Post by brizycomics on Mar 3, 2008 3:34:23 GMT 10
This is something I'd meant to post a couple months ago, but I trust that the delay will not take away from the niftiness of the story.
I'm very active in my local civic theater community and am especially very involved in the end-of-the-year holiday repertory program. During this time there are usually other programs running on neighboring, nearby stages featuring touring companies and choral groups. As a result, there are a lot of people hard at work amidst a flurry of activity within a relatively small space downtown. You can run into singers, lighting technicians, directors, actors, stage hands, restaurant managers, waiters, conductors, parents, patrons, vendors, and more all just by walking the length of one block. Its fun.
As I was enjoying my time as the prop chair & stage manager for the Civic Theater Repertory Christmas program, I took a break in the tech office of the larger theater down the street (or down the hall, if you're indoors, as the two theaters are connected via the same box office). There I wound up visiting with a few folks I knew and someone I didn't. The fellow I didn't know was clad in the black T-shirt worn by the staff at the City Cafe restaurant. The Cafe was doing a very good business, being just downstairs from the celebrated Frauenthal Center for the Performing Arts, where America's Tallest Singing Christmas Tree was playing.
The pleasant fellow was a City Cafe waiter named Justin Strait, if I remember correctly. He was tickled to find that I was a cartoonist who had done pages for Wizard the Comics Magazine and I was delighted that he actually knew my work. It was then I found out that he knew something else.
Justin had been buddies with Rocky Marquette (still Rocky Martinez back in the day). Justin told me that he was among those who eagerly encouraged Rocky to audition as a body double/stunt double for Toby Maguire in the first Spider-Man movie. According to Justin, he even supplied our man Rocky with an actual Spider-Man costume, which Rocky wore underneath his street clothes to the audition.
The story goes that as he stood before the casting people, Rocky ripped open his shirt heroically and tump-tadda-DAA, there was the Spider-man uniform stretched snugly across his trim, tight-muscled body. As you all know, he got the job. There was even a big write-up about it in our hometown paper, The Muskegon Chronicle.
I found it to be a charming story and one worth sharing with all of you on the board. And although Justin has not been in touch with Rocky for quite some time, he still remembers it fondly. Sorry it took so long for me to tell it.
Oh...and if any of the facts of this tale are not fully accurate, do not blame Justin. It is most likely that I jumbled something up in the retelling. But either way, it is great fun to imagine Rocky standing there, stiff-backed and bold as he tears open his shirt to reveal the superhero costume beneath. I would love to snap a photo of our hero doing that. (And I don't mean Peter Parker.)
Best to all,
-Briz
I'm very active in my local civic theater community and am especially very involved in the end-of-the-year holiday repertory program. During this time there are usually other programs running on neighboring, nearby stages featuring touring companies and choral groups. As a result, there are a lot of people hard at work amidst a flurry of activity within a relatively small space downtown. You can run into singers, lighting technicians, directors, actors, stage hands, restaurant managers, waiters, conductors, parents, patrons, vendors, and more all just by walking the length of one block. Its fun.
As I was enjoying my time as the prop chair & stage manager for the Civic Theater Repertory Christmas program, I took a break in the tech office of the larger theater down the street (or down the hall, if you're indoors, as the two theaters are connected via the same box office). There I wound up visiting with a few folks I knew and someone I didn't. The fellow I didn't know was clad in the black T-shirt worn by the staff at the City Cafe restaurant. The Cafe was doing a very good business, being just downstairs from the celebrated Frauenthal Center for the Performing Arts, where America's Tallest Singing Christmas Tree was playing.
The pleasant fellow was a City Cafe waiter named Justin Strait, if I remember correctly. He was tickled to find that I was a cartoonist who had done pages for Wizard the Comics Magazine and I was delighted that he actually knew my work. It was then I found out that he knew something else.
Justin had been buddies with Rocky Marquette (still Rocky Martinez back in the day). Justin told me that he was among those who eagerly encouraged Rocky to audition as a body double/stunt double for Toby Maguire in the first Spider-Man movie. According to Justin, he even supplied our man Rocky with an actual Spider-Man costume, which Rocky wore underneath his street clothes to the audition.
The story goes that as he stood before the casting people, Rocky ripped open his shirt heroically and tump-tadda-DAA, there was the Spider-man uniform stretched snugly across his trim, tight-muscled body. As you all know, he got the job. There was even a big write-up about it in our hometown paper, The Muskegon Chronicle.
I found it to be a charming story and one worth sharing with all of you on the board. And although Justin has not been in touch with Rocky for quite some time, he still remembers it fondly. Sorry it took so long for me to tell it.
Oh...and if any of the facts of this tale are not fully accurate, do not blame Justin. It is most likely that I jumbled something up in the retelling. But either way, it is great fun to imagine Rocky standing there, stiff-backed and bold as he tears open his shirt to reveal the superhero costume beneath. I would love to snap a photo of our hero doing that. (And I don't mean Peter Parker.)
Best to all,
-Briz