Perhaps this blog post doesn’t really belong on this site, since we aren’t traveling in the RV right now, but I wanted to capture some notes on what we did while the RV was winterized in Waynesboro, VA. Having a place to park the RV allowed us to fly to St. Louis, MO to see Marissa in her last college theater performance at Lindenwood University in St. Charles, MO. (I’ll also write another post about the cruise that we’ll go on when we leave here.)
It was really cool that all three of my sisters were able to fly to MO to watch the play, too! Especially, since it was the first time Becky and Wendy had ever seen Marissa perform. And thankfully, it was a fun one to watch! The play was called The Curious Incident of the Dog in the Night-Time, about an autistic boy trying the figure out who murdered the neighbor’s dog. It was performed in the Black Box Theater and was in-the-round, so Randy and I watched it three times, at a different angle each night. There were different details to notice at each angle, but the cast did a phenomenal job and I barely noticed any differences between each performance.
Marissa didn’t have a ton of lines, but she was on stage the entire time and played four different characters, each with a different accent. Most of the props were in cubes that the actors sat on during the show or used as props themselves (like train seats, a park bench, or stacked vertically for a street vendor’s cart, for example). It was cleverly choreographed and gave the audience a lot to watch. Each character Marissa played had a different “costume” that she’d pull out of one of the cubes before it was time for her line.
Randy & I got to MO earlier than my sisters, so we saw the first show on our own. Keep in mind that Marissa never tells us anything about the play and doesn’t let us read the script ahead of time, so we can be totally surprised at whatever happens. So, Marissa stands up, puts on a robe to play the neighbor character, walks out to center stage, sees the boy standing next to her dead dog and then… …proceeds to drop the F*bomb and uses God’s name in vain. I must admit, my stomach and jaw dropped and I murmured, “oh no”. I can laugh about it now, since that was pretty much the extent of the language in the show, but I was very worried about what I was going to have to endure at the time, haha. It also helped a bit that she said it with a British accent, so it wasn’t really HER cussing, right?!? I kept this a secret from my sisters, too, except to say she comes out with a bang. Their reaction was very different from mine, since they had to hold back their inappropriate laughter at such a serious, dramatic scene. I think only those seated right around us heard the snickering.
I made lasagna one evening and Marissa brought a friend with her for dinner. When I told them my first reaction to her entrance, her friend said how they all love when Marissa gets lines that make her cuss, since it’s so out of character for her. Thankfully, we made it through the entire show without the “mild nudity” warning applying to her at least! (It was because the boy changed his shirt on stage.)
Besides acting in the play, Marissa also did an awesome job of designing the funky projections used throughout the play. What a great way for her to put both her acting major and graphic design minor to work!
Anyway, there were other highlights, but I’ll keep this post brief. If you’d like to hear more, just give me a call and I’ll happily talk to you about my daughter’s tremendous skills and personality! 🙂
By the way, if you ever need a place to stay in St. Charles, Randy & I highly recommend the airbnb place called La Maison Charbonneau Near Old Town. It’s a super cute house that has lots of nice touches from the owner! We really enjoyed our time staying there.
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