FARGO - Call it a case of taking one for the team - or literally having your hair ripped out for the team. Scott Brusven, the director of Oak Grove Lutheran High School's latest musical production "The Hunchback of Notre Dame" and actor Luke Bergstrom, a senior, had their legs waxed as part of a fundraising challenge with two other actors in the show.
Brusven, Bergstrom and actors Davis Sunderland and Hunter Voldon, both seniors, took part in what Brusven called a "reverse penny war" where the person who raised the least amount of money had to get his legs professionally waxed.
"So, if you wanted to see me lose," Brusven says. "You'd give money to the others."
That is apparently exactly what happened with Brusven tallying the lowest amount of the more than $6,500 the four participants raised.
But there was a bit of a double-edged sword with the fundraising challenge - something Brusven calls an "automatic wax," where anyone exceeding the $2,500 mark also had to get waxed.
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The only person who hit that mark was Bergstrom. So today, the loser and winner of the challenge, Brusven and Bergstrom, went to Fargo waxing salon, Waxing the City, to take their punishment (or reward). Brusven says the waxing wasn't as painful as he thought it would be. However, in a video of the waxing sessions- online at InForum.com - you can see both Brusven and Bergstrom squirming a little.
The money raised from the challenge is going toward production costs for the musical which includes music by the Fargo-Moorhead Symphony and Master Chorale. Brusven, a theatre veteran, says this show is better than any he's worked on and has struck a chord with audiences because of the issues it tackles.
"It's a beautiful story. It highlights and touches on so much about humanity. How we judge other people over things like race or color or how hard we try to fight sin and temptation," Brusven says. "It also shows how everyone is affected by the choices they make."
Kim Linster, the owner of Waxing the City, says she was happy to help with the fundraiser. She's seen the show multiple times.
"I was really moved by it," she says. "It's very powerful. It does raise the question 'what makes a monster and what makes a man?'"
The reaction to the show has been so positive that Brusven added one more night to the show's run, which began last week. The show is performed at Scheels Center for Performing Arts at Oak Grove's North Campus Thursday, Feb 22 at 7 p.m., Friday, Feb 23 at 8 p.m., Saturday, Feb 24 at 7 p.m., and Sunday Feb 25 at 2 p.m. Tickets cost $12 for adults and $8 for children and are available at the door or at Oakgrovelutheran.com.
Despite the success of the show and the success of the fundraiser, Brusven, the male director with the smoothest legs in town, says don't expect an encore performance of the waxing from him. "The staff at Waxing the City was wonderful," he says. "But I don't think I'll be visiting them again anytime soon."
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