CAREER IN THEATRE

February 20, 2009

Birren #2

Career

My Brilliant Career in Theatre

My brilliant career in theatre began in the first grade when I was cast as a robin in

the usual first grade production. Mom spent weeks making my costume with

a bright red breast, mostly of crepe paper, which a single spark would probably

have sent up in flames. but I loved it. Came the day of the performance and I was SICK. Now Mom had been a nurse and i don't believe she would have allowed

a fake illness, but I am sure that it was truly psycho-somatic because I felt fine that evening. But I never appeared on stage as a robin. The robin costume remained on a back shelf in the closet for many years.

My next appearance before an audience was in church. On Christmas Eve all the

children had to stand up and "speak their piece" to the entire congregation. All

went well and when I started to "speak my piece", there were a few giggles, and by the time I finished the church was laughing. It seems that I was rocking back and forth on my toes and heels, like a modern day rapper, in tune with every line.

In the 5th grade I was in competition with a little boy I who was my rival, George Preston Roper, and we both wrote plays. They were much the same. five or six pages long, but just to be sure, I threw in the plague and a ship-wreck. The class thought mine was the much most exciting.

In high school I was cast in the Junior Class Play as "Spud", the comic in an opus called "June Moon". I wore bright red suspenders which got a big laugh when I took off my jacket. My friend Earl, the leading man, and I had a scene with Anne who played his mother (later they were married), and all went well until she froze and could not say another word; Earl and I managed to ad lib a funny conversation until she was able to come back in. That gave me the confidence to know I could talk if I had to, on stage without a script.

My first role in college was as "Fritz", the butler, in a play called "Claudia". The leads. Claudia and David. were played beautifully by a young married couple - who never seemed to have learned their lines. Patty Pratt, who played my wife,

Bertha, and I had to hope that they would finally get around to something like

a cue so we could continue the play

It was in my sophomore year that I was the prop manager for a play called "Ladies in Retirement", a murder mystery set in the 19th century. Much of the plot revolved about a telescope, and one night when the Second Act opened I realized the the telescope was still on stage though they were about to have a

big scene searching for the missing telescope. When the leading lady, Marge King, went to open a Dutch door in the fireplace where she kept her money. I was standing there and whispered, "Get the telescope off!" She hesitated only a moment, walked back down stage, hid the telescope in her large skirt, walked off stage, handed it to me, walked back on stage and continued the play. The director, who was sitting in the audience, wondered what in Hell she was doing,

but nobody else knew.

At the end of my Senior year in college we opened the first year of the Denison

Summer Theatre in a large tent in Granville, and things seemed ripe to go wrong.

We were doing "Three Men on a Horse", and Hal Holbrook was playing Patsy. In

a scene set in a barroom, there was a telephone on one end of the bar around which much of the action centered; when the curtain went up, we realized that the phone was at the wrong end of the bar. Hal, the lead, had to redo all the

blocking as the scene went along, and we all had to hope we were in the wrong place at the right time.

We did "Our Town". At the end of the second act, a wedding, the bride and groom make their exit running up the center aisle. As I said, we were playing in a tent, and there was a tent pole in the middle of the aisle. As the sweet young bride, Emily, played by Alma Nellis, ran down the aisle, she was blinded by a spotlight in her eyes, and ran straight into the pole and let out with a resounding "God Dammit To Hell" and kept on going. Alma, incidentally, had no recollection of having said a word; we had a hard time getting her to go back for Act Three.

My trials and tribulations with props were not ended. In "You Can't Take it

with You" i had a bit as the Income Tax Man. I made my entrance in the Second

Act and had to carry three props: a business card, a brief case, and a hat which I

Ieave behind as it is used in the action for the rest of the play. Standing in the

wings, I checked the briefcase and the hat, but realized I did not have the card.

I put down the hat, picked up the card, and made my entrance. I am greeted by

Penny, played by my dear friend Connie Palmer, with "May I take your hat?"

which came out as "May I take your - oh. you don't have a hat". I kept wondering all through the scene what was going to happen but as I was exiting someone

dropped the hat at the door; Connie picked it up, went on with the scene, and

I hope no one noticed.

The worst moment was yet to come. For the Toledo Repertory Theatre I was

playing Nicky, a warlock in contemporary New York, in "Bell. Book and Candle".

In the second scene of the Second Act I open the scene alone in my sister Gillian's apartment waiting for my Aunt Queenie to arrive. I try to open her

liquor cabinet, but it is locked; since I am a warlock, I snap my fingers and the

doors fly open. and I pour myself a drink. The doorbell rings and I go to the intercom where Aunt Queenie says she has arrived. I buzz her in, then go back to the liquor cabinet, close the doors, snap my fingers and check to be sure it is locked, then go to the door to let Queenie in.

One night in the second week of the run, I open the liquor cabinet, pour myself a drink - and the doorbell does NOT RING. I take a sip of the drink (actually flat

ginger ale): I take a second drink. NO RING. (I am cursing Norma Richards who

plays Aunt Queenie - I know she has a quick change, but this is ridiculous) I

look around. There is a coffee table with a cigarette box, so I go over and light

a cigarette. NO RING I pick up a magazine and stretch out on the couch. NO

RING I just about decide to drop my pants and scratch my ass when - THE DOORBELL RINGS. I go to answer it and we go on with the scene.

Later of course I realized that it is not Norma who rings the doorbell, but the stage manager. After she pushed open the cabinet doors. she was distracted by

someone asking a question, and it was not until she saw me lying on the couch - where she has never seen me before, that the stage manager realized she

had missed a cue.

My Brilliant Career in the Theatre continues, and I hope that there will be

many more exciting adventures ahead.

rwtf