It won’t matter if your back is turned when a loud, boisterous character bounds onto the scene of Batavia Players’ weekend show “The Drowsy Chaperone.” You’ll know who it is each and every time without looking because Adolpho, aka Qasim Huzair, enjoys the spotlight and wants to make sure his audience equally enjoys his enthusiasm.
“I actually feed off of people that are sitting right in front of me. That boosts me as an actor because I can play off of them more because when I'm this close to an audience, I tend to involve the audience so much more. And it doesn't make me uncomfortable like it would with some other actors. I really like it, actually, being able to look directly at audience members and make them feel uncomfortable,” the 19-year-old actor said just before rehearsal Wednesday evening at Batavia City Centre. “I enjoy having an audience.”
Now don’t get all nervous about him staring you down. He means it in the nicest way. After all, comedy’s his thing, not intimidation. And playing the lovable paradoxical character of a dark-haired Latino who believes he can get any woman yet does “really stupid things” is an amusing part of Adolpho’s charm.
Why not see for yourself at 7:30 p.m. Friday and Saturday or at 2 p.m. Sunday on the Batavia City Centre stage in downtown Batavia?
Ever since his first role as Uncle Fester in “The Addams Family,” Huzair — and his high school play director — knew he was headed for comedic acting. In fact, the director encouraged Huzair, a theater arts major at Genesee Community College, to pursue the funnier side of acting, which he has done ever since.
So with those two attributes going for him — a love of the spotlight and comedy — what else could he be pursuing?
“As far as an end goal, it would be really nice to get into maybe a TV show setting or film. Like as a stable job through a TV show,” he said. “Of course, I would also love to be in professional stage casts, I like all sorts of acting, straight play acting, musical acting, film acting, whatever gets my foot through the door. I’ve just got to stick with it.”
After GCC, he’ll be applying to several four-year colleges for a bachelor’s in fine arts and a minor in music education. The minor is for his Plan B to be a music teacher, though with a strategy to go on multiple auditions in New York City a year from now, it kind of sounds as if Plan B has been stored away for a while.
“Of course, when you first start out, you can't get an agent. But I'm hoping with exposure and going to a four-year college, a lot of four years theater schools offer the opportunity to perform and have a showcase in front of an audience of agents,” he said. “I’m hoping that I can get an agent from one of those opportunities.”
To boost his backup plan, he plays the sax.
A newcomer to Batavia Players, Huzair’s debut was for its last show and his first experience with being up close and very personal on stage with the cast and patrons. While such proximity has certainly unnerved actors a time or two, it fits Adolpho’s style and allows him to slide into the audience rather ceremoniously. He’s not one to tip-toe.
“He is very funny. That’s why I auditioned for him,” Huzair said. “He sings this one song, and it’s hilarious. I love making an audience laugh. When I play off an audience, it gives me more energy.”
Hence, the looking into people’s eyes up on stage thing. He’s unabashedly fearless to make that human connection. So what’s this young actor — who got so carried away as a kid that the director warned him to tone it down because he wasn’t supposed to be drawing all the attention away from the lead — like off stage?
“When people get to know me, I’m very obnoxious. I’m always practicing my comedy on my family,” he said. “As a person, I’m always trying to make people laugh.”
Adolpho is the stereotypical Latin lover, he said, holding a "rose in his teeth very pompous" type of guy, yet is also very oblivious in that “he doesn’t get basic concepts.” Adolpho is convinced that he could get any woman that he wants, his alter-ego said.
“He's very confident,” Huzair said. “But what's the ironic part about it is his character is very stupid.”
Well-spoken and articulate, Huzair doesn’t exactly mirror that description. He described the show, which neither he nor fellow actor Jeriko Nemeth sitting nearby had ever seen before.
A comical farce based in a man’s living room, the premise puts the audience in the room with the character aptly titled “man in chair.” He listens to a recording of a fictional 1928 comedy, and the characters begin to appear in his sad, dingy apartment, bringing to life his meager existence into an impressive Broadway performance.
Intriguing set-up, yes? Add to it glitzy costumes, sparkly furniture, painted backdrops, lively personalities — Broadway producer Feldzieg, flapper Kitty, aging hostess Mrs. Tottendale, two gangsters-in-hiding as pastry chefs, and Nemeth’s Amelia Earhart-like pilot character, to name just some of the living room troupe.
Equipment failures starts and stops that freeze the action, a plane trip, wedding plans for four couples, Janet, the alcoholic chaperone who talks of being drowsy (there’s your title), and a line-up of musical numbers that will move this production happily along to “Love is Always Lovely in the End.”
Nemeth, another GCC theater student who is pursuing a creative arts degree, auditioned for Trix the Aviatrix. She was drawn to the characteristics of Trix.
“She is the big black female role,” Nemeth, 18, said. “She always has a smile on her face. It’s definitely an acting job, I can’t relate to, being a pilot ... being in the sky and being in Rio. I’ve never been on a plane before.”
Nemeth has enjoyed being part of the show and a creative environment. Ever since she was a child, painting and drawing were her favorite activities, she said. Then came a fondness for acting, with her first role in “Mama Mia.”
“I ended up having this love for stepping out of my real life and going into something that I can at least forget about everything else for a good couple hours,” she said. “As my character of Trix, since she's a pilot, she has very heavy clothing. I do wear a leather jacket on stage as well as like a heavy cab, and it’s just so sweaty. But that's honestly, my only struggle with the character is just the heat. But you learn to get through it.”
While describing the show, Huzair paused to question why he or many others haven’t seen it before. It’s pretty darned funny.
“This show is short and sweet, not too long. It’s a short little time of fun,” he said. “Chock full of jokes and laughter, acting and singing, all those aspects are put together, it’s a very entertaining show. I don’t know why it’s not more well-known.”
Tickets are $18 for adults and $16 for students and seniors, and may be purchased at showtix4u.com.
Photos by Howard Owens.
