Dancing at Lughnasa

WRITTEN BY: Brian Friel
TO BE PERFORMED AT: SUNY College at Fredonia, NY
TO BE PERFORMED ON: March 12-13 and 18-20, 1999
DIRECTOR: Mary Charbonnet
SPONSORED BY: SUNY College at Fredonia
ORIGINAL CAST LIST:
* MICHAEL- David Alan Scott Jr.
* KATE- Candice Brown
* MAGGIE- Tanny Jaycox
* AGNES- Carly Albright
* ROSE- Renee Vicciardo
* CHRIS- Jill A. Rittinger
* FATHER JACK- Ben Slomovic
* GERRY- Ryan Mountain

PLOT: Five unmarried sisters, one with a young son, eke out their lives in a small village in 1936 Ireland. A drama.

HISTORY: Hoping to get a role in a Spring play at SUNY Fredonia, I underwent a four-day audition process in late October. A musical called "Sweet Charity" took up the first two days: Day One was a dance audition; Day Two, an acting and singing one.
(SIDE NOTE: As it turned out, I did not get any roles in "Sweet Charity". I later realized that the parts would--understandably--go to students with more of an aspiration to do musical theater as a future career.)
The third day was an acting audition for "Dancing at Lughnasa". That audition went so well, that the next day, I was assigned to attend the callbacks.
Earlier during the fourth day, I received a copy of some pages of the script. I was assigned to read the lines of the Father Jack character. But towards the end of callbacks, the director asked me to also read one of Michael's monologues "cold" (meaning without seeing the lines in advance). For both characters, I (and the other auditioners) used an Irish accent.
That night, I discovered that my cold reading had landed me the role of Michael, the young son and narrator of the story. Not only would I play Michael as a young man narrating the story, but I also play him as a seven year old (though still in my narrator stance the whole time). That, added to the requirement of an Irish accent, would make this an interesting show to do.
Another unique aspect of this role, compared to my previous ones, is the long series of monologues my character has in the show, giving me one of my most challenging parts yet in a play. Pleased to be given such an important role, I was ready to accept the challenge....
....or so I thought. When I came back to Fredonia after winter break, I was still trying to put my class schedule together. Also, the classes that I'd already signed up for were already causing conflicts with the rehearsal schedule for the play. A compromise would have to be made if I wanted to stay in the play and do my classes. This meant that I would have to A) be replaced by another actor, or B) skip classes to attend certain (final) rehearsals.
At first, I was willing to look into whatever compromise I could make to stay in the show, but the more I thought about it, the more my true feelings came to light.
The previous semester, my involvement with "Crimes of the Heart" had interfered with a weekly mini-class that, because of final rehearsals that took place at the same time as the first two classes, I had to drop. Doing "Crimes" also made my involvement with the campus's "Rocky Horror" club harder to maintain. But most importantly, "Crimes" left memories of a show with no final cast party, no fond farewells, no lasting friendships.
Although I still loved doing theater, the theater I was now doing was getting in the way of the classes I needed, the things I wanted, and the people I cared about.
First of all, I've enjoyed theater, but have always felt that acting in plays was just something for me to do, and not something I could see myself doing in terms of a solid career. Hence, my classes were becoming more important to me than being in a play.
For over four years, theater was an essential opportunity (often my only opportunity) for communicating with people, as well as a valuable time-killer. But since I came to Fredonia, my social life had improved, and I was finding more satisfying hobbies. Not only did I have a consistent rapport with the people in my "Rocky Horror" fan club, but I was also finding a new outlet for my creativity by making movies like "Retro Man" for class projects.
So, on January 26, 1999, after my second rehearsal for "Dancing at Lughnasa", I phoned the director's office. I left a polite, intelligent (and pre-scripted) message on her answering machine saying that I was dropping out of the play. After nearly five years of wanting to be in as many plays as I could, I felt it was time to start pulling away. I no longer needed to be in plays all the time.
So, despite an improving ability to memorize speeches and speak with an Irish accent, I left "Lughnasa" behind. By the end of that semester, I had done the same with plays in general.