Dramatis Personae

Another thing I have found in community theater is the inexplicable phenomenon of people calling each other by their character names. Sometimes this happens when actors have never met each other before, sometimes it happens months after a show closes. It's a pet peeve of mine. I have a name. And it's not Abigail Williams or Corrie Bratter or any other character I've played.



I do find it acceptable when a director is in the middle of giving notes, because he's watching you portray your character, and he wants a certain something from the character, and doesn't necessarily mean the actor.



But once, two months after Steel Magnolias closed, the producer called me "Shelby". I tried to politely tell her that Shelby was my character, not my name.

The worst is when people, and I mean co-actors in the show with you, confuse you the person with your character. When I did The Crucible, castmembers actually asked me if I was sleeping with the actor playing John Proctor. And they called me a whore. REALLY?! That's my character.........If you can't tell the difference between reality and fantasy, between me the person and the character whose lines I'm reading off a page....maybe you should find a new hobby. Sorry to bitch, but it gets my goat. Please don't confuse me with the fictional character I'm portraying onstage for two hours a night.

It's the same as when, watching Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire, someone says, "It's Edward Cullen!!" No. It's not. It's an actor named Robert Pattinson, and he's portraying a character named Cedric Diggory at the moment. Gyuh.


So I guess what I'm saying is, do your friends in your cast a favor and learn their name, and call them that when they're not onstage ;)