Dear Nurse Ansalong:
My stepdaughter and I act in the TIME WARPED cast, I am Columbia and Liz is Magenta. ROCKY is our most favorite thing to talk about and it has begun to take over our lives, or at least our weekends. The cast we are with is great, a second family. The problem is that Liz is 9 years old and the youngest actress known on record to perform on stage with a live cast. I mean she is not an understudy for Magenta; she IS Magenta. This has helped her self confidence so much! I'm worried because, at 9yrs old, she is mentally a 13 year old and has a 13 year old's body and is strutting around stage in a black bra, bikini underwear and a sheer black see-through thing to cover her. She enjoys it, but am I warping her mind? Also, I would like to know your views on intercast relationships; good or bad?
-Emily

Emily, I've been thinking about this question for awhile. While I don't think you're "warping Liz's mind", the fact that, at 9 years old, she's dressed like that causes me a problem. If she was a Transylvanian or someone who wore more costuming, then I would have less of a problem. To me, it doesn't seem like it would be a good thing for her to play that part. Maybe when she actually turned 13, then it would be okay. If she does continue to perform, then I would tell you to be very protecting of her. There are many people who come to ROCKY who aren't as nice as the rest of the cast, and they might try to lead her into something that could cause her serious harm. If you haven't already, then you should sit down with her and talk about what some people could do. This may be overdoing it, but it would probably be better if she had all of the facts before something happened. I have strange feelings about intercast dating. For every good relationship that I've seen start, I've also seen many that, as they say, "went down in flames". I dated a couple guys that were on the same cast as myself, but we always broke up. While one ended normally, another ended with him cheating on me with audience members. Like any relationship, it all depends on the people involved. One thing that I would definately say is to not bring your problems onto the stage. I've seen Brad and Janet's that were about to beat each other up in the middle of the show because of relationship problems. The weirdest night was when I went to see a cast and the Rocky and Frank, who were dating, had gotten into a fight before the show. They gave each other dirty looks all night and, when Frank throws Rocky at the end of the Dinner Scene, it looked like the Frank tried to slam him into the ground. While these relationships didn't work out, there is always the chance that you might meet the perfect person on the cast. Handle intercast dating like you would any other kind of dating, and I think you'll be okay.

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