The Town Play

You'll notice that one of the entries in my wiseacre tagline is amateur actor. I actually considered acting as a profession long ago, but it turns out that doing it for the love of the theatre, while hacking computers to pay the mortgage, has worked out just fine for me.

Northern New Jersey is the perfect place for amateur actors, since you can't swing a dead cat without hitting a community theatre. I've done some CT shows, but the bulk of my post-college acting career has been with The Celtic Theatre Company, not coincidentally in residence at my alma mater, Seton Hall.

But, as Arlo Guthrie said, that's not what I came to tell you about.

There's a wonderful tradition here in the town of Nutley, one of the little things that makes the town a somewhat anachronistic throwback in this collection of little cities orbiting the Big Apple. We have a town play. Once a year, the town's Department of Parks and Recreation produces a full-scale musical, with all actors being Nutley residents. I mean, how Mayberry can you get? But it's great. I've gotten the opportunity to share the stage with my children, and share my love of acting with my neighbors. Plus, I never did the old-school musicals when I was young, so things like Annie Get Your Gun are new experiences for me.

So, the town play's come around again this year, and it's Oliver! (Yes, the exclamation point is part of the title.) And I'm playing Fagin. Seeing as how this is a personal blog, I'm going to occasionally toss in a post on how things are going.