My Memories of "Cheaper by the
Dozen"
After the
success of our production of "The Diary of Anne
Frank" in Langley,
Connie and I learned that the Whidbey Playhouse in Oak
Harbor was holding
auditions for "Cheaper by the Dozen". We had
enjoyed acting together,
so we decided to audition there. Connie was selected to
play "Anne", the
oldest daughter, and I was given the part of her
"Dad".
The director assured me that "Dad" was a small
role with the leads going to
the two children who were the narrators. As I began
studying my lines,
I decided to write a computer program that would show me
each prompting
line and then show my line when I pressed a key. I soon
realized that my part,
although not the official "lead", was by far
the largest part and made me the
actual leading actor. As I used my program to memorize my
lines and the
prompting lines, I was memorizing most of the play, since
"Dad" was the
main character in almost every scene.
I enjoyed reciting my lines, because they were usually
funny and resulted in
laughter from the audience. So I was disappointed when
one of the other
teen actresses frequently forgot her prompting straight
line and prevented
my comical response. So I began to see ways to remind her
of her line in
later scenes in order to reclaim that lost laugh.
In the funniest scene, a family meeting where I presided,
the children
ganged up against me to get me to permit adding a dog to
our household.
Every child actor had lines for me to respond to, and it
became my favorite
scene. Connie and I would practice running lines together
at home, and we
decided to perform that scene for our family to see,
since we had both
memorized all the lines in it. I acted as
"Dad", and Connie portrayed all
eleven of the other roles, assuming the various heights
and voices of the
actors to help suggest which character was speaking,
squatting especially
low when speaking for our youngest, smallest actress.
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