Call me Papa...

Not Tatinek. Call me papa.

So went one of my lines as Mr. Shimerda in Scott Schwartz's play adaptation of Willa Cather's classic novel, My Antonia. We performed last week to a full house in Ephraim.

While I've spoken to rooms of just a handful of people and convention halls of more than a thousand, I've never been as uncomfortable as I was last week. I think it's because in a play, your wedded to someone else's words - and goodness knows that I like using my own. When I speak to a crowd about charitable giving, I am in absolute control. The ideas are mine, the words I choose are entirely my own - and if a lady in the back of the room isn't connecting to what I'm saying, I can feel it. And I can change accordingly until I have her as well.

In a play, you have to place your trust in a playwright, in a director, and in the others who are on stage with you. You have to be faithful to the words on the page because the other performers are expecting you to. Interestingly, the way I overcame my discomfort was to completely ignore the audience because they're really irrelevant - which is exactly the opposite of what I do when I'm giving a speech.

I will admit, however, that I think most of the audience would be real pleased if I'd go back to giving speeches about philanthropy.

As for our daughter Alyssa, on the other hand, everyone kept telling me how terrific she was.

I was Mr. Shimerda, but Alyssa played my daughter Antonia Shimerda - as in the namesake character of Willa Cather's My Antonia.

Here's the playbill from our little production...

Immediately after the play, and for days afterward, I had people coming up to me or calling me to say how impressed they were with Alyssa (and they politely said little of my performance). For someone so softspoken, she blossomed on stage.

Here is a short video of Alyssa at the music rehearsal where we were working our cues to the music for the first time (note that this video was taken on my phone so you have to turn the volume way up)...



And a little more of Alyssa...



Here we are the night of the performance taking our final bow. Alyssa is in the middle of the picture and I'm in the brown sweater two to her right (blocked by the lady in the green sweater)...

And here we are walking off stage...

Oh, and the wildest part is that I had to speak with a think Bohemian accent. I have no idea what Bohemians sound like so my accent consisted of half a Filipino accent and an elongated Russian accent.

Basically I just imagined what my Filipino Grandpa would sound like if he were drunk on vodka.