My life as a Super (1 Viewer)

[alphamale]

I attend opera, ballet, concerts, etc. I found a way to get the best seats in the house, gratis - namely be on stage. This is getting to be more of an issue - the prices are amazing. The Kiev opera is going to show up in october to do all four of Wagner's Ring operas. The seats, for all four operas, range from $300 for the worst seats, to $1500. Special VIP excellent seats require an additional $5000 contribution. This price stuff is getting out of hand.

Super is short for "supernumerary", i.e., extra. When you're on stage, you see and hear everything better. I've worked as a super for the local opera company, Opera Pacific, and ballet companies, eg, ABT, when they've shown up.

They recently did Aida - I was a soldier in the triumphal march, and also herding the ethiopian captives on stage.

I was in Otello, and was one of the populo - I had to run across a raked staged covered in fog, which represented the waterfront in Venice, and not fall on my asss.

I was in Carmen, as a fruit seller on the streets of Seville.

I was in a number of others, but probably the best was when ABT showed up to do Le Corsaire. The whole staging was filmed by WNET, the NYC PBS affiliate - they had to pay us union scale because of their rules. About a year later, I saw it on PBS' Dance in America series, I was in several
scenes.

Being a super is a lot of fun - I highly recommend it.

 

[Jay R]

Another side to you alpha, I'm impressed. How did you get into it? Were you into drama (sorry, I don't know the US subject equivalent) at school?

 

[alphamale]

Another side to you alpha, I'm impressed. How did you get into it? Were you into drama (sorry, I don't know the US subject equivalent) at school?

I'd taken jazz dance classes every few years for the last 10 years. I also got conscripted into pas de deux classes a few times. The dance teachers would have been asked to pass the word to people in their classes of a need for supers. Then once you started doing it, you get hooked because it's so much fun. Once they know you and know you'll do it and show up, you get called back.

I was a science major in college and grad school, but I've always also been interested in the performing arts. Once you get a taste for high culture, most of pop culture seems like garbage.

Here's another anecdote (I got lots of them! :mrgreen: )

The ABT was doing the ballet Manon. They needed a number of male extras, and I showed up. At the audition, the ballet master was saying something on the order of "I need a man who can play a very filthy, evil nasty, ugly, character. Since none of you guys (gesturing to the 30 or so men that had shown up) look like Tom Cruise, that shouldn't be too hard." I was way in the back, and had already given up being chosen since so many men had shown up. When he said "Tom Cruise", I pointed to myself, and said quietly "I do." The ballet master noted my gesture, and said "Hey. you." I pointed at myself like "moi?". He said "Yes you. Come here." I came forward, and then he said "I want you to stand fifteen feet away, and walk toward me like you were a slimy rotten evil creature." You have to picture the setting: this was in a huge rehearsal hall with about 100 people focussing on me. I did as told - when I got up to him, I was clawing at him and sort of getting in his face. He said "OK! OK! you're it!!!"

In the ballet I was to play a character called the rat catcher. In a key scene, I had to shove a rat into the face of that night's prima ballerina. I remember that two of the ballerinas (on seperate nights) were Julie Kent and Susan Jaffe, two of the top ballerinas in the country at the time. :mrgreen:

By the way, the Royal Ballet shows up here every few years, and usually does Sleeping Beauty, which they more or less "own". I tried out for them one time but didn't get selected.

 

[Pacridge]

A guy going by the name "Alphamale?"

I find that simply...awsome.

 

[Captain America]

Awesome indeed.

It sucks being the Omega-male and always having to go last.:3oops:

But it's not so bad once I get past the used part.:rofl