My Unauthorized! Life: Kevin MacLean
Kevin MacLean
Kevin MacLean, Design Director and Company Member
It was the first time I had auditioned for anything in eight years. I had seen the premiere performance of the Unauthorized! sophomore show, Steel Petunias, a few weeks earlier where the announcement had been made that their next show would be a musical parody of Ghostbusters.
I had always loved performing in musicals in high school and college, but I had long since given up on any semblance of an acting career. I contented myself with the fact that, like organized sports, performing in the theater was in my past.
But the lure of being able to sing and dance on stage again and be a Ghostbuster to boot was too great. Between the time since my last audition and the sheer number of people auditioning, I didn’t figure I had much of a chance. Steeling me somewhat was the fact that I knew I had picked a dynamite audition song. The perfect combination of 80s nostalgia and parody cheese: the theme song from Growing Pains.
After auditioning, I was convinced I wouldn’t get a part. Didn’t quite hit that note, didn’t do my best Dan Aykroyd impression. I drank myself to sleep at 11:15 lamenting missed opportunities.
That morning I woke up for work and found on my phone a missed call and voicemail time stamped at 11:21.
I would end up playing the part of Ray Stantz in Ghostblasters and my journey as a member of the Unauthorized! family was off and running.
When I say “family”, I really do mean a family. You don’t produce and perform a full length musical in the span of a month with out getting to know a few people. You’d expect there to be some arguments, some tension and there is sometimes. That feeling of “Oh man, our first show is tomorrow and we haven’t done a full run through yet!” But everyone believes it will end up working out and, sure enough, it does.
I still remember that first rehearsal. Standing there in that tiny room in midtown, knowing almost no one, thinking "Wow, these people are really good, how am I gonna keep up?" I didn't have to worry, because they would show me how.
The first ever Ghostblasters rehearsal.
No experience has been so rewarding, so filled with love and creativity as the one I continue to have with Unauthorized!. Everything that is said and done holds inside it the singular goal of putting on the best possible show. Every day I find myself surrounded with immensely talented people that hold each other up and say “Lets show people something they know and love in a whole new way. A way that’s wild and fun.”
I don’t know what will become of Unauthorized!. If it will last six more months or six more years. But I used to think that I knew the date of my last performance. I don’t anymore, and that is really exciting.