January 9, 2011- Amber DeVille's REPO! Birthday Bash At The Church

The Church, for those of you not familiar with it, is a neo/gothic/industrial/electro club in Dallas. It's a regular Thursday/Sunday night hang-out for many of our cast members and it's always been a good place to promote our show. Indeed, DJ Joe Virus has been a long-time fan and supporter of Amber Does Dallas since the very beginning and has made a number of mixes based on various REPO! songs.

But we weren't there to dance the night away that night in January. Well, we were... but not in the usual way we dance the night away at The Church. We were there to perform. Because DJ Joe Virus wasn't the only fan of the show we had at The Church. We were contacted by Amber DeVille - a local model of some renown, who was holding her birthday festivities at The Church.

Since she was a big fan of all things REPO! and wanted to show off her lovely new Blind Mag costume, she made a request, phone calls were made... and to make a long and terribly boring and technical story short, we were procured to provide the entertainment for the evening. It was a dream come true, despite the job offering a certain degree of challenge.

Each performance space offers unique difficulties and The Church stage was no exception. Thankfully, we had a wide space and several levels to perform on as well as the use of a private dressing room off Stage Right. But the dressing room was up two flights of stairs from the stage and many of our costume changes allow our actors just seconds to change.

Thankfully, we are nothing if not resourceful and a wall of GeneCo guards makes an effective (if not particularly subtle) changing wall for when Shilo has to change from her normal outfit to her nightgown in under 30 seconds. We utilized a portion of the VIP area to similar effect. Indeed, I personally spent most of the night in the VIP area, acting as a changing barricade, a security guard, a concierge of the cast and a floorwalker.

This brings to mind another challenge this performance space offered. I was concerned that I might not be heard over the sound system down on the floor from upstairs. Thankfully, that worry proved to be unfounded as I remember one young man saying to Emily after the show, "You were great, but who was that dick in the rafters who kept shouting at you?"

Ah well. As the song says, "It's a thankless job, but somebody's got to do it."

Thankfully, while my own meager contribution of snark may not have been fully appreciated by some, it cannot be denied that everyone enjoyed the rest of the cast's talents as they were put upon display. The crowd was energetic and enthusiastic, but none moreso than the birthday girl and her friends.

After the show, there was a cake-cutting ceremony. True to the theme of the night, the cake was in the shape of a heart - an ACTUAL heart, contained in a Styrofoam cooler.

After an hour of dancing, the formal festivities concluded with a costume contest of all those assembled who had come dressed as a Repo! character... plus a few other local characters who usually dress like they COULD be a character from Repo! All in all it was a successful show and a good time was had by all... at least until the hangover the next morning! Salute!

THE CAST