Ode to My Understudy

An Ode to My Understudy




Dear understudy this I write to make you understand

That I'm the actor with the job that you are trying to land

It might sound rather brutal to someone who doesnt know

But noone except me would know the lenghths to which you'd go

I know you’d kill to do this part,but didn’t realise

That killing me to get the role had actually crossed your mind

I understand it must be hard for an actress who is older

But please refrain from being the Grim Reaper at my shoulder

I know you have frustrations yes you’ve made them very clear

But airing them in front of me is not a wise idea

You see the more you moan about the fact that you’ve been wronged

Just makes me even more determined to never let you go on

I’ll drag my bleeding limbs to work if that is what it takes

For nothing in the world would make me let you on that stage.

To Fly Or Not to Fly? That is the Question.

Whoever came up with the well known phrase, “Never work with children or animals” surely cannot have meant to have included such species as a mouse and a fly, both of which I had to endure on stage this week . Out of the two ,the fly has been, I would say, the most annoying, simply because I  have found it’s arrogance worse than some of the male actors I have worked with, and that is no mean feat let me tell you. It has been flying around the stage thinking it is the star of the bloody show. Upstaging us all by buzzing noisily and flying up my skirt or landing in Sexy Fellow Male Actor's hair during his important speeches. The final straw came a few days ago when, during the curtain call, the cheeky little mite flew in and landed inbetween me and my leading man, just in time to take it’s bow (well, its become part of the cast by now). However its glory was short lived, as I did what any self respecting vegetarian yoga loving actress would do and stamped on it . I was ecstatic, as were my fellow actors, until the next day, when as I made my entrance in Act One, I saw the fly circling the curtains with a new found velocity and strength.


“But how can this happen?” I moaned to my colleague, “I killed it yesterday!”

“Oh, its not the same one.” he replied, “That’s its understudy” !