Stephen

 I did a play at my church called "Let the Church Grow" in 1987.  I played Stephen who was martyred.  The play was written and directed by Kevin McAfee, who was on the staff of our church in creative ministries.
 There is one thing I am very sensitive about when it comes to writing stuff.  I don't like it, when someone alters what I have written.  If you remember from my post called "Smyrna #2", you remember how mad I got about someone changing her part, after I had written it.  So, Kevin had written this play surrounding the early church, and he had written a long monologue for "Stephen" to deliver.  It was mostly taken from the Bible.  Because of who I was (my ego was as big as all outdoors), I felt that the monologue was too long.  I rewrote it and condensed it to half of its length.  Kevin was not pleased.  I really didn't blame him, but I did it my way anyway.  One thing about a live performance:  the actor can do anything and get away with it as long as it is in character, because the audience don't have the script.  You can go back to my post on "Blithe Spirit" to see what I am talking about.
 We were using mics for the play.  I told the sound guy to cut my mic way down, because I was going to project to the back of the church, and I really didn't need a mic.  He said he wasn't going to cut it down.  His soundboard was about halfway back in the church's auditorium.  When I started my monologue, I was shouting.  I saw him rip his headphones off.  It made me smile.
 Another thing about the play was the makeup.  Kevin wanted most of us to have beards.  One of the actors grew his own.  Everybody else had fake beards.  Mine was black against my brown hair.  I did have my hair covered, so the beard could be black, and no one would know the difference.  I have the play on video, at least my part, and a close up shows my fake beard coming off from around my mouth.  The fake hair got into my mouth, and I was spitting out the hair, which caused the spirit gum to start failing.  There is a spot on the left side of my mouth where there is no beard.
 So, I did my part.  A lot of people thought I did great.  I was just glad to get that beard taken off of my face.