25TAM #4: We roar onto the stage, and too soon we're dead center

"We're All Light," XTC

The summer before 7th grade, we moved to a bigger house in a smaller town. I was ambivalent about leaving, because even though I got the third floor to myself (Hello, Greg Brady!), I had to start all over amassing charisma points at a new school. So after the usual New Kid hazing crap, I decided the best way to announce myself to my new community was to go out for the school play.

It was a musical re-imagining of Robin Hood, and I got the role of the Sheriff of Nottingham. But before your head fills with the debonair villainry, you should know the story was also re-shaped as a broad farce, and the Sheriff as a blithering idiot. I had two long monologues, and both were litanies of iconic film dialogue, like this:

SHERIFF

You dirty rat! You killed my brother! Villains! Tear up the planks! It's the beating of his hideous heart! I am the champ! Stella! Here's looking at you, kid. I'll get you my pretty! And your little dog, too!

Also: I wore a full-length purple vest-robe and about two dozen water pistols on strings.

The show was a hit, and I bonded with the writer/director, a non-faculty ringer who made extra cash herding cats high school thespians. He was very supportive as I tried to pull off this broad character while working with a bunch of kids that were still virtual strangers, always urging me to trust my instincts (and when in doubt, "go bigger"). I got the bug big time, and I resolved that the next year, in eighth grade, I'd try for the lead.

But we didn't have a play the next year. The ringer got a better gig at a bigger school, and they couldn't find anyone to replace him.