A Midsummer Night's Heel

Posted in: Drivel

Tonight I had the honour of teaching a Shakespearian actor, of the Royal Shakespeare Company no less, to move around the stage. Unbelievable? I was helping the chap playing Puck the fairy to roll on the stage using Heelys, the shoes with the wheel in the heel. There's a scene where Puck floats across the stage and then turns around and walks to the middle. The great thing about Heelys is their, I think unique, capacity to enable nearly seamless transitions between walking and heeling. Even when you know what's going on it looks slick, when you don't it's mind-poppingly odd. I would be surprised if a single person in the audience has any idea how the RSC pull off this fabulous little move...

Anyway, thanks to Andreas at Citiskate whom RSC originally contacted I stepped in, hopped along to the RSC audition rooms, and rolled around with Jonathan/Puck. I'll be back end of next week to see how he's getting on and troubleshoot. Great fun, and satisfying seeing an improvement.

Does this make me the first professional UK Heelys instructor?!

Posted by Paul Makepeace at March 2, 2005 01:15 | TrackBack