Nothing to say

This story popped in my head out of nowhere.

In high school, I played some bit roles in a couple high school plays and musicals.  A walk-on role here, and then a part in the chorus.  I was never (and still am not) a particularly good actor or singer, but it was nice for a dork like me to have something to do.

This story is during rehearsal for On the Town, a musical about a group of sailors on shore leave in NYC and the antics that are sure to follow.  Hyuk, yuk.

In the Museum of Natural History, one of the sailors accidentally destroys a complete dinosaur skeleton.  If you’ve ever played a part in a small budget stage number, either on-stage or off, your first thought may be “Holy crap how did they pull that off?”

Well, the crew was equally stumped.  We knocked around a few ideas but mostly came up empty until I remembered a small wood dinosaur skeleton model that I had a home.  I suggested that I bring it in and do a large-scale construction of it.  We had some massive triple-ply cardboard that we were using for other set pieces, so I suggested laying out the parts on a projector, tracing them on the cardboard, and cutting them out with a utility knife.  A sparse spray of white paint to give them that bony color, and we’d be good to go.

My only oversight was the ultimate destruction of the piece, and the fact that we had two shows to do.  Several joints were pretty severely damaged in the first collapse, and it would no longer stand after the first show.  I was proud of my original idea, but of very little help on the repairs that were needed before before the following evening.  Fortunately, it was all sorted out and the skeleton rose to the occasion.  Hyuk.

I kept one side of the head as a souvenir.  It’s still in my old closet at my father’s house, likely playing host to an entire colony of silverfish.  :)

Funny: When I was looking for an image to use in this post, I first googled “balsa dinosaur”.  The first hit was a blog post on a tool blog where someone did the same thing, but with plywood.  It looks very difficult to topple indeed.

The photo I ultimately used was stolen “courtesy of” Amazon. Click image to see product.