My sister also went to see Rock of Ages with her husband, and she loved it so much that she wanted to go and see it again. Of course I jumped at the chance, so together with our mom we went to see the final matinee performance last Sunday. Obviously I’m not going to give a full recap of the show since I already did that, but there were a few things that happened that I’ve just got to write down.
It was so much fun the first time, and this time I was determined to dress up in rocker gear to make the whole show even more fun. If you know me, you know that dressing up is something I love to do at shows. I had bought a pair of faux leather leggings, paired them with a short pair of black boots, and I took the one t-shirt I had that fit with the 80s rock aesthetic (it was a gray David Bowie shirt with hot pink, blue and yellow graphics), and I cut it up so it would fit me a bit better, because it’s absolutely huge on me since I lost so much weight. I was surprised by how easy it was to make a few snips to a t-shirt to make it fit better. I cut slits in the tops of the sleeves so I could tie them tighter, widened the neck so it would hang off my shoulder and give me that Flashdance look, I cut it shorter, and made small slits on the bottom of the sides so that I could tie it and make it fit more snugly. It honestly looked SO much better with the modifications, I was amazed. I wore so much eye makeup and harsh blush, it made Fox scream when he saw me. Even though it was insanely fucking cold, it was worth the few minutes of suffering for the silliness of showing up at Rock of Ages made up like an 80s rocker chick. I got a few compliments, which was hilarious since I looked ridiculous.
Shortly after we sat in our seats, my mother shrieked, “OH MY GAWD IT’S MAX CLAYTON!” I turned and sure enough, there was Max Clayton, walking down the aisle with a few people. I had COMPLETELY forgotten that his sister was in this show as a very prominent member of the ensemble. Still, it had never occurred to me that he might show up at some point to see the show. For those who don’t know, Max Clayton is an actor we’ve seen in three different shows at the Ogunquit Playhouse. He’s also done some swing and replacement work in NYC in The Music Man and Chicago. My mother absolutely ADORES him, so we make it a point to see any shows he does in Ogunquit every summer. My mother was absolutely LOSING HER MIND. It was hilarious! Like, I knew she loved him, but I didn’t realize she liked him THIS much. She kept talking about how fast her heart was beating, and how her hands were shaking. I think part of it was it was so unexpected to suddenly see him there. Even though we’ve seen him three times in Ogunquit, they don’t do any kind of a stage door there, so we’ve never had the opportunity to meet him. Even though we know that he grew up at The Palace Theatre and is from Manchester, we never expected to randomly see him there.
One of the women sitting in front of us went to school with his mother (as she proudly told us), so while they were chatting I moved out of the way so my mother could squeeze past me and say hello to him. Since the show was going to start soon, she only got a chance to tell him that we’d seen him in Ogunquit, and how much she loves watching him perform, he was very sweet and explained that he was there to see his sister, I told him that she was an amazing dancer (she is!). He went to his seat, and my mother continued to fan herself and try to get her heartbeat under control. She kept glancing over at him because he was literally in the same row as us, just across the aisle and in a few seats. She said, “Do you think I should try to get a photo of him?” Thankfully I was able to dissuade her from that! I am so not a fan of hassling “celebrities” when they’re just out and about, and he was there to see his sister perform. It was adorable though, throughout the whole show, every time she was on stage we could hear him yelling, “Whoo!” and clapping for her, and I noticed when she spotted him out in the audience and her whole face lit up.
During intermission, my sister and I got up to get grab some Playbills so we could take a selfie together (it’s our tradition) and we noticed that Max had gone to the member’s lounge, so we decided to go get our mother, and see if we could ask him for a picture with her. I was a bit more leery of doing this (I’m not fond of imposing myself on performers when they’re not actually performing), but my sister said, “She’s a seventy-five year old lady with white hair! He’s not going to mind!” She was right, he was an absolute sweetheart and happily posed for a photo with her, and chatted with all of us for several minutes. We told him how we’d seen him at three different shows in Ogunquit, and how much we particularly loved Crazy For You. I told him how I thought they couldn’t have cherry-picked a better show for his particular talents, and how he was absolutely perfect for the role. I also mentioned the number they did with the chairs, because it was absolutely mind-blowing. He was very sweet, all smiles, and told us how he started off at The Palace, although we already knew that! He asked us if we often go to shows there, and he seemed thrilled when we told him that we were members and go to shows as much as we can. I think he’s still very fond of the theatre since he grew up there. He also gave us some insider info for what he’s going to be doing in the summertime, which I’m not going to talk about here since this is a public entry! But we may be going to NYC to see him in a show together this year.
It was funny, my sister had never come with us to any of the Ogunquit shows that he was in so she had to be all, “I’m so sorry, but I’ve never seen you!” but she certainly was taken with him. He’s MUCH taller in person than he looks when he’s up on stage. He told me that he liked my outfit, which I thought was hysterical. I honestly looked so silly, but I had the spirit! All in all it was another great experience with meeting a theater person. My mother was absolutely on cloud nine. She was still buzzed from it the next day when she messaged me. So it was a wonderful bit of serendipity that we just happened to be there on the day he came to see his sister, AND right across the aisle from him. If we’d been sitting anywhere else in the theater, we easily could have missed him.
But back to the show! As usual, I enjoyed the second time even more than the first. Because it was the last show too, the energy of the cast was extremely high and they were giving it all for their final performance. The guy who played Lonny (my fav for this particular show) was off the charts with his fourth wall breaking, actually jumping down into the audience this time during an early bit where he’s flirting with someone near the front. I tried to convince my sister to get front row seats so that could be one of us, but she hates sitting the front row. Missed opportunity! He also talked a lot about being sad that the show was ending, “People always say they’ll keep in touch, but then they never do!” When he and Dennis sang their love ballad together, I had a feeling that for this last performance they might go all the way and actually end the song with a kiss, and sure enough they did! The whole audience went wild! And it was a GOOD kiss too! It wasn’t all big and silly over the top and played for laughs, so it was a sweet little way to wrap things up for those two characters in an otherwise very ridiculous show. We love to see good LGBT representation!
After the show ended and they did their final bows, all the cast members pulled together into a group hug, which warmed my heart to see. With a show this fun, I feel like it must be especially hard to see it come to an end. I honestly think I’d have a VERY hard time with this if I ever did get involved with theater. I get sad enough when the run of a show ends and I’m just in the audience. I can only imagine how much MORE sad I’d be if I were in the cast. It must feel like losing a family, because you’ll never perform the exact same show with the exact same cast again. Ah theater, a part of your magic is how fleeting you are.
Next is going to be Cabaret in March, which I’ll be seeing with just my mom because nobody else was interested in seeing it. I’ve seen the movie, but never the musical, so I’m pretty excited to see it, given how iconic it is. I’m anxiously anticipating the cast announcement!
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