At 7:30 p.m. Thursday, Shakalis will be a part of BPP’s annual fundraiser, “The Blizzard: 30 Drinks in 60 Minutes!” that will run through Saturday night.
“My neighbor said I’d love it. He told me BPP is a great place for actors and performers,” Shakalis said of her first audition. “I knew they had a good reputation, so I wanted to audition for them.”
When Shakalis found out she got a part in the BPP event, she thought it would be another ?simple show.
But she was wrong.
The fundraiser features eight ensemble members who will try to perform 30 individual plays in just 60 minutes. The audience chooses the order in which each play will be ?performed.
“It’s a different show all three nights, and they perform against a timer, and when the 60 minutes are up, then the show is over,” Managing Director for BPP Jessica Reed said.
Every year, the fundraiser follows the same format — 30 shows in 60 minutes — but the theme of the plays changes. This year, all of the plays are about different types of drinks.
“We thought it would be fun to have a show completely inspired by our local awesome bars, breweries and wineries,” Reed said.
Shakalis said the plays are very risqué in nature and, to prepare, one of the directors told actors to emulate Jack Black when they ?perform the plays.
“It’s real raucous, raunchy and down and dirty,” Shakalis said.
Shakalis said she feels it was much easier to memorize each individual play as opposed to a longer main stage play because they don’t have to maintain the same level of continuity as traditional plays have to.
“So you got more of a feeling of accomplishment and achievement if you learned section by section whereas when you do a regular play, you can learn a few scenes but you still don’t have that feeling of learning a big chunk of it,” Shakalis said.
David Sheehan, associate artistic director of BPP, said in an email that rehearsals are a lot of fun, and they are still making last-minute changes to each of the plays at ?this point.
“Rehearsal is a lot like a playground jungle gym, and we’ve got a group of actors who love to play, make big, bold choices, and they go crazy,” Sheehan said.
Shakalis said she feels they will be able to perform all 30 plays once the event starts because they are taking a lot of time in rehearsal this week to time themselves running all of the individual plays consecutively.
“You have to change the costumes, sets and props,” Shakalis said. “There’s a lot going on, so it’s important that we keep running it and running it so that we don’t feel scared when the time comes.”
In terms of cast rituals before the show, Shakalis said they do not do anything formal together, but they pump themselves up ?individually.
“We just all kind of stand in the wings waiting to go on and a lot of us jump up and down literally to get the blood flowing,” Shakalis said.
Shakalis said she is excited but will still feel some nervous energy right before they go out to ?perform.
“I think a good actor has to be nervous,” Shakalis said. “If you’re not nervous then it’s not good. You need that nervous energy a little bit. We haven’t had an audience yet, so that will be new, exciting, a little scary, and I think we’ll all be really excited.”
Apart from the format of the fundraiser being different than a traditional main stage production, Shakalis said she is looking forward to playing a different kind of role than the traditional ones she has played in the past.
“I’ve always played the ingénue, like Maria in ‘The Sound of Music’ and the sweet young thing or the sophisticated Stephen Sondheim singer,” Shakalis said. “For me, this is so much fun because it’s such an admiration and new casting situation. I never really got to be goofy and zany, and that’s what this is.”
In addition to all of the plays being about drinks, there will also be a tasting of the different local drinks at 7 p.m. in the lobby before the show.
“Instead of showing up 15 minutes before the show and just walking into the theater, there’ll be something going on in the lobby,” Reed said. “Hopefully it will be pretty lively, which will set the tone for the show, which is always high energy.”
Shakalis said she looks forward to being a part of such a different experience.
“I’m so excited to see how it all comes together because it just started with these eight people,” Shakalis said. “I didn’t know anybody, and when I got the part I had no idea what it was. Everybody put in a lot of work and memorizing, and it’s going to be good.”
