Brshp Yr Shkspr

No, it’s not me on the left. Or the right.
The Power of the Net
I just received an email from an Out There reader who asked if I was the same J.W. who played opposite her in The Taming of the Shrew back at charming John Adams High School in South Ozone Park, Queens, New York. I mentioned this archetypal face-reddener, my first brush with Thalia and Melpomene, at the beginning of the last post. Indeed, Claire (Callegari) Giblin played an attractive, assertive, full-voiced Katherine to my squeaky, pimply Petruchio. She’s now a museum curator and artist.

Still not me. Closer, though.
My final appearance on stage came but a short time later at Adams’ senior variety show, for which I wrote a musical parody, The Wizard of Ozone Park (“Oh I’ve got to get to college, to get a lump of knowledge….”) Someone must have twisted my arm to play the Good Witch in full Glinda drag, which I did to universal delight.
A scary photo of me in mop wig and waving a twinkling wand soon appeared on the front page of our school newspaper. Yours truly was the editor; how the devil did that picture get there?
I await, I suppose, the inevitable emails from those of you who saw it.
(Yes, the internet too has its muse, male, name begins with an “N.”)