Me, of course!
That’s how long until the curtains open for the most hip, hilarious, rocking and shocking show in town.
That’s right, baby.
Echuca-Moama Theatre Company, which I am proudly part of, hits the stage next Friday with the hit musical Little Shop of Horrors.
You better believe it, baby.
It still seems kind of surreal after the show was postponed last year thanks to stupid COVID.
When Little Shop of Horrors 2.0 began in earnest earlier this year, I think we were all a bit on edge that ‘Rona’ could take it away from us again.
But now there’s less than two weeks to go, the show must go on (touch wood). Literally.
Which means the nerves have set in and there’s a little tension in the air (actually, you could cut it with a knife).
So in the midst of this unravelling stress mess, with more drama than a Hitchcock thriller, yours truly felt the need to provide a little comic relief to help downplay that discombobulation.
Every year, we have shirts and hoodies made up, publicising the show and enhancing the team feeling.
Anyhoo, our thrifty treasurer Mark Thomson posted a message on our cast and crew Facebook page asking members what they wanted printed on the front of their tops — our name and character, or just our name.
As a (half) joke, I wrote ‘Ivy Jensen’ alongside the words ‘THE STAR OF THE SHOW’.
Well, it turns out I’m the complete butt of the joke now as Mark simply couldn’t resist the temptation to put me right in the spotlight, because that’s exactly what is embroidered on my hoodie — in bold capital letters.
While I was more than happy to give my fellow thespians a good old laugh at my expense, I now have to discreetly hide the pompous proclamation whenever I front the public — such as a promotional presentation at the Caledonian Hotel on Thursday night.
It was — dare I say — a horror moment but it got the rest of the gang, in their modestly embroidered outfits, laughing a lot as we banged out a couple of the bigger numbers from the show.
To make matters worse, there was some over-enthusiastic pensioner in the pub crowd who decided to video our show and when he stood to one side of the performance, all he seemed to get on his video was this one prat with ‘THE STAR OF THE SHOW’ emblazoned across his screen.
I tried to point him in the right direction, tipping my head to the right, I even pointed in the end, but this fool just kept filming.
But every time I actually did something, he had lowered his phone to check something and missed my big moment.
So what could I do but please the public. So when he finally had his phone pointed up again, I gave him the big arms out, face tilted up Marilyn Monroe-type pose — a girl’s gotta do what a girl’s gotta do when promoting the show.
But he had pushed the wrong button again. Some of the cast were now noticing my star turn (although the pub crowd had turned back to their quiz night challenges) and once again one of my classic moments had flopped.
As I walked away, Mark took me aside and said ‘‘Ivy, it might be a little better if I got you a new hoodie’’.
Yeah, right. I can see it now: Ivy Jensen — the Little Shop’s Horror.
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