Surprisingly, I had never taken to the main stage prior to Grade 13 in High School when we performed Secret of the Spyglass by William Pendergrast, a one-hit wonder playwright. I auditioned and won the role of Simon Cataract, an evil Squire who got to kill, kidnap and attempt to blow up Fort Henry in Kingston. It was a truly horrid melodramatic comedy with badly-punned character names, wretched writing (best line: "Don't worry Miss Daisy, your Dick will come for you!") and awkwardly contrived subplots. Needless to say, we had a musket ball with it! 
The cast included several neophytes to the theatre such as, fellow bridge player and future Priest, Dianne McLean as the head Pirate, my murder victim, Barry Goodwin as Daisy's uncle and the Luscious Liz Hunt as darling Daisy with whom I fell in unrequited love both on and off stage.
We were in competition with the other Peel High Schools including future pouf and Kid in the Hall, Scott Thompson starring in The Boyfriend. (They won it, natch.) I recall the adjudicator singled out my performance as truly over the top (in a good way) and praised my improv skills by yelling out "BANG!" when the sound effects guys miscued the firing of my blunderbuss. All in all, we had a marvelous time doing the play and it put me on the fast track to a lifetime of performance anxiety!
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