Getting into Character

A few weeks had passed and Conner had gone through all the scenes at rehearsal, since he didn’t have any lines to really practice. Ms Gray asked him to work on his stage presence, he still wasn’t sure what that meant. His mother told him he should think about Toto as his own character and start from there.

Conner was meeting at the park with Brian taking his dog out for a walk, he had asked to join Brian on one of their walks to play with the dog, his dog was a Jack Russell Terrier named Joey. Conner saw Brian throw a stick for Joey to catch and return.

“Hey, Brian thanks for letting me join.” Conner said.

“No problem, Toto.” Brian said grinning, he knew Conner didn’t like the name.

Conner got slightly annoyed with Brian. “You don’t need to call me that.” He complained.

“Everyone else does, besides it’s fitting” Brian continued to tease him.

“Whatever, I just wanted to watch Joey for a bit.” Conner said changing the subject.

“You said it had something to do with the play?” Brian asked.

“I don’t know, Ms Gray and my mom said I need to stay ‘in character’ while on stage. I don’t really get what they are talking about.” Conner explained.

Joey came back and Brian took the stick from him. “Well I don’t know how Joey will help you with that.” Brian questioned him, handing Conner the stick.

Conner took the stick and looked at Joey, he was a brown and white small dog. Conner held the stick out to him and he took it playfully, eventually throwing it for him to fetch. “I don’t know, I just don’t have a dog so I thought I should take a look. Can he do any tricks?” Conner asked.

“Only a few, mostly just things like stay, sit, speak, stuff like that.” Brian said.

Conner perked up when he said he could speak, his cheeks turned pink. “Actually, I would like to hear him bark if possible.” Conner said softly.

“I think I can make that happen, but why? I thought you said you didn’t have any lines, you said it was a ‘non-speaking role’” Brian questioned him.

Conner’s face flushed red, he hadn’t really gone into the details of Toto’s role in the play. “Well, you see, there are a couple scenes where Toto needs to bark at some things.” Conner tried to explain fiddling with his hands.

Brian burst out laughing. “Oh man, I can’t wait to see that. So you will be on stage barking at stuff!” Brian shouted.

Conner was getting embarrassed, he hadn’t really thought about his whole class seeing his performance yet. “Well it’s part of the show, so yeah I will be acting.” Conner said, trying to play it off as a normal part of the play.

Joey had returned with the stick. Brian had Joey run through his training, he made him sit, give him his paw, and roll over. Conner sat beside and watched Joey as he did it, he wanted to get a closer look. Conner observed how Joey sat and watched as the dog's tail wagged whenever Brian called him a good boy. Brian then walked around having Joey follow him, he knew this is what he did in the majority of the play and watched carefully, it was most Joey happily following Brian around, stopping and sitting whenever he did. “Okay Joey, speak!” Brian commanded.

“ARF! ARF! WOOF!” Joey barked back.

“There, is that what you wanted.” Brian asked.

Conner leaned back in the grass. “I don’t know, I suppose. He was louder than I expected.” Conner said.

“Well why don’t you try to copy him?” Brian suggested.

“Right now?” Conner asked, his cheeks flushed red again, he looked around and they were the only ones in this part of the park.

“Why not? Won’t it be less embarrassing to be a convincing Toto?” Brian asked.

“I suppose that’s true. Okay I’ll give it a try” Conner said, he looked around for a second time to ensure they were alone. He sat down in front of Joey who looked at him with his black eyes.

“Okay Joey, speak!” Brian commanded.

“ARF!” Joey replied.

Conner worked up a little courage and tried to copy him. “Arf…” He said meekly.

“ARF!” Joey barked back at him.

“Arf.” Conner said with more confidence.

“ARF! ARF!” Joey replied back.

“Arf. Arf!” Conner said again, getting a little louder.

“ARF! ARF! WOOF!” Joey continued.

“ARF! ARF! WOOF!” Conner said loudly mimicking the dog. The two of them went back and forth a few more times until Conner looked over at Brian who was lying on the ground giggling to himself. Conner’s face flushed bright red and he stood up, trying to regain some type of dignity through height.

“Are you finished, Toto?” Brian teased him, still giggling a little.

“Yeah, I think I got it.” Conner said quietly, he didn’t bother correcting Brian about the name choice after his little performance.

Conner spent the next few days thinking about Joey and the barking practice, when he was alone in his room he would practice the different types of barks that Joey had done.

It had only been a few weeks since the first rehearsal and they still had a couple months before the play, the group was acting out the last scene for today’s rehearsal. This was the scene where they defeat the witch, Conner didn’t have much to do but follow his sister around on set.

“Great job today everyone, I want to thank Toto for really improving your barking skills, it’s a very drastic improvement, we just need to work on your stage presence.” Ms Gray told the room. Complimenting him in front of everyone on his improved barking oddly left him with a sense of pride rather than embarrassment, it was also the first time he had received praise from her.

“Thank you Ms Gray, I’ll do my best.” Conner said, still not understanding what she meant by stage presence.

“Toto, please stay back afterwards, We just need to go through a couple things.” Ms Gray asked.

Everyone except for Ms Gray, Mrs Bell, Jessica, Conner and another girl who was watching the rehearsal left the room.

“Toto, I want you to meet Trish. She recently graduated from our school but I asked if we could borrow her skills again for this production. Trish actually made most of the costumes we will be using during our performance.” Mrs Bell introduced them.

The girl who was sitting in the audience stood up and greeted Jessica and Conner. “It’s great to meet you, Jessica. I think you are going to make a great Dorothy. You did such a good job. Your little brother will also make for a cute Toto.” Trish told them. She went over to a small tote bag and opened it and pulled out a measuring tape. “Mrs. Bell asked me to make a new Toto costume for your production.”

“Thank you Trish, it is really nice of you to lend us a hand here. We have performed The Wizard of Oz before, but we never had anyone who would be willing to play Toto. Jessica’s brother here agreed to play any role as long as he was in the play, so we made a few adjustments to the script.” Mrs Bell explained. “I will say though it took convincing Ms Gray here.”

Ms Gray just tsked at Mrs Bell. “It’s just easier to direct the older kids, our Toto is doing well so he can stay in the play, however so we need to make it official and get a costume for him.” Ms Gray sounded annoyed being called out.

Conner now understood how he got the part of Toto a little more, he wasn’t sure how he felt about it.

“Well, let’s start with some measurements. Here Toto stand up on this stool.” Trish pointed to a step stool. Conner stood up, Trish then took out a worksheet and started measuring every part of his body. She measured the length and width of his legs, feet, arms, chest, stomach, hands and waist. She filled in the information on a worksheet for future reference. “Okay now on your hands and knees, I just want to see how you are going to move on stage.” Trish instructed. Conner got off the stool and crawled around back and forth on the ground. Trish pulled out her phone and took some videos. “Okay that should do for today. I’ll get the main part done in time for the dress rehearsal.” Trish said.

Conner stood back up and brushed himself off. “What will the costume look like?” Conner asked.

“Well Toto is famously a Cairn Terrier, so that’s the look we will go for.” Trish said.

“Yes, it’s just he is such a little dog, wouldn’t it make sense to do a bigger dog?” Conner asked.

“Oh don’t worry, I think we can make it work. One thing I have learned is it is easier to trick the audience if they have an idea in their minds already.” Mrs Bell offered.

“Okay.” Conner said, regretting asking.

“Here you can have these for practice, I have some extra ones.” Trish pulled out some black dog ears on a headband and placed them on Conner’s head, this made him blush. She then pulled out a short black tail and clipped it to his pants.

“Thanks,” Conner said shyly.

After some more planning and arranging Jessica and Conner said goodbye and headed home for the evening, Conner put the headband and tail in his backpack.