First Posted: 2/24/2014
In my second semester of college, a few friends and I took an acting class together for a Fine Arts credit. Comparable to most first days of class, this one started off with the professor sharing his unimpressive life story. About five minutes into the professor dragging us down the yellow brick road of his glory days playing the Scarecrow in a traveling stage production of “The Wiz,” I turned around to talk to my friends about birth control. It’s what we talked about before Instagram and Facebook.
“It’s like Pez for sluts,” I whispered.
“Let’s be real,” added my buddy. “If dudes had to take birth control, it would be our favorite candy, too!”
“Why can’t there be a pill for guys?” mentioned one of our female friends. “Girls have to take all the pills. Birth control… Midol… ”
“Roofies,” I interrupted.
“Do you know the answer?” asked the professor, tapping my turned shoulder.
“I don’t even know the question,” I said.
“Exactly!” he shouted in front of the entire class. “You know nothing about acting.”
“What’s my last name?” I challenged him. It was the first day of class and he didn’t even call attendance yet.
He couldn’t answer.
“Exactly,” I fired back. “If you don’t even know my name, don’t tell me what I do or do not know about.”
As it turned out, my professor wanted to know if I understood the term blocking.
In the theater world, blocking is the process of planning where, when, and how actors will move around the stage during a scene or performance.
What my professor didn’t know was that in high school I was the Wizard in “The Wizard of Oz,” so I did, in fact, grasp what blocking was. I was so determined to give this former Scarecrow a set of brains to no longer underestimate me before knowing, at the very least, my name, that when it came time to perform a scene, I was on a mission to select one with blocking that would not soon be forgotten.
The scene I found was about a young married couple that wake up in bed together and get erotic during argumentative pillow talk. I asked a sorority girl to be my scene partner because I knew she would have the guts to take this scene above and beyond.
After weeks of drinking with my scene partner and roughly understanding the script, the day to perform in front of our class had finally arrived.
The scene started out with us waking up, gently talking to each other like a sweet couple in love.
Then, out of nowhere, the hardcore blocking kicked into full throttle.
She got on top of me. I got on top of her. She licked my ear. I bit her ear. She slapped me across the face. I pulled her hair and she liked it. We rolled off the bed.
As I glanced at the audience, I noticed my professor’s jaw had dropped, and the weird religious girl in class had her head down motioning the sign of the cross.
I couldn’t hold it in. I started laughing outrageously.
“You like it when I tickle you there,” improvised my partner to save the scene.
I continued laughing so hard that I peed my pants.
“You like it more when I pee?” I further improvised.
When we finished the scene, I asked my professor, “How was that for blocking?”
“Crotch-warming,” he sarcastically answered. “I just hope she’s on birth control.”
