After letting my frighteningly agitated and sometimes violent friend Dewdrop cut my hair, I thought there should be a way to capture that drama, and there are certainly worse things being performed out there. So before next year I'll have to grow my hair back and my mountain man beard, and then at show time we'll put a few things in place: me, Dewdrop, a pair of scissors, a pair of clippers, a chair, a hand mirror, a roll of gauze, and a giant drop cloth.
Through the process of ever sillier haircuts and abstract chunks shaved out of my beard, and her attempts to sell me on her artistic vision mixed with threats to stab me with a pair of scissors, and my attempts to escape before things get worse will test our friendship and our will, as we each struggle to define our role and decide with what standard of grooming we will live or die. One performance only, since I will obviously have to grow my hair and beard back, and allow the probably quite painful scars to fade.
It might be terrible, but I guarantee a few good reviews for offering the audience a something real, which can't be reset and replicated for the evening show, which is one of the promises of live theater: the anxiety and the haircut will both be real. Now I just need a $50,000 grant to develop my script, and to finance all the shampoo and conditioner I'll need to use all year to prepare my mane.
(*-Kathy Jensen is Pretty and Rachel Teagle Believes in Ghosts have definitely sold me on the marketing value of putting my name up front. Also on the value of offering weird southern groceries as a promotion, but that's another story.)
This blog need a picture.
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