The Quick Change That Kills

Paolo Salinas and I had a fun challenge staging a scene for “Urinetown”. Paolo plays two characters: Hot Blades Harry and Mr. McQueen. The issue? One of them had to kill the other… right there in front of the audience.

Here’s a photo - thanks to some Photoshop magic - of Harry killing McQueen:

An obviously impossible picture of Hot Blades Harry (Paolo Salinas) killing Mr. McQueen (Paolo Salinas).

As much as I’d love to, I can’t clone Paolo on stage...

Our solution? Pause the show - and do a full costume change live, right in front of the audience. 210 people watching. 20 seconds on the clock. No blackout. Nowhere to hide. Just pure theatrical fun:

Every movement was planned down to the second.

Most nights, it worked perfectly.

But like all things theatre, things get tangled more often than one wants to admit. Try to catch me smiling (hiding my panic) the moment I realized we were running behind.

It’s one of those wild ideas that hits you in the middle of the night when dreaming up sequences alongside Paolo Salinas.

Migue Siman standing in for Hot Blades Harry (Paolo Salinas) when he kills Mr. McQueen (Paolo Salinas).

Theatre isn’t about avoiding problems, it’s about dreaming up fun and really complicated, stylized solutions that make working on shows like this one a great joy.

More stories soon.