The recent post re: the

The recent post re: the Carriage House, combined with a recent (real life) conversation in which some people were reflecting on their favourite personal moments on stage, made me think about my favourite moments of the Carriage House production of Annekenstein.

My absolute favourite moment of the season only happened once, during one night's performance of a sketch called "The Boyce". The premise is that two typical Island hockey boys, 'big dog' and 'bull-kid' (played by myself and Ed Rashed) are dragged by their girlfriends, one named Tammy, the other Tammi (played by Nancy McLure and Laurie Murphy) to see Anne of Green Gables, the Musical. At the end of the sketch, the boyce have been moved to tears by the touching story. One night Laurie was sick and we had to fill in her roles as best as we could. Dave Moses decided he'd do her Tammi role. That'd be interesting, we thought. No rehearsal, into the sketch we go. Dave plays it perfectly straight, we stick to the script as it was written, and there's no explanation to the audience why one of the boyce is dating a guy named Tammi. Anyway, shortly into the sketch, all the performers start laughing at the absurdity of situation. We got through the sketch, but every line for all of us was a trial and hardship due to the laughter it would get from all of us. I think the audience might have enjoyed it too.

So that's my favourite singular moment from that season, but my favourite moment that regularly occurred in each performance is this: We did a sketch that was an infomercial on the benefits of the then-under construction 'fixed link'. It was hosted by Paul Gianallia, head of the construction (Dave), with Laurie playing a souped up motivational expert. A running gag through the sketch was that Gianallia's name would be mispronounced (much like I'm likely misspelling it here). At one point, audience questions and concerns re: The Bridge were to be addressed. Ed and I were in the audience to ask questions. I always enjoyed the moment when I'd ask my question, which always started off "Yes, Mr. Gilooly...", and I'd always stretch out the "Gil-ooooooly" and dripping with sarcasm and mockery, then go into an improvised flaky concern I had. Gillooly was a reference, if I recall correctly, to the guy who was accused of bombing that Atlanta Olympics, or he was the guy who got his dick cut off by his wife... anyway, for no reason in particular, I always liked that moment. Especially when it was followed by Ed's character's question, which started off "Yes, I have a question for Mr. Genitalia..."