people as unable to do things that sighted people couldn't do. We gave her a try at a sighted role, but she was completely unable to pick up cues, or determine where on stage to stand. We didn't cast her. This was a sad and stressful time.