Meet Me In St. Phoey

Guess what? I’m in another play!

But, in an effort to keep some of my fans, I’m going to try to make this a post.

This musical is a riot. Here’s a basic synopsis of the plot. We meet the Smith Family. There is Mr. and Mrs., Agnes and Tootie (the token little kids), Esther, Rose, and Lon (the goody-two-shoes older children), Grandpa (whose fez fetish caused Grandma to leave him), and Katie (the irish white slave).

We watch the inane inner household of this 1904, typical upper class St. Louis suburban family for about three scenes. The girls only think about marriage. The boy only thinks about food. The dad only thinks about his bath. And the major conflict is what time supper is.

They are all a titter over the World’s Fair, coming soon to St. Louis. Who in God’s name chose St. Louis for the WORLD’S Fair? Was it that arch? Was that it? They could have held it in Washington, D.C., our nation’s capitol. They could have held it in New York, the most populous city in America. Instead, they chose to have such an outstanding fair in St. Louis, city of Nelly.

So, we watch them for a while. A LONG while. Then, randomly, a bright orange trolly with a little kid as conductor shows up on stage and all these random chorus people begin to sing “The Trolley Song”. Wait, that’s not a little kid. It’s Miles! But his outfit is a little big, so he looks 12 or 13, which is just the look he wants. Gracious.

Lon has a going away party, but he never goes away. There’s a ballroom dance, where I personally dance for just short of an hour, which also has little reason but to bore the audience and give me cramps in my calves. There is all this drama because Mr. Smith gets a job New York and they have to move, before the fair! Oh, Gosh!

In the end, Mr. Smith doesn’t have to move and nothing really happens at all in the musical. The girls get boyfriends, Lon (who goes nowhere) gets a girlfriend, Tootie and Agnes get to see lights out of doors, and Katie is free of her servitude. No, not really.

In this play, I play three characters – Lance and Sidney Purvis who are twin brothers and their uncle (the motorman), Ed Purvis. This means four costumes, two changes of which are in the same scene and minutes within each other. Lance is “normal Miles”. Sidney is “afraid of girls and bad dancer Miles”. Ed is “happy super anime fun Miles”. All-in-all, it’s a lot of sweat.

You should show up. If you’re good, I’ll let you wear my motorman hat.

Maybe.