Evilix, the Frightfully Dysmelodic

This was my first time performing on stage since Elementary School!

St. Petersburg City Theatre (formerly The Little Theater) put on a fundraiser, which was a Star Trek parody musical, called "Star Chix".

I was very excited to volunteer to build some props and set pieces incorporating electronics to add some technology to the show! It wasn't easy for me to approach the Director, whom I had never met before, but I made myself do it, and he was very interested.

So I went to the read-through, where the cast meets for the first time and reads from the script to get a feel for the show, and I sketched a bunch of ideas and talked to the director and the set builder and came up with some plans for what I could add.

I think it was after the second meeting of the cast, the actor who was cast as the evil villain had a family emergency and had to drop out of the show. The Director had to scramble to find someone else to play the part. He was planning to audition some of the actors playing minor characters to see if one of them might be able to handle the lead bad guy.

My wife was stage managing for this show, and she told me what had happened. I was pretty worried about it, I was quite invested at this point and wanted the show to be the best it could be. Somehow, she convinced me that I could probably play this character, Evilix the Frightfully Dysmelodic. He's basically a walking cartoon evil space scientist, it wasn't going to require me to do any emotional heavy lifting, and I was already familiar with the script and it was definitely my bag.

Terrified as I was, waiting behind the black side curtain, the wing of the proscenium, I stomped out when they called for me and delivered the lines I'd been practicing all day with the best supervillain voice I could muster in my panicked state. I got the part.

This was a panto show, which means (among other things) the audience is encouraged to loudly "boo" the bad guy, the audience is kind of a character in the show, too. What a great introduction to performing! I had a fantastic time and met a lot of friends and made a lot of memories. And I knew that some day in the future, I had to be on stage again.

Also worth mentioning, I made the helmet I'm wearing, figured out the makeup, fabricated the black hole screen at top left, the starship engine on top, which is remote controlled by the Vulcan from a panel on the console, the captains chair complete with flashing lights and switches which change the light configuration, the color-changing emblem on the front of the console, the life suspension laser ray (obviously) and the working phasers which strobe on the redshirts' tricorder straps when they are hit (you can see more about these in the props/effects section)