Hall & Oates "Kiss on My List"

"Nice to meet you. I'm sorry I kissed your wife.""It's OK. I kinda enjoyed it."

After getting cast in a Second City show, I played a collection of bizarre characters including a former Hootie & the Blowfish roadie, a hapless motivational speaker, and a man who got turned on by things that should turn normal people off. When paging through the scripts during our first rehearsal, I noticed that my character (who got turned on by weird stuff) had to kiss the female character. Wait. What? As much as I liked Jackie, the girl who co-starred with me in that scene, I felt awkward even thinking of kissing her. She was nearly ten years older than me, married with twin boys and the only other actor in the show with whom I clicked. At the time, I had a live-in girlfriend who pushed me to take improv classes at Second City and, thus, audition for this part. Awkward!

Jackie and I approached our director and asked if we could not kiss. His response was something along the lines of: "We're all actors here who are acting--you'll be fine". Actors? I was bored with my job and used Second City as a way to scratch my creative itch--I didn't consider myself an actor, but that wasn't the issue. During rehearsals and for 5 weeks worth of shows, I'd have to kiss someone who wasn't my girlfriend. Eventually, we both got over trepidation and just went with it. I realized it was the first time I kissed someone other than my girlfriend in, well, years. It was weird yet kind of cool, but still weird.

After the final show, the entire cast got together for a wrap party where I finally met Jackie's husband. That's when the exchange at the top of this post happened. For weeks I built up how our meeting would go and never once did I think I would apologize for having to kiss his wife and be told "It's OK. I kinda enjoyed it." Allllrighty, then. Early on during rehearsals, I do recall Jackie mentioning that her husband jokingly told her that he was somewhat turned on at the thought of her kissing me during the show, but I dismissed it. To each his own, right? The entire experience at Second City remains one of my favorite achievements in life (and the kiss wasn't bad, either)...