Martin Drop will bow for his final curtain call this evening at Long Lake Theater, a poignant moment for the 11-year-old who arrived from Norway for his stage debut this summer.
"Once on stage, I was in a whole new place," the affable young thespian said. "I love the audience, the clapping - everything except the wait in the bedroom" (backstage).
His affinity for the theater was affirmed opening night. "I wanted to go back on," he said.
Martin played the role of Thor in "The Nerd," a precocious child whose antics have another character reaching for the bottle.
"I'm very naughty," he said of his role. But he attributes his reprehensible behavior, in part, to his father, "who breaks promises."
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Martin heard about the audition from his "adopted grandparents," Ruth and Curt Bakken who reside on Long Lake. His mom, Guri, had come to know them as a foreign exchange student.
He urged his parents to contact the director, Sarah Einerson, who faxed him the script. With less than two days to study the character, he auditioned via phone, skipping school for the interview.
"Being an actor has been my dream job since I was 6 years old," he said. The aspiring performer studies the characters he sees in movies, recreating the roles at home.
"I pretend I have my own cinema," he said. "I play with my imagination."
"We had to come," dad Alan said of the serendipitous trans-Atlantic journey, which put his writing career briefly on hold.
School plays are "totally unexciting," Martin confided of fairy tales on stage. "I've heard the story millions and millions of times."
Staying up late is among the perks he's enjoying this summer.
Born in Hammerfest - the northernmost city in the world - Martin has also lived in South Africa, Swaziland and Uruguay. He is fluent in Norwegian, English and Spanish.
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But Minnesota, he declared, "is my first choice for where I'd like to live in the world. The summers are very nice. It's cold in Norway. And the only sport is cycling. It gets so old," the boating and baseball aficionado said.
"I don't want the play to end," he said Wednesday. "I'm loving it."
