The first year at Image International was truly amazing. Looking back on it, I can see what went on. Al Caputo and Ray Ramsay, the owners, saw me in action and realized that they suddenly had the talent in the shop to build some really cool stuff. Al Ohlson, I soon learned, was completely lost when the project went off square - He gave me all projects that required a mind for three dimensional geometry that didn't have standard thirty, sixty or forty five degrees coming back around to zero in a hurry. The Pirate entranceway was my first solo project, without a square corner anywhere, but five pieces came together square. He showed me the picture, and I built it. He tried to assure me that I didn't really need to figure all of those angles, that I could cut everything square and it would be okay. I scowled at him and built it right. Caputo liked it.
High Tech Aztec was all about angles. Al Ohlson gave me the project of the two square stepped pyramids that needed to come apart into four pieces along the corners, requiring the figuring of the forty five degree ends that would attach together into the square. I knew how to work it out, but Al argued with me every time I tried to lay it out. He didn't have a clue how to make it work, and didn't trust that I could figure it out. He tried to make the corners by modifying the square-on stringers, and I couldn't make him see that the step widths were going to stretch to nearly one and a half times when measured across the 45 degree angle. Finally one day Al Ohlson took a day off and I laid out and built one whole unit while he was gone, with angle stringers and square-on stringers traced for the second one. The bar units were wacky angles as well. Bob had that project, and after about three days of struggling with it, came to me and asked how to work it out. I pretty much built the first one for him, and he copied it for the second one.
Marriott Masters was a week-long event in May with Marriott people from all over the world coming together at one location - Orlando World Center in 1988 - to learn from each other and get to know each other. Image was the preferred vendor for meetings, parties and other MOWC functions, and there were breakfasts, lunches, dinners and evening parties every day for the whole week. We pulled out every set in the huge warehouse and spiffed up the ones we were using. We built six new cedar gazebo bars, two amoebic shaped 16' wide, 6" deep fiberglass ponds for swamp water, a big fifties diner, two Star Wars styled X-Wing fighters, and dozens of new pieces I can't even remember. My favorites, though, were the Cosmic Casino games. There was a crash landing game with rockets (darts) that crashed into planets (balloons) on a star-studded backdrop; a Solar Rings game with spacey-looking ring things to toss onto spacey-looking pegs; a Black Hole game with sections of 12" tubing and 11" balls to toss into them. I found that I really liked inventing and fabricating themed games.
One memorable occasion was the afternoon when we were busy in the shop, but not slammed, and the call came from the Marriott: the crew was falling behind! They were setting up a dinner, and they were short some table cloths and chair condoms. They needed somebody to drive a truck out with the stuff and help with the installation. Well, I had a driver's license. All fingers pointed at me. Damn! So, mumbling and grumbling a blue streak, I loaded the step van with table cloths and chair condoms and drove to the Marriott. I parked and carried the stuff in, pissed to the max. Damn it, Jim! I'm a carpenter not a decorator! But I slung tablecloths and stretched condoms for a half hour or so before the band came out to do a sound check. It was the fifth dimension! Marilyn McCoo, Billy Davis Junior and the others! One of my top 100 favorite sixties groups. They sang five songs for us, and we were digging it the most! Next thing I knew, I had forgotten to be pissed. I went home singing, and the next day bought their Greatest Hits cd.
In early august, we did a show at the Marriott that required a Disney-style castle. Caputo gave the artist at the time, Misty, the job of creating a multi-layered two-dimensional one out of Gatorfoam board. She did, and it was embarassing. It was very difficult to stand up, took a lot of time and materials to keep it standing up, it was small and dumpy. A few days later, Caputo came to the shop with a Corman And Associates catalog. He called Al Ohlson and me to the drawing table and showed us a picture of one of their Santa castles. "I want one of these," he said, "but I want it bigger, like twenty five feet tall, forty feet wide, and, I don't know, twelve feet deep - whatevah. Bigger, you get me? Jimmy, you can run with it, I know you'll do it right. Al, you give him whatever he needs. Got it? Good." he left us a copier copy of the page, and I was off and running with the coolest project ever. All of the towers were octagonal and stacked like Legos. The walls hooked together with French cleats. The two towers on the corners of the walls just hooked over the top and locked the whole business together. No screws were required for the installation. While I engineered and built all of this stuff, Al and Bob were creating the fancy trim pieces. As I finished sections and stood them up, they fitted trim pieces to the sections. Caputo came back frequently to make sure he liked it. I made two tower "hats" shorter than the rest just for variety. "That looks dumpy!" he said. "Make those two just like the others." That was his only criticism of everything I built. And when I was done building the castle, while Al and Bob were making flags, fitting trim pieces, fiberglassing the hats, painting and glittering, Caputo told me to build crates for the pieces. I learned the fine art of crate building when I made forty nine crates for my castle. All of this went on, of course, when there were no more pressing matters to attend to. I remember building an Italian restaurant set with castle parts and crates crowding me all around. Little by little, however, crates were finished, castle parts were laid to rest in them and they were stacked off to the side. December 10th (my mother's birthday) was the maiden voyage. The crates were loaded onto the flatbed trailer and it was hauled to (you guessed it) the Marriott World Center. This was when we learned that the ceiling at the location of the tallest tower was not quite twenty four feet tall. We had to remove a ceiling tile to stack it up. After the party, we took it apart, crated it up and loaded it back onto the trailer. It was hauled back to the shop and sat on the trailer uncovered for two weeks. It rained nearly every day those two weeks. I was physically ill when I looked out at my baby neglected out in the rain.
The honeymoon was officially over.
Sunday, March 21, 2010
Saturday, March 20, 2010
"I Can Do That"
Nine months in a plant nursery was plenty. In January of 1988 I went to work one morning, was given a task to perform, and said, "No." I went home and started preparing for my new career. The big news at the time was that movies were coming to Orlando. I had said for many years that if the movie industry weren't so far away, I'd be in it. I got a head shot taken by a professional photographer, and put together a montage from the pool of pictures of my Vero Beach experience. I answered ads for actors and extras, I had screen tests and interviews, I attacked it from every angle. What I finally figured out was, if getting into the movies is your whole focus and you're willing to sacrifice everything for it - work for nothing, schmooze everybody, hang around and try to worm your way in - you'll likely get some paying gigs eventually. Plus - the movies were coming, they had not yet arrived. Meanwhile, I had to earn a living. I scoured the newspapers for possibilities. Finally I saw one that asked for Scenic Carpenter/ Stage Hands. "I can do that!" I said. I went into the south end of Orlando and filled out an application. Lo and behold, Image International called me and asked me to start the following Monday morning. Wow! After my Long Wharf and other stage hand experience, I went out and bought myself an adjustable wrench. I still have it.
Monday morning, all starry-eyed, I rode to South Orlando, my wrench in my pocket, ready to begin my new career in show biz. It was a much more typical day than I thought at first. The guy that actually hired me was out of town doing a show, and nobody else in the Production Department had any clue that he had hired anybody. After some digging around, they found evidence to support my claim. I filled out my W-4 and was introduced to Al Ohlson, shop foreman. He pointed me at a "steaming heap" of busted up crap and said,"That's what we're doing. All of this is going out tomorrow morning." What? Going out where? To the landfill? So, bit by bit we pulled out flats, sculptures, platforms, step units and other scenic elements, installed glue, screws, staples, Bondo and fresh paint, and by the end of the day most of it looked pretty darn good. The rest we fixed up Tuesday morning while "the goofies" loaded the truck. The last few pieces were still wet when they were loaded.
We all went to the Marriott Orlando World Center, arriving at about 11:30 am. I overheard that we were supposed to get the room at noon. Room? We're going to need a bunch of rooms to fit all of this! I parked my motorcycle in the motorcycle parking lot and joined the crowd at the big-ass loading dock. Somebody went inside to find out the scoop, leaving us to begin unloading the truck. We unloaded the whole thing, some of it on carts, some on dollies and most just piled on the dock. We learned that we couldn't have the room yet, so chairs were scrounged from the periphery of the loading dock. Lesson one: hurry up and wait.
I didn't know who anybody was, other than Al Ohlson and Bob, the other shop guy. I was sitting on a step unit by a guy I'd seen loading the truck - a goofy. "If you need to go to the bathroom or anything, be sure to tell a supervisor," he said. "Okay," I said, "who is a supervisor?" He scanned the crowd. "Well, let's see. Al is a supervisor, and Bob, and Lonnie, and Otto, and Bernie, and Larry, and George..." "Maybe it would be easier to tell me who is NOT a supervisor." He scanned the crowd. "Well, let's see. There's you....and me."
Hours passed. The supervisors were in constant radio communication with headquarters, and with the Marriotters. Nobody seemed to know when we were going to get the room, but it could be just any minute. Eventually we were allowed to take our stuff inside, but we still didn't have the room. This was the beginning of my education in the fine art of hotel ballroom events. The humongous ballrooms could be humongous, or they could be divided into numerous much smaller spaces. The section we were waiting for was part of a larger space, with "airwalls" dividing it from other sections. In between this one and another occupied space was a "dead space" about twelve feet wide. We were given the go-ahead to (quietly) roll our carts and dollies along the back halls and into the dead space. Then we were supposed to sit there quietly until the function was over. After about ten minutes we were asked to wait outside, because Otto just couldn't shut the f*** up.
The supervisory board was really getting antsy now. The show was scheduled to be installed by 7:30, and it was after 4:00. I had already figured out that the 7:30 to 4:00 workday was going to be a wee bit longer than that. It was past 4:30 when the hotel events crew started opening the airwall and clearing the room. We all pitched in, stacking chairs into stacks of ten, folding the legs of the "rounds" and rolling them over to the table carts, and cleaning the areas where set parts were going. Then Al handed me a cordless drill with a screw tip, and we began assembling sets. I found out that this was essentially a corporate theme party, and the theme was "Welcome To Florida." We had a swamp area loaded with plants, a beach scene with a bath house and a lifeguard stand, a space shuttle standing on end, a southern mansion, a shack across the back of the stage, and a gazebo bar. Lesson two: always have a bar. Theme parties are a dish best served with a liberal portion of booze. We finished assembling everything and wrapping the plant pots while the lighting guys ran cords, plugged in and gelled the lights. The party was scheduled to begin at 8:00. At 7:45 we were backing out of the room, plugging in twinkle lights in the ficus trees and arranging plants to disguise our exit point. The overhead fluorescent lights were switched off, and the sets were bathed in theatrical lighting. I had to admit, it was breathtaking. Just add booze and it was magical.
Carmen was a little worried about me when I didn't get home until almost 9:00. I described my day, and she was incredulous. She was sure that a strong organizer could straighten out this craziness. It wasn't too many months later that she stopped asking me how late I was working on any particular day. "Until they say I can go" was all I could tell her. After about two years, I was able to take all of the information available and make a pretty good guess at how long a day would last. No matter how much information was available, however, days like the one just finished were entirely derailed by uncontrollable factors. Best laid plans meant nothing. As I continued to deal with this lifestyle, however, I came to understand that I had the perfect temperament for it. Flexibility has long been my strong suit. It's the only suit that fits show biz.
Monday morning, all starry-eyed, I rode to South Orlando, my wrench in my pocket, ready to begin my new career in show biz. It was a much more typical day than I thought at first. The guy that actually hired me was out of town doing a show, and nobody else in the Production Department had any clue that he had hired anybody. After some digging around, they found evidence to support my claim. I filled out my W-4 and was introduced to Al Ohlson, shop foreman. He pointed me at a "steaming heap" of busted up crap and said,"That's what we're doing. All of this is going out tomorrow morning." What? Going out where? To the landfill? So, bit by bit we pulled out flats, sculptures, platforms, step units and other scenic elements, installed glue, screws, staples, Bondo and fresh paint, and by the end of the day most of it looked pretty darn good. The rest we fixed up Tuesday morning while "the goofies" loaded the truck. The last few pieces were still wet when they were loaded.
We all went to the Marriott Orlando World Center, arriving at about 11:30 am. I overheard that we were supposed to get the room at noon. Room? We're going to need a bunch of rooms to fit all of this! I parked my motorcycle in the motorcycle parking lot and joined the crowd at the big-ass loading dock. Somebody went inside to find out the scoop, leaving us to begin unloading the truck. We unloaded the whole thing, some of it on carts, some on dollies and most just piled on the dock. We learned that we couldn't have the room yet, so chairs were scrounged from the periphery of the loading dock. Lesson one: hurry up and wait.
I didn't know who anybody was, other than Al Ohlson and Bob, the other shop guy. I was sitting on a step unit by a guy I'd seen loading the truck - a goofy. "If you need to go to the bathroom or anything, be sure to tell a supervisor," he said. "Okay," I said, "who is a supervisor?" He scanned the crowd. "Well, let's see. Al is a supervisor, and Bob, and Lonnie, and Otto, and Bernie, and Larry, and George..." "Maybe it would be easier to tell me who is NOT a supervisor." He scanned the crowd. "Well, let's see. There's you....and me."
Hours passed. The supervisors were in constant radio communication with headquarters, and with the Marriotters. Nobody seemed to know when we were going to get the room, but it could be just any minute. Eventually we were allowed to take our stuff inside, but we still didn't have the room. This was the beginning of my education in the fine art of hotel ballroom events. The humongous ballrooms could be humongous, or they could be divided into numerous much smaller spaces. The section we were waiting for was part of a larger space, with "airwalls" dividing it from other sections. In between this one and another occupied space was a "dead space" about twelve feet wide. We were given the go-ahead to (quietly) roll our carts and dollies along the back halls and into the dead space. Then we were supposed to sit there quietly until the function was over. After about ten minutes we were asked to wait outside, because Otto just couldn't shut the f*** up.
The supervisory board was really getting antsy now. The show was scheduled to be installed by 7:30, and it was after 4:00. I had already figured out that the 7:30 to 4:00 workday was going to be a wee bit longer than that. It was past 4:30 when the hotel events crew started opening the airwall and clearing the room. We all pitched in, stacking chairs into stacks of ten, folding the legs of the "rounds" and rolling them over to the table carts, and cleaning the areas where set parts were going. Then Al handed me a cordless drill with a screw tip, and we began assembling sets. I found out that this was essentially a corporate theme party, and the theme was "Welcome To Florida." We had a swamp area loaded with plants, a beach scene with a bath house and a lifeguard stand, a space shuttle standing on end, a southern mansion, a shack across the back of the stage, and a gazebo bar. Lesson two: always have a bar. Theme parties are a dish best served with a liberal portion of booze. We finished assembling everything and wrapping the plant pots while the lighting guys ran cords, plugged in and gelled the lights. The party was scheduled to begin at 8:00. At 7:45 we were backing out of the room, plugging in twinkle lights in the ficus trees and arranging plants to disguise our exit point. The overhead fluorescent lights were switched off, and the sets were bathed in theatrical lighting. I had to admit, it was breathtaking. Just add booze and it was magical.
Carmen was a little worried about me when I didn't get home until almost 9:00. I described my day, and she was incredulous. She was sure that a strong organizer could straighten out this craziness. It wasn't too many months later that she stopped asking me how late I was working on any particular day. "Until they say I can go" was all I could tell her. After about two years, I was able to take all of the information available and make a pretty good guess at how long a day would last. No matter how much information was available, however, days like the one just finished were entirely derailed by uncontrollable factors. Best laid plans meant nothing. As I continued to deal with this lifestyle, however, I came to understand that I had the perfect temperament for it. Flexibility has long been my strong suit. It's the only suit that fits show biz.
Thursday, March 18, 2010
Parting Shots in Vero Beach
The last post ended in such a good place, I couldn't bring myself to finish out the first season in the new place. There's not much to tell, really. The fifth and last show was Charley's Aunt. Way back during early rehearsals for Damn Yankees, the director of Charley's Aunt asked me if I'd be willing to do the set. I said, you guessed it, "Sure." So by the time Damn Yankees had ended, I had plans to go out of town on vacation. I went, and somehow the set got designed and built without me. I felt just like Betty Abbott, but I didn't win any awards.
The summer of '86 was a whirlwind of romance. We camped on an island in the Indian River, she got a horrendous sunburn. We got married in September in the Vero Beach Theatre Guild green room with a throng of our theatrical friends. Carmen's mom came from New Orleans. My mom and dad and their next door neighbor were there. It was officiated by Patti, my first stage manager and our Notary friend. Our honeymoon was at the Disney campgrounds and EPCOT Center.
The next theatrical thing I did was a "cattle call" audition for the upcoming professional shows at Riverside. I did the first soliloquy of Edmond from Firesign Theater's Not Insane album, and sang Oh What A Beautiful Morning. I wasn't nervous, because I wasn't expecting anything. I must have done okay, because many months later, I was called to appear in Hello Dolly. I was paid two hundred bucks for the show - six weeks of rehearsals and three weeks of performances - about twenty cents an hour. I was an ensemble member, a waiter and the judge, all old guys. It was great fun. Carmen did props.
My dad had a deja vu moment in the fall of '86. I'm sure it reminded him of when his father tried to pass the farm to him back in the nineteen thirties, and he didn't want it. My dad tried to pass the art business on to me. I thought about it - my mom and dad added together were making minimum wage, so I would surely be taking a pay cut for a more nerve-racking lifestyle. The bottom line was that I didn't want to run a business. Carmen and I decided to move to the Orlando area for more and better opportunities as soon as the 1987 Dodger programs were finished. And we still had one more show to do for the Theatre Guild.
Mike the sound guy had some reason not to do sound for Once More With Feeling. I was asked, and I said, you guessed it, "Sure." Carmen was asked to be stage manager. I don't know what she said, but she was stage manager. I didn't enjoy this show very much. The director was unpleasant, the tape deck was cantankerous, the music was monotonous, the play was just okay, and we were in "short timer" mode.
In January and February we scouted out rentals in St. Cloud, thirty miles south of Orlando, and Carmen got a job lined up at a title company in St. Cloud. We moved in March, right after the Vero Beach Dodgers minor league program went to press. On April first, I got a job at a plant nursery, and our new life was in motion.
The summer of '86 was a whirlwind of romance. We camped on an island in the Indian River, she got a horrendous sunburn. We got married in September in the Vero Beach Theatre Guild green room with a throng of our theatrical friends. Carmen's mom came from New Orleans. My mom and dad and their next door neighbor were there. It was officiated by Patti, my first stage manager and our Notary friend. Our honeymoon was at the Disney campgrounds and EPCOT Center.
The next theatrical thing I did was a "cattle call" audition for the upcoming professional shows at Riverside. I did the first soliloquy of Edmond from Firesign Theater's Not Insane album, and sang Oh What A Beautiful Morning. I wasn't nervous, because I wasn't expecting anything. I must have done okay, because many months later, I was called to appear in Hello Dolly. I was paid two hundred bucks for the show - six weeks of rehearsals and three weeks of performances - about twenty cents an hour. I was an ensemble member, a waiter and the judge, all old guys. It was great fun. Carmen did props.
My dad had a deja vu moment in the fall of '86. I'm sure it reminded him of when his father tried to pass the farm to him back in the nineteen thirties, and he didn't want it. My dad tried to pass the art business on to me. I thought about it - my mom and dad added together were making minimum wage, so I would surely be taking a pay cut for a more nerve-racking lifestyle. The bottom line was that I didn't want to run a business. Carmen and I decided to move to the Orlando area for more and better opportunities as soon as the 1987 Dodger programs were finished. And we still had one more show to do for the Theatre Guild.
Mike the sound guy had some reason not to do sound for Once More With Feeling. I was asked, and I said, you guessed it, "Sure." Carmen was asked to be stage manager. I don't know what she said, but she was stage manager. I didn't enjoy this show very much. The director was unpleasant, the tape deck was cantankerous, the music was monotonous, the play was just okay, and we were in "short timer" mode.
In January and February we scouted out rentals in St. Cloud, thirty miles south of Orlando, and Carmen got a job lined up at a title company in St. Cloud. We moved in March, right after the Vero Beach Dodgers minor league program went to press. On April first, I got a job at a plant nursery, and our new life was in motion.
Sunday, March 14, 2010
New Digs
I was sitting there at my desk at Emerson Art Service minding my own business (and the client's) when "The Amazin'" Pat Hazen called. The Guild, she told me, was prepared to buy the building outgrown by the Central Assembly of God church, which had moved to an enormous piece of property west of town. But the Guild needed a zoning variance approved by the City Council to open it back up as a theatre, which (for some ridiculous reason) has different rules from a church. We needed a presence at the Council meeting to help convince them to go ahead and approve it. I went. There were at least thirty of us there. They passed it. The Guild now had its own home again, for the first time since they helped build and outfit Riverside so many years ago. The best part: it was about ten blocks from my apartment. I could walk!
There were many things to do to turn this building into a viable theatre, many of which would wait years for the capital to proceed. Short term, the house needed some acoustical help as well as a light booth and sound booth, the stage needed some modifications, the whole interior needed a paint job, and in the meantime there were shows going on in remote locations that needed sets built and rehearsals rehearsed. The whole Guild family sprang into action.
I was there one night, working on the doorway to the Green Room, when local cartoonist Dick Turner came over to me. He had a drawing in his hand, and he looked unhappy. "You're Gil Emerson's boy, aren't you?" he asked. I admitted I was. Still am. He explained that the Guild had asked him to do a backdrop painting for the Guild On The Go production of The Music Man. He'd drawn this 8 1/2" x 11" rendering of it, but his macular degeneration was so bad now that he couldn't even see the whole piece of paper at once, much less an 8' x 12' wall. Would it be possible for me to take the project off his hands? You all remember several postings ago, when I often said "Sure." Well, I said it again. Dick went away happy, and I called my dad. Gilbert H. Emerson had often said he would like to do some artsy stuff at the theatre, but he didn't want to step on any toes or make waves or whatever his excuses were. Also, he had been hinky about driving that four miles to the other side of the river. W - e - l - l - none of his excuses would excuse him this time!
The Music Man has long been my dad's favorite musical. So when he was spending his evenings laying out, drawing and painting a backdrop while performers rehearsed songs from The Music Man in the same room, he was hooked. After we finished that, he worked on the building rehab, and then the production people asked him to design and build the set for John Loves Mary, the first show of the season. He couldn't say no - he was hooked. I'm sure he said "Sure!"
I auditioned for John Loves Mary, and landed a small but pivotal role, Lieutenant Victor O'Leary, former Army officer now ushering at a movie theater. I entered as a straight arrow in Army uniform, drank a wee bit of Mary's dad's scotch, and left the scene plastered. Having such a short time on stage, I knew the scene really well, so when (nearly every night) the rest of the cast got off track, I was able to bring them back to the script seamlessly. It was fun!
I had very little to do with the next two shows - Ten Little Indians and Last Of The Red Hot Lovers. I wrote the cast and crew biographies, and I came to see them on opening night. LORHL was interesting. During the big seduction scene, the main character and his lady friend suddenly stopped talking and stared at each other for way too many seconds. Shirley finally said,"May I use your bathroom?" Al gratefully acquiesced. She left the stage, and Al squirmed a little. Finally she returned with a fresh idea of things to talk about.
Cast and crew bios were kind of fun to write. I handed out information forms to my subjects and told them, "If I don't get this back by Friday, I'll just make something up." There was one that intrigued me from stage manager Carmen Braden. It said she enjoyed reading and riding her bicycle. I added that she didn't do both at the same time. I hadn't ever actually met her yet, but It was in the cards. After opening night of Red Hot Lovers I walked to Denny's for a Grand Slam Breakfast. After I'd been there awhile reading my Vero Beach Press-Journal, a slightly tipsy Ms. Braden came up to me and asked if I was willing to part with the classified ads. "Sure," I said.
Then came the Big One. Damn Yankees was the musical for the season. There were seventeen scenes to be performed on that little stage with no backstage, no wing space, no fly capability, not even any way for the thirty actors to come and go without filing out through the audience.
Set designer Betty Abbott solved one problem. "Make trilons," she said. What she meant were things called Periaktoi, three-sided columns on wheels that can be arranged into multiple configurations for multiple set possibilities. She then went on vacation, leaving my dad to work out exactly what scenes needed to be represented, how many "trilon" sides were needed for each scene and what to paint on them, and how many of what size trilons needed to be built. He built them, laid out the scenes and got them painted. Needless to say, he was a tiny bit cheesed off when the Best Set award went to...Betty Abbott!
I, of course, auditioned, and of course was chosen - as I indicated before, if a show needs a lot of men, pretty much any man that shows up gets drafted. In fact, I had two parts: Joe Boyd at the beginning and end, and Brian, one of the baseball team, in between. This meant that I was there just about every night of rehearsals. And of course I helped with the painting of the Trilons. Also helping was the woman soon to be known as "The Imperious Leader Of The Trilon Forces," the one, the only Carmen Braden. She was my dad's buddy before I actually met her! Soon I became the only actor in the show empowered by The Imperious Leader to move Trilons.
The next solution was pretty drastic. They busted a hole and installed a door through the concrete block wall on the stage left side, built a stairway down to the ground and set up a big tent to be used as a green room and dressing room. Wow.
Another bit of drama in the comedy was that, on opening night, Kevin, who played Applegate, hurt his back after the show. He was bedridden on the second night. Mike, who played Benny Van Buren, had really wanted to play Applegate, so he did for one night. I had wanted to play Van Buren, so I did for one night. Kevin came back in a back brace for the rest of the run.
None of us won real Genie awards for this landmark show, but I won The Imperious Leader of the Trilon Forces award.
There were many things to do to turn this building into a viable theatre, many of which would wait years for the capital to proceed. Short term, the house needed some acoustical help as well as a light booth and sound booth, the stage needed some modifications, the whole interior needed a paint job, and in the meantime there were shows going on in remote locations that needed sets built and rehearsals rehearsed. The whole Guild family sprang into action.
I was there one night, working on the doorway to the Green Room, when local cartoonist Dick Turner came over to me. He had a drawing in his hand, and he looked unhappy. "You're Gil Emerson's boy, aren't you?" he asked. I admitted I was. Still am. He explained that the Guild had asked him to do a backdrop painting for the Guild On The Go production of The Music Man. He'd drawn this 8 1/2" x 11" rendering of it, but his macular degeneration was so bad now that he couldn't even see the whole piece of paper at once, much less an 8' x 12' wall. Would it be possible for me to take the project off his hands? You all remember several postings ago, when I often said "Sure." Well, I said it again. Dick went away happy, and I called my dad. Gilbert H. Emerson had often said he would like to do some artsy stuff at the theatre, but he didn't want to step on any toes or make waves or whatever his excuses were. Also, he had been hinky about driving that four miles to the other side of the river. W - e - l - l - none of his excuses would excuse him this time!
The Music Man has long been my dad's favorite musical. So when he was spending his evenings laying out, drawing and painting a backdrop while performers rehearsed songs from The Music Man in the same room, he was hooked. After we finished that, he worked on the building rehab, and then the production people asked him to design and build the set for John Loves Mary, the first show of the season. He couldn't say no - he was hooked. I'm sure he said "Sure!"
I auditioned for John Loves Mary, and landed a small but pivotal role, Lieutenant Victor O'Leary, former Army officer now ushering at a movie theater. I entered as a straight arrow in Army uniform, drank a wee bit of Mary's dad's scotch, and left the scene plastered. Having such a short time on stage, I knew the scene really well, so when (nearly every night) the rest of the cast got off track, I was able to bring them back to the script seamlessly. It was fun!
I had very little to do with the next two shows - Ten Little Indians and Last Of The Red Hot Lovers. I wrote the cast and crew biographies, and I came to see them on opening night. LORHL was interesting. During the big seduction scene, the main character and his lady friend suddenly stopped talking and stared at each other for way too many seconds. Shirley finally said,"May I use your bathroom?" Al gratefully acquiesced. She left the stage, and Al squirmed a little. Finally she returned with a fresh idea of things to talk about.
Cast and crew bios were kind of fun to write. I handed out information forms to my subjects and told them, "If I don't get this back by Friday, I'll just make something up." There was one that intrigued me from stage manager Carmen Braden. It said she enjoyed reading and riding her bicycle. I added that she didn't do both at the same time. I hadn't ever actually met her yet, but It was in the cards. After opening night of Red Hot Lovers I walked to Denny's for a Grand Slam Breakfast. After I'd been there awhile reading my Vero Beach Press-Journal, a slightly tipsy Ms. Braden came up to me and asked if I was willing to part with the classified ads. "Sure," I said.
Then came the Big One. Damn Yankees was the musical for the season. There were seventeen scenes to be performed on that little stage with no backstage, no wing space, no fly capability, not even any way for the thirty actors to come and go without filing out through the audience.
Set designer Betty Abbott solved one problem. "Make trilons," she said. What she meant were things called Periaktoi, three-sided columns on wheels that can be arranged into multiple configurations for multiple set possibilities. She then went on vacation, leaving my dad to work out exactly what scenes needed to be represented, how many "trilon" sides were needed for each scene and what to paint on them, and how many of what size trilons needed to be built. He built them, laid out the scenes and got them painted. Needless to say, he was a tiny bit cheesed off when the Best Set award went to...Betty Abbott!
I, of course, auditioned, and of course was chosen - as I indicated before, if a show needs a lot of men, pretty much any man that shows up gets drafted. In fact, I had two parts: Joe Boyd at the beginning and end, and Brian, one of the baseball team, in between. This meant that I was there just about every night of rehearsals. And of course I helped with the painting of the Trilons. Also helping was the woman soon to be known as "The Imperious Leader Of The Trilon Forces," the one, the only Carmen Braden. She was my dad's buddy before I actually met her! Soon I became the only actor in the show empowered by The Imperious Leader to move Trilons.
The next solution was pretty drastic. They busted a hole and installed a door through the concrete block wall on the stage left side, built a stairway down to the ground and set up a big tent to be used as a green room and dressing room. Wow.
Another bit of drama in the comedy was that, on opening night, Kevin, who played Applegate, hurt his back after the show. He was bedridden on the second night. Mike, who played Benny Van Buren, had really wanted to play Applegate, so he did for one night. I had wanted to play Van Buren, so I did for one night. Kevin came back in a back brace for the rest of the run.
None of us won real Genie awards for this landmark show, but I won The Imperious Leader of the Trilon Forces award.
Thursday, March 11, 2010
In And Out And In And Out
From spring 1983 we leap to August of 1984. I'm guessing (because I don't remember) that there was a notice in the paper about auditions for A Midsummer Night's Dream to be performed as part of a Renaissance Theatrefest at Riverside - not a Vero Beach Theatre Guild production. I was intrigued. I'd never done any Shakespeare. I pulled out my Complete Works of Shakespeare and read the play. I was flabberghasted to find that The Bard had written me into a play three hundred years before I was born. Bottom The Weaver is an ass - like me. I HAD to audition. There was a lot of competition, but I could feel the role take me with it. I was called back for the next round, and it turned out the director saw Bottom in me as clearly as I did. I was in.
The Mechanicals, the rough tradesmen planning and rehearsing a play to perform for the king and his court, were all excellent, and Bottom was their shining star. We did Stooge moves, I did San Diego Chicken moves (I saw him three times at Vero Beach Dodger games. I have his autographed pictures!) and we rocked the audience.
Once again, I wasn't willing to JUST be in the show. When the director mentioned that we needed three heavy duty rustic stools for the mechanicals scenes, I brought them in from home. He mentioned that he was having trouble finding a donkey head for me. I asked if I could make one. "Do you think you can?" he asked. Fay assured him that I could. I did.
As a promotion for the upcoming Festival, much of the cast of the show was in the Labor Day parade on Ocean Drive in Vero. The carpenter had built a big cart that carried props and costume parts, as well as some cast members, in the parade. It was fun. I was an ass.
The show was performed on an outdoor stage. It was planned for Saturday, but it rained Saturday. We did it Sunday, and it was wondergful. Our only regret was that, after all that work, we only got to do it once. But at least we did it once.
Another act at the faire was "The Lords And Ladies," a local troupe of madrigal singers. Months later, they would be throwing a holiday Madrigal Dinner, and their jester had retired from the troupe. After seeing me in action as Bottom, they asked me to jest for them in December. I did, and it was fun. They also had a gig at the Teacher Of The Year Banquet, and I jested there as well but that was over a year later.
Having spent all that time around theatre again, I sort of got swept into auditions for the Vero Beach Theatre Guild production of The Dining Room in January of '85. It was an interesting show. The main character was the dining room. The six actors came and went through the room through the years as different characters in different situations. I was awarded a "Best Character Actor Genie Award for the '84-'85 season for that show.
Next thing I knew, I was being asked to be in a Showcase Operetta Company production of HMS Pinnafore. Many SOC people were Madrigal Singers as well, and two of them had been in The Dining Room with me. They thought I'd make a good Dick Deadeye. In addition, they needed a lot of help with the set. I was happy to oblige on both counts. The cool thing was that several Operetta people were on the faculty at the Junior High School, so the set was built and rehearsals were held there, about six blocks from my apartment. I walked.
As a smoker and infrequent singer, I was definitely at a disadvantage among these long-time operetta people, but I baffled them with my flair for the dramatic. Dick Deadeye has a verse included in the Finale To Act One, with dozens of people singing complementary chorus parts all over me. I needed a spectacular opening to my little section to focus attention on me among these dozens of performers. "Hmmm," I said, "I could swing in on a rope and land downstage center to begin. That would do it." I got permission from Bill the director and from the Riversiders to climb to the grid, sixty feet above the stage, and attach a sixty-foot rope. It was great. I had a chair off stage left, and a couple bars before my part, swung in and landed with a bang. The only time it didn't work well was the night Pete was meandering downstage just as I took off. The collision was pretty spectacular in its own right, but it didn't really work well as a theatrical element.
Widespread dissatisfaction with Riverside Theatre's new "professional attitude" was surfacing regularly now. Showcase needed the orchestra pit for the show, and it was covered by a stage-extension. Riverside added on a fee of hundreds of dollars to uncover the pit. In addition, they were mandating artistic controls over the Guild. There was much grumbling going on. The summer of '85 was the moment of transition - next post!
The Mechanicals, the rough tradesmen planning and rehearsing a play to perform for the king and his court, were all excellent, and Bottom was their shining star. We did Stooge moves, I did San Diego Chicken moves (I saw him three times at Vero Beach Dodger games. I have his autographed pictures!) and we rocked the audience.
Once again, I wasn't willing to JUST be in the show. When the director mentioned that we needed three heavy duty rustic stools for the mechanicals scenes, I brought them in from home. He mentioned that he was having trouble finding a donkey head for me. I asked if I could make one. "Do you think you can?" he asked. Fay assured him that I could. I did.
As a promotion for the upcoming Festival, much of the cast of the show was in the Labor Day parade on Ocean Drive in Vero. The carpenter had built a big cart that carried props and costume parts, as well as some cast members, in the parade. It was fun. I was an ass.
The show was performed on an outdoor stage. It was planned for Saturday, but it rained Saturday. We did it Sunday, and it was wondergful. Our only regret was that, after all that work, we only got to do it once. But at least we did it once.
Another act at the faire was "The Lords And Ladies," a local troupe of madrigal singers. Months later, they would be throwing a holiday Madrigal Dinner, and their jester had retired from the troupe. After seeing me in action as Bottom, they asked me to jest for them in December. I did, and it was fun. They also had a gig at the Teacher Of The Year Banquet, and I jested there as well but that was over a year later.
Having spent all that time around theatre again, I sort of got swept into auditions for the Vero Beach Theatre Guild production of The Dining Room in January of '85. It was an interesting show. The main character was the dining room. The six actors came and went through the room through the years as different characters in different situations. I was awarded a "Best Character Actor Genie Award for the '84-'85 season for that show.
Next thing I knew, I was being asked to be in a Showcase Operetta Company production of HMS Pinnafore. Many SOC people were Madrigal Singers as well, and two of them had been in The Dining Room with me. They thought I'd make a good Dick Deadeye. In addition, they needed a lot of help with the set. I was happy to oblige on both counts. The cool thing was that several Operetta people were on the faculty at the Junior High School, so the set was built and rehearsals were held there, about six blocks from my apartment. I walked.
As a smoker and infrequent singer, I was definitely at a disadvantage among these long-time operetta people, but I baffled them with my flair for the dramatic. Dick Deadeye has a verse included in the Finale To Act One, with dozens of people singing complementary chorus parts all over me. I needed a spectacular opening to my little section to focus attention on me among these dozens of performers. "Hmmm," I said, "I could swing in on a rope and land downstage center to begin. That would do it." I got permission from Bill the director and from the Riversiders to climb to the grid, sixty feet above the stage, and attach a sixty-foot rope. It was great. I had a chair off stage left, and a couple bars before my part, swung in and landed with a bang. The only time it didn't work well was the night Pete was meandering downstage just as I took off. The collision was pretty spectacular in its own right, but it didn't really work well as a theatrical element.
Widespread dissatisfaction with Riverside Theatre's new "professional attitude" was surfacing regularly now. Showcase needed the orchestra pit for the show, and it was covered by a stage-extension. Riverside added on a fee of hundreds of dollars to uncover the pit. In addition, they were mandating artistic controls over the Guild. There was much grumbling going on. The summer of '85 was the moment of transition - next post!
Tuesday, March 9, 2010
Painting Pictures On A Wall Of Noise
I was met with skepticism and some annoyance when Craig took me to his first practice with the new band. He and Randy were recruited by an existing band when their lead guitarist/ primary vocalist quit the business because... wait for it... he was losing his hearing. These guys didn't understand why Craig insisted on a sound man out front. They'd never had one before. Well, according to Craig, they sounded like crap before, and he wasn't willing to sound like crap along with them. They agreed because Craig wouldn't do it otherwise - or so he said. Suddenly I was in charge of bringing out the vocals and instrumental solos so that they could be heard over a thick wall of noise that started with Dave's booming drums (not a finesse player) Holt's 80s Van Halen style guitar licks, Jimmy's bass, cranked up to be heard over the aforementioned, and Randy's organ, cranked up even more. I had a twelve-channel mixing board with which I could minimize subordinate noise and maximize what was important to hear. I insisted on coming to rehearsals to learn the songs from my perspective while they were learning to perform them. After hearing Craig talk about them before, I was expecting something really awful. Truth is, they were okay - not at all excellent, but okay.
We practiced in an acoustically augmented garage at Jimmy's house. The former High Tide guys taught Craig and Randy a bunch of stuff High Tide had been playing for years. At one point, Craig stopped the music. "That isn't right," he said. He played the section of the song the way is was supposed to be. Jimmy lept to the defense. "We learned it right off the record," he said. Evidently, there was a skip in the record, and they learned the skip. Hmmmm. Then, Craig and Randy taught Dave, Jimmy and Holt some Doobie Brothers, some Springsteen, some Christopher Cross... and this was much more time-consuming. Craig would be ready to move on, and the High Tide boys were still in the weeds. Holt said,"Can we go through that one more time before we forget it?" Craig retorted, "Why don't we forget it now and save time."
In a few weeks the new band, named "Streettalk" was ready to test its wings. High Tide had had an intermittent gig at The Causeway Lounge in Vero Beach. Streettalk was ready to pick up where High Tide had left off. So, one Sunday afternoon in September we hauled all of the instruments and PA equipment into the Causeway and began setting up. My mixer was in the back corner, with a sixteen-cable "snake" running to the stage. Each musician set up his own vocal mic and whatever else - Dave's drums, Holt's fancy amp, Craig's regular amp and Jimmy's bass amp all had microphones on them to carry the sound to the mains - huge speakers run through a fancy main amplifier and equalizer - all owned by rich kid Holt. I was looking forward to a sound check so I could equalize the sound, but rich kid Holt had a fancier technology than crappy old human ears. He had a thing that shot pink noise, a full-frequency hiss, through the mains, and an electronic doohickey that received the noise and told him how to set the equalizer. The noise had to be REALLY LOUD, like a jet engine, and it had to go on for like fifteen or twenty minutes. Very annoying. Then they could turn on all of the microphones and do a sound check. It would sound okay. The first time out I tried to bump up the upper mid range, but Holt stopped me. The doohickey said it was right, he believed the doohickey, he owned the equalizer. I learned to live with it.
Most of our gigs were at the Causeway. We had a devoted following, some of whom showed up wherever we played - well, not usually at weddings - but we were considered the House Band at the Causeway. Jimmy was the star of the show, with his dick nose and glasses, his double entendre jokes and other classy stuff. His bass playing was pretty good, and he sang well enough. The most memorable song he sang was one he wrote called Arkansas Woman, which became even more memorable four years later when I married an Arkansas Woman.
Dave considered himself leader of the band. He was a mediocre drummer at best, loud and a bit erratic. There were five or six songs where you could just expect him to drop a beat or add one in. Craig described him as "one beat off." Craig does not have a reputation for being nice.
Randy was lazy. He was lead singer on maybe fifteen songs when we started out. By the time I left the band, ten months later, he was down to about two a night. He played his keyboard sporadically, and most of the time he just stood there looking bored.
Craig hated being in this band, being identified with them - but he loves to play guitar and he loves to sing. I got bored listening to most of their stuff, but when Craig played and sang Layla, it all seemed worth it somehow. He liked having me there because I got his humor. Sometimes it was a word change in a song; sometimes it was a comment between songs; sometimes it was a guitar lick. He would look out at me, I'd be laughing, and he'd know that at least one person in the room paid attention and got the joke.
The wall of noise became apparent to me one night at the Causeway when their first song of the night was some raucus number, but all I could hear was loud, just incredibly, paralyzingly loud. I had no control of vocals or instruments. I ran to the front and tried to listen to the mains, but I couldn't really hear anything distinctly above the loud. Then Holt had a light bulb light up over his head. He turned to his left and hit the switch to the main amplifier. Suddenly, the sound was much better. Even louder, but much better. What I had been hearing had been unamplified drums, and the individual amps of the bass and two guitars on stage. Vocals and organ were only audible from the onstage monitors for them to hear themselves and each other - which is why they didn't realize the mains weren't on. I realized just how freakin' loud they were: durn loud.
We played one gig at a health club. We were supposed to play outside, but it started raining as we were setting up. We moved inside to a smallish room with mirrors all around the walls. I believe that if there hadn't been fifty people in there to absorb some of the sound, we would have blown the mirrors off the walls. That sound was ridiculously horrendously loud and completely uncontrollable.
One of my favorite weeks at the Causeway was the week Craig had laryngitis. He felt well enough to stand up there and play the guitar, but he had absolutely no voice. He sang lead on a lot of the songs, sure, but he sang harmony parts on ALL of the songs. He sings in my range, so I plugged his vocal mic into the board back in my corner and sang all of his harmony parts all week. That was great fun. The guys were almost willing to risk trying me out to sing lead on a few songs, but chickened out. It was weird to think about a song being sung from the back of the room. But then, weeks later I wrote a song called "Dem Sound Man Blues" one night when they were just jamming around some blues licks for fun. After that, "Dem Sound Man Blues" was usually included sometime during the week.
It was always assumed back in '82 that the band members were druggies. Once, on a break out back of the Causeway, a scruffy-looking kid sidled up to Craig and said, "Hey, Man, you wanna buy a bag of buds?" Craig, with a sly smile, said, "No, thanks, I don't drink."
At about the same time that we joined Streettalk, Craig and I went to my dad and inquired as to whether Craig could join the staff of Emerson Art Service. So for about ten months, Craig and I worked together from 9:00 am until 1:00 am. Craig stayed with EAS until the business was sold in '88, and stayed on with the new owner for a while after that. I haven't seen him since the early double-naught years. Sometimes I miss that boy. He's a very funny guy.
After I left, Mike from the theatre handled sound for a while. Then I think they just flew without a sound person. They played the Elks Club on New Year's Eve 1983. The geezers in there hated it. They said it was too loud! They were just sitting there looking miserable for four hours. The guys in the band hated playing to an unresponsive and even hostile audience. After it was over the guy that hired them paid them. "Wow, that was great!" he said. "I'd like to go ahead and book you for next year." This came as quite a shock. "Gee, I don't think so," they said. "I'll pay you a thousand dollars more than this!" he said. What could they say? "Okay." The next year the Elks hated them just as much, and the guys were sure it was their last Elks New Year's Eve. But the same guy did the same thing - begged them to come back for even more money. Finally, they had to dissolve the band to get out of playing for the Elks.
We practiced in an acoustically augmented garage at Jimmy's house. The former High Tide guys taught Craig and Randy a bunch of stuff High Tide had been playing for years. At one point, Craig stopped the music. "That isn't right," he said. He played the section of the song the way is was supposed to be. Jimmy lept to the defense. "We learned it right off the record," he said. Evidently, there was a skip in the record, and they learned the skip. Hmmmm. Then, Craig and Randy taught Dave, Jimmy and Holt some Doobie Brothers, some Springsteen, some Christopher Cross... and this was much more time-consuming. Craig would be ready to move on, and the High Tide boys were still in the weeds. Holt said,"Can we go through that one more time before we forget it?" Craig retorted, "Why don't we forget it now and save time."
In a few weeks the new band, named "Streettalk" was ready to test its wings. High Tide had had an intermittent gig at The Causeway Lounge in Vero Beach. Streettalk was ready to pick up where High Tide had left off. So, one Sunday afternoon in September we hauled all of the instruments and PA equipment into the Causeway and began setting up. My mixer was in the back corner, with a sixteen-cable "snake" running to the stage. Each musician set up his own vocal mic and whatever else - Dave's drums, Holt's fancy amp, Craig's regular amp and Jimmy's bass amp all had microphones on them to carry the sound to the mains - huge speakers run through a fancy main amplifier and equalizer - all owned by rich kid Holt. I was looking forward to a sound check so I could equalize the sound, but rich kid Holt had a fancier technology than crappy old human ears. He had a thing that shot pink noise, a full-frequency hiss, through the mains, and an electronic doohickey that received the noise and told him how to set the equalizer. The noise had to be REALLY LOUD, like a jet engine, and it had to go on for like fifteen or twenty minutes. Very annoying. Then they could turn on all of the microphones and do a sound check. It would sound okay. The first time out I tried to bump up the upper mid range, but Holt stopped me. The doohickey said it was right, he believed the doohickey, he owned the equalizer. I learned to live with it.
Most of our gigs were at the Causeway. We had a devoted following, some of whom showed up wherever we played - well, not usually at weddings - but we were considered the House Band at the Causeway. Jimmy was the star of the show, with his dick nose and glasses, his double entendre jokes and other classy stuff. His bass playing was pretty good, and he sang well enough. The most memorable song he sang was one he wrote called Arkansas Woman, which became even more memorable four years later when I married an Arkansas Woman.
Dave considered himself leader of the band. He was a mediocre drummer at best, loud and a bit erratic. There were five or six songs where you could just expect him to drop a beat or add one in. Craig described him as "one beat off." Craig does not have a reputation for being nice.
Randy was lazy. He was lead singer on maybe fifteen songs when we started out. By the time I left the band, ten months later, he was down to about two a night. He played his keyboard sporadically, and most of the time he just stood there looking bored.
Craig hated being in this band, being identified with them - but he loves to play guitar and he loves to sing. I got bored listening to most of their stuff, but when Craig played and sang Layla, it all seemed worth it somehow. He liked having me there because I got his humor. Sometimes it was a word change in a song; sometimes it was a comment between songs; sometimes it was a guitar lick. He would look out at me, I'd be laughing, and he'd know that at least one person in the room paid attention and got the joke.
The wall of noise became apparent to me one night at the Causeway when their first song of the night was some raucus number, but all I could hear was loud, just incredibly, paralyzingly loud. I had no control of vocals or instruments. I ran to the front and tried to listen to the mains, but I couldn't really hear anything distinctly above the loud. Then Holt had a light bulb light up over his head. He turned to his left and hit the switch to the main amplifier. Suddenly, the sound was much better. Even louder, but much better. What I had been hearing had been unamplified drums, and the individual amps of the bass and two guitars on stage. Vocals and organ were only audible from the onstage monitors for them to hear themselves and each other - which is why they didn't realize the mains weren't on. I realized just how freakin' loud they were: durn loud.
We played one gig at a health club. We were supposed to play outside, but it started raining as we were setting up. We moved inside to a smallish room with mirrors all around the walls. I believe that if there hadn't been fifty people in there to absorb some of the sound, we would have blown the mirrors off the walls. That sound was ridiculously horrendously loud and completely uncontrollable.
One of my favorite weeks at the Causeway was the week Craig had laryngitis. He felt well enough to stand up there and play the guitar, but he had absolutely no voice. He sang lead on a lot of the songs, sure, but he sang harmony parts on ALL of the songs. He sings in my range, so I plugged his vocal mic into the board back in my corner and sang all of his harmony parts all week. That was great fun. The guys were almost willing to risk trying me out to sing lead on a few songs, but chickened out. It was weird to think about a song being sung from the back of the room. But then, weeks later I wrote a song called "Dem Sound Man Blues" one night when they were just jamming around some blues licks for fun. After that, "Dem Sound Man Blues" was usually included sometime during the week.
It was always assumed back in '82 that the band members were druggies. Once, on a break out back of the Causeway, a scruffy-looking kid sidled up to Craig and said, "Hey, Man, you wanna buy a bag of buds?" Craig, with a sly smile, said, "No, thanks, I don't drink."
At about the same time that we joined Streettalk, Craig and I went to my dad and inquired as to whether Craig could join the staff of Emerson Art Service. So for about ten months, Craig and I worked together from 9:00 am until 1:00 am. Craig stayed with EAS until the business was sold in '88, and stayed on with the new owner for a while after that. I haven't seen him since the early double-naught years. Sometimes I miss that boy. He's a very funny guy.
After I left, Mike from the theatre handled sound for a while. Then I think they just flew without a sound person. They played the Elks Club on New Year's Eve 1983. The geezers in there hated it. They said it was too loud! They were just sitting there looking miserable for four hours. The guys in the band hated playing to an unresponsive and even hostile audience. After it was over the guy that hired them paid them. "Wow, that was great!" he said. "I'd like to go ahead and book you for next year." This came as quite a shock. "Gee, I don't think so," they said. "I'll pay you a thousand dollars more than this!" he said. What could they say? "Okay." The next year the Elks hated them just as much, and the guys were sure it was their last Elks New Year's Eve. But the same guy did the same thing - begged them to come back for even more money. Finally, they had to dissolve the band to get out of playing for the Elks.
Season Two - A Sound Experiment
The summer workshop in '81 offered me the opportunity I'd been waiting for. I asked Fay and Mike if I could try doing the sound. "Sure," they said. So I wasn't the only one who said that. Mike and Read gave me a tutorial about the sound system: two reel-to-reel tape decks, a turntable, a fancy cassette deck, and a ridiculously complex patch panel. Nothing was marked on the panel. They had built it, so they both knew it well. My first contribution to sound: I brought in my DYMO label maker and marked everything. I learned the number designations and locations of the microphone inputs around the stage and the speaker outputs positioned here and there. I recorded music and other cues, and generally took care of the sound needs of the workshop shows. Mike was happy to have a break from it. In fact, when they saw how well I did, they asked me if I'd be willing to handle sound for the whole season. Don't fling me in that briar patch, Bre'er Fox!
Ken Zinck, the guy who'd beaten me out for the role of Dr. Lyman, put together a summer show called The World of Carl Sandburg which required some creative sound construction, including a sledge hammer hitting a spike at the precise instant the pantomime hammer hit the imaginary spike (I performed it live from the sound booth with a hammer, crowbar and microphone) and clicking noises as if all three people on stage were mechanical toys (I clicked a key back and forth on the keyring, recording it three times and overlapping them. He was happy with what I did. I was in the groove.
The first Guild show was Three Men on a Horse, which takes place in the 1920s. My first job was to find lots of period music for pre-show and scene changes. I went to the library, and not surprisingly for a Florida retirement community, found much more than I needed. This was good, because all of the set changes took way too long. One night they dropped a wall, which fell out through the curtain toward the audience. That night I used nearly all of the music I had. The other job I had was as the race announcer on the radio, which I prerecorded and played as a regular sound cue.
Cactus Flower was next, mostly taking place in a dentist's office. I had a bunch of stuff for this one. There was an elevator sound complete with rolling door opening and closing. There was a door chime. There was music. I was happy to suggest selections from my extensive Chuck Mangione collection. The director liked it. The door chime has a story attached to it. One of Emerson Art Service's clients was days away from getting married when her fiance crashed his small plane and died. Just a couple of days later she came by the studio to pick up a job we'd done for her. She had a brave face on, but when I expressed my condolences, she dissolved into tears. I offered her a hug and she took it gratefully. She composed herself, and asked if I was doing okay. "Sure," I said (again) "except for the show I'm working on. I need a door chime, and I'm having a hard time finding one," "Well," she said, "my father works for the phone company. I'm sure he can let you borrow one, if you return it in good shape." She called him, I Artmobiled over, and that night we had a real chime controlled by the phone button at the stage manager's station. Perfect.
It was somewhere in here that I hopped on the Artmobile in a tank top, shorts and flip flops for a long day's work at the theatre. It was eighty something degrees when I left the apartment that Sunday morning in December. The next time I walked outside, pretty late that night, it was in the upper forties. A cold front had blown through. Damn! It was a miserable cold ride home, and I was looking forward to my nice warm apartment. When I got home, I found that I had left all of my windows wide open! The furnace had been blasting away for hours, and the house was as cold inside as out. Note to self...
Now we come to my first Genie Award. It didn't specify On Golden Pond as the reason for the "Excellence in Sound" award, but OGP was obviously my best work, starting with pre-show and entre-act music. Director Ken Zinck tried to describe to me what he wanted for music, and he wanted loon calls ghosted in at odd intervals. My wildlife artist/ former National Geographic employee dad had a recording of bird calls that came with his "Birds of North America" book, and, yes, it had a wide variety of loon calls on it, so they wouldn't get monotonous. I made a reel-to-reel recording of them so that I could interject one whenever it felt right. Music? Something that carried the ambiance of Golden Pond. Bill Green, who was cast as the mail boat guy, had about a hundred beautiful slides of Maine pond scenes, adjacent landscapes and local flora and fauna shots. The music would be playing while the slides were shone on the pull-down screen in front of the grand drape. I set out to find the perfect music. Sparse, mellow, slightly melancholy, melodic, and of long duration. Hmmm. There was nothing in my collection. I was going through the library collection little by little with no luck. Then, one Sunday, before rehearsal, the same Bill Green was doing what he usually did - he was noodling around on the piano. It was sparse, mellow, slightly melancholy, and melodic. Hmmm. "Whatcha playing there, Bill?" I asked. "Nothing, really," he replied, "just playing what I feel." He must have had Golden Pond on the brain, because it was perfect. I asked him if he'd be willing to noodle for a good long stretch while I recorded it for pre-show. "Sure!" he said. I'm guessing that Bill Green felt just amazingly good about his contributions to this excellent show. Anyway, I cabled up every kind of microphone in the arsenal and miked the piano from inside, outside, on top, underneath, in front and behind. We arranged a long stretch of time when all would be quiet backstage, and he commenced noodling. I tuned in the richest sound I could muster from the available technology. I must confess, it was wondrously rich - you could see deep reds, purples and blues in that recording. It went on for about a half hour before I called out to Bill to stop. I rewound it and played it over the house speakers. I had loons cued up on the other deck, and began tossing one in here and there. At one point I stood up and looked out to the stage. Ken Zinck was standing there with tears pouring down his face. "You're an artist, my friend," he said. The rest of the sound cues were fairly cut and dried - the mail boat arriving several times, cutting the engines on cue; a thunder storm; loon calls. Easy stuff. Excellence in sound.
Ever so often a show comes along that just isn't very good. The next show, The Chase, was one of those unfortunates. The main character, the sheriff, was played by a newcomer, who looked the part, but just wasn't very good. To be honest, the show just sucked. My greatest regret was that when Terry of The Dodgers asked me about it, I couldn't bring myself to admit that it sucked. He and his wife went to see it, and he never really trusted my critical judgment again. There was one good thing about it, though. The music was excellent, and it was original. My good friend Craig, the best guitarist I know, watched a rehearsal, came up to the sound booth and poured forth some excellent slide guitar pre-show and curtain call music. I guess, in my mind, the music was enough to make the show. Terry didn't agree.
I asked Mike if he'd be willing to do South Pacific while I auditioned for the last show, You Can't Take It With You, which he did. I poured my heart into Kolenkhov, and got the part. Strangely enough, after South Pacific, Mike handed sound back to me and I ended up rehearsing my role and putting together sound cues at the same time. I had to find someone to run the cues, though. I was fast, but not fast enough to do that 6th grade Santa Claus thing with the sound booth so far away. To add to the situation, the splicing tape I bought was defective and wouldn't hold. The poor guy (Damn, I don't remember who the poor schmuck was!) had never run sound before, and he was retaping all of the splices on the fly. Builds character. Yeah! Anyway, now I've played DePinna and Kolenkhov. Next time I'm going to play Grandpa. I'd be an excellent Grandpa. Unless I'm too old by then.
So that's Vero Beach Theatre Guild season two. I know that there were more stories, but I don't remember them. During the summer I participated in the Children's Summer Workshop, taking a youngun under my wing and showing him the basics of theatrical sound. Before the next season began, my buddy Craig asked me to help him out: he was joining a band that really wasn't as good as he was used to. He wanted me to be in control of the sound out front so that vocals and instrumental solos wouldn't just be lost in the muddy noise. Next chapter.
Ken Zinck, the guy who'd beaten me out for the role of Dr. Lyman, put together a summer show called The World of Carl Sandburg which required some creative sound construction, including a sledge hammer hitting a spike at the precise instant the pantomime hammer hit the imaginary spike (I performed it live from the sound booth with a hammer, crowbar and microphone) and clicking noises as if all three people on stage were mechanical toys (I clicked a key back and forth on the keyring, recording it three times and overlapping them. He was happy with what I did. I was in the groove.
The first Guild show was Three Men on a Horse, which takes place in the 1920s. My first job was to find lots of period music for pre-show and scene changes. I went to the library, and not surprisingly for a Florida retirement community, found much more than I needed. This was good, because all of the set changes took way too long. One night they dropped a wall, which fell out through the curtain toward the audience. That night I used nearly all of the music I had. The other job I had was as the race announcer on the radio, which I prerecorded and played as a regular sound cue.
Cactus Flower was next, mostly taking place in a dentist's office. I had a bunch of stuff for this one. There was an elevator sound complete with rolling door opening and closing. There was a door chime. There was music. I was happy to suggest selections from my extensive Chuck Mangione collection. The director liked it. The door chime has a story attached to it. One of Emerson Art Service's clients was days away from getting married when her fiance crashed his small plane and died. Just a couple of days later she came by the studio to pick up a job we'd done for her. She had a brave face on, but when I expressed my condolences, she dissolved into tears. I offered her a hug and she took it gratefully. She composed herself, and asked if I was doing okay. "Sure," I said (again) "except for the show I'm working on. I need a door chime, and I'm having a hard time finding one," "Well," she said, "my father works for the phone company. I'm sure he can let you borrow one, if you return it in good shape." She called him, I Artmobiled over, and that night we had a real chime controlled by the phone button at the stage manager's station. Perfect.
It was somewhere in here that I hopped on the Artmobile in a tank top, shorts and flip flops for a long day's work at the theatre. It was eighty something degrees when I left the apartment that Sunday morning in December. The next time I walked outside, pretty late that night, it was in the upper forties. A cold front had blown through. Damn! It was a miserable cold ride home, and I was looking forward to my nice warm apartment. When I got home, I found that I had left all of my windows wide open! The furnace had been blasting away for hours, and the house was as cold inside as out. Note to self...
Now we come to my first Genie Award. It didn't specify On Golden Pond as the reason for the "Excellence in Sound" award, but OGP was obviously my best work, starting with pre-show and entre-act music. Director Ken Zinck tried to describe to me what he wanted for music, and he wanted loon calls ghosted in at odd intervals. My wildlife artist/ former National Geographic employee dad had a recording of bird calls that came with his "Birds of North America" book, and, yes, it had a wide variety of loon calls on it, so they wouldn't get monotonous. I made a reel-to-reel recording of them so that I could interject one whenever it felt right. Music? Something that carried the ambiance of Golden Pond. Bill Green, who was cast as the mail boat guy, had about a hundred beautiful slides of Maine pond scenes, adjacent landscapes and local flora and fauna shots. The music would be playing while the slides were shone on the pull-down screen in front of the grand drape. I set out to find the perfect music. Sparse, mellow, slightly melancholy, melodic, and of long duration. Hmmm. There was nothing in my collection. I was going through the library collection little by little with no luck. Then, one Sunday, before rehearsal, the same Bill Green was doing what he usually did - he was noodling around on the piano. It was sparse, mellow, slightly melancholy, and melodic. Hmmm. "Whatcha playing there, Bill?" I asked. "Nothing, really," he replied, "just playing what I feel." He must have had Golden Pond on the brain, because it was perfect. I asked him if he'd be willing to noodle for a good long stretch while I recorded it for pre-show. "Sure!" he said. I'm guessing that Bill Green felt just amazingly good about his contributions to this excellent show. Anyway, I cabled up every kind of microphone in the arsenal and miked the piano from inside, outside, on top, underneath, in front and behind. We arranged a long stretch of time when all would be quiet backstage, and he commenced noodling. I tuned in the richest sound I could muster from the available technology. I must confess, it was wondrously rich - you could see deep reds, purples and blues in that recording. It went on for about a half hour before I called out to Bill to stop. I rewound it and played it over the house speakers. I had loons cued up on the other deck, and began tossing one in here and there. At one point I stood up and looked out to the stage. Ken Zinck was standing there with tears pouring down his face. "You're an artist, my friend," he said. The rest of the sound cues were fairly cut and dried - the mail boat arriving several times, cutting the engines on cue; a thunder storm; loon calls. Easy stuff. Excellence in sound.
Ever so often a show comes along that just isn't very good. The next show, The Chase, was one of those unfortunates. The main character, the sheriff, was played by a newcomer, who looked the part, but just wasn't very good. To be honest, the show just sucked. My greatest regret was that when Terry of The Dodgers asked me about it, I couldn't bring myself to admit that it sucked. He and his wife went to see it, and he never really trusted my critical judgment again. There was one good thing about it, though. The music was excellent, and it was original. My good friend Craig, the best guitarist I know, watched a rehearsal, came up to the sound booth and poured forth some excellent slide guitar pre-show and curtain call music. I guess, in my mind, the music was enough to make the show. Terry didn't agree.
I asked Mike if he'd be willing to do South Pacific while I auditioned for the last show, You Can't Take It With You, which he did. I poured my heart into Kolenkhov, and got the part. Strangely enough, after South Pacific, Mike handed sound back to me and I ended up rehearsing my role and putting together sound cues at the same time. I had to find someone to run the cues, though. I was fast, but not fast enough to do that 6th grade Santa Claus thing with the sound booth so far away. To add to the situation, the splicing tape I bought was defective and wouldn't hold. The poor guy (Damn, I don't remember who the poor schmuck was!) had never run sound before, and he was retaping all of the splices on the fly. Builds character. Yeah! Anyway, now I've played DePinna and Kolenkhov. Next time I'm going to play Grandpa. I'd be an excellent Grandpa. Unless I'm too old by then.
So that's Vero Beach Theatre Guild season two. I know that there were more stories, but I don't remember them. During the summer I participated in the Children's Summer Workshop, taking a youngun under my wing and showing him the basics of theatrical sound. Before the next season began, my buddy Craig asked me to help him out: he was joining a band that really wasn't as good as he was used to. He wanted me to be in control of the sound out front so that vocals and instrumental solos wouldn't just be lost in the muddy noise. Next chapter.
Monday, March 8, 2010
Hit The Ground Running
Now that I've watched several roadrunners in action, I know what that phrase means.
In June of 1980 I saw a notice in the Vero Beach Press-Journal that the Vero Beach Theatre Guild was hosting a Summer Workshop over at Riverside Theatre. Come one, come all, learn about theatre and the Guild. It seemed like a low-pressure way to get myself known over there. So I hopped on The Artmobile - a Honda Express motorized little bike thing, outfitted with two big baskets for carrying artwork and stuff; the signs on the baskets proclaimed it to be The Artmobile - and went over to the theatre to sign up. Most of the folks there knew each other, just another way to hang out together. Ten or twelve of us were new. We did the usual kinds of stuff one does in workshops, except that, instead of introducing ourselves and telling a little bit about ourselves, we paired up and interviewed each other for fifteen minutes, then introduced each other. It was actually kind of fun.
It turned out that the big deal for this workshop was to be three one-act plays, each directed by somebody who had never directed before. We had auditions for each one, and I was picked for The Happy Journey by Thornton Wilder, directed by Fay, a lighting designer and employee of Riverside. We all had a good time with it, and it was a good show.
After the workshop was finished, I felt confident enough to audition for the first show of the season, Bus Stop. I read the script. There were two parts I really wanted: Virgil the sidekick, and Dr. Lyman, the intellectual sleazebag. I was locked in mortal combat for both parts, and got neither. I was cast as the bus driver, Carl. It was okay, though. I had the resources and know-how to put together my own costume. I made a bus company patch for the sleeve and one for the hat - a postal hat - which I found in the window of a thrift store for 75 cents. But the biggest deal for me was that, while we were working on the set, I overheard the director and the sound man - Mike and Mike - talking about music. The director wanted something that evoked the cold barrenness of this Kansas bus station in a March blizzard. I was on the case. A few nights later I heard it! It was on, of all places, John Denver's Rocky Mountain High album. I was goosebumped out while it played, then I got the cover and looked it up. "Late Winter, Early Spring, When Everybody Goes to Mexico." I took the album to rehearsal the next evening and showed it to Mike. Needless to say, he was skeptical, but with a patronizing smile he gave it to Mike to play over the sound system. It started playing, and everybody stopped what they were doing to listen. Why? Because it was perfect. I accrued a lot of respect that night.
The next show, You Know I Can't Hear You When The Water's Running was cast while Bus Stop was running. After their first production meeting, technical wizard Read came to me and asked me if I could help with the set, "Sure," I said. There were three different plays within this play, requiring three very different sets. So they were using slides and rear projection screens instead of real walls. What they needed from me was a set of titles to show on the center screen before each vignette. He described each segment, and asked me to make each title kind of go with the ambiance of the scene. Easily done. Plus, during the run of the show, I was on scene shift crew, hauling furniture and props in and out.
A watershed moment occurred in November. Fay asked me if I was available to work a Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday gig for actual money. "Sure," I said. I said that a lot. Anyway, Long Wharf Theatre out of Boston had a two-show tour going - The Lion in Winter and Private Lives - and required local help to unload the truck, assemble each set, work the two shows, strike each set and load the truck again. This was my first up-close look at scenery that is designed to assemble and disassemble, with flexibility to fit diverse stages, and load on a truck for transport. I was fascinated. But - they also had many heavy drops to hang. Somehow, I was chosen to go way way up onto the Loading Rail, where heavy stage weights are added and removed to counterbalance loads being hoisted up and down by the fly system. They told me to just stay up there while they were hanging drops, since it took so much time and energy to clamber all the way down and all the way back up again. I spent about six hours up there, listening for instructions shouted from the stage. Unfortunately, I happened to have a black marker in my pocket. I wrote on the concrete block wall: "They also serve who only stand and weight" Anyway, I worked scene shift crew Friday night. We moved furniture and props in near total darkness. I was carrying a table in under the big-ass staircase, and smacked my head a good one. I was lucky I wasn't knocked out. Hell, I didn't even curse! So after the show, we struck the set, stored it in the wings, and Saturday helped assemble the Private Lives set. It had one scene shift element, a wall section twelve feet tall and sixteen feet wide that levered up onto wheels to move it in and out of position. It required a bunch of us to finagle it safely. Sunday's show was in the afternoon, we did our scene shift, waited for the end, struck the set and loaded the truck. We finished about midnight, exhausted but elated to have been a part of such a cool thing. Take me home, Artmobile!
I auditioned my heart out for The Sunshine Boys but didn't get a part. I didn't look Jewish enough, I was told. I worked on the set, though, and helped with hanging, patching, focusing and gelling lights.
Agatha Christy's The Mousetrap was next in line. I auditioned and was cast as Giles, the owner of Monkswell Manor. My character was subordinate to Giles' wife, Molly. My blocking notes in my script nearly always said "Follow Molly." I carried a lot of luggage.
It was somewhere in here that the Joffrey 2 Ballet came to Riverside. They needed local labor, and I was now a known quantity. Everyone who was working the show had to be screened by the Secret Service, because Ron Reagan Junior was in the show. I helped with the Marley floor and the set and the lights, and ran follow spot during rehearsal and performance. There were serious-to-a-fault guys in black suits everywhere backstage whenever Ron was in the building. At one point in the performance, a light cue came up wrong. "Damn!" said Fay. "We didn't repatch those lights!" I ran out of the light booth, took the catwalk to the backstage end, descended the stairs as quickly and quietly as possible, and took off running toward the patch panel. Three serious-to-a-fault guys in black suits reached inside their jackets. I stopped, raised my hands, and slowly strolled to the patch panel to fix the lights.
I didn't audition for The Sound of Music, but was cast as Franz the Butler anyway. They needed a lot of bodies for that show. The cool thing about Franz, though, was that I was also on scene shift crew, and if anything was out of place when the lights came up, who better to set it right than the butler? Many stories were generated by this crazy show. The Reverend Jim Newsome played Captain vonTrapp, an Austrian naval hero with a deep and wide Southern accent. Every night from dress rehearsal on, you could walk into the green room to find six nuns with cigarettes in their mouths playing cards. The Terrace set was mostly flown in, and one night the pinrail guy lost control of it. It slammed to the floor with a loud BOOM, causing the audience and everyone else in the building to gasp. The next time it came in, it came in fast until it was about six inches from the floor, then eased to a stop with a barely audible thump. Everyone broke into wild applause. The stained glass window was hung from a pipe by two long cables. One time as it came in it bumped into something and began to swing, long, lazy arcs, from one side of the black drape to the other side of the black drape, back and forth, back and forth. After four or five swings, a hand magically appeared through the black drape and caught the window, stopping it in the middle. Mary Ann got applause for that. One Saturday night, after a Children's Theatre Workshop, the lights came up on the "Sixteen Going On Seventeen" set, and there was a bright green Sprite can gleaming on the bench. The actors ignored it through the entire scene. My particular event was the night I exited up the staircase during the party scene, and ran around to the props table for my tray of drinks - only to find the glasses were empty. I grabbed the tray, hurried to the green room, said hello to the smoking nuns, poured a little coffee into each glass, took them to the sink and filled them the rest of the way with water, hustled to the stage left wings and entered on cue, not a second to spare.
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest was the last show of the season. Yes, I auditioned, and yes, I was cast. One thing you'll find in community theatre - if a show requires a lot of men, pretty much every man who shows up gets in. I played Ruckly, a severely damaged soul who spent most of the show up against the wall with arms spread in a crucifixion pose. My only lines - twice I was supposed to say, "F-f-fuck 'em all!" - were cut and replaced with rude hand gestures. I was placed wherever I went, so I had no blocking to remember. It was a very low-stress role. The only thing was the outstretched arms thing. I rehearsed holding books out for as long as I could stand it, ever increasing my strength until I could go the whole show with books. Without books was easy. The other thing was my lobotomy scar. Bill, the makeup guru, made it bigger and uglier every night. My last one was about four inches long. It's in my scrap book.
Riverside Theatre and the Guild hosted the Florida Theatre Conference in 1981, and our contribution was an encore presentation of ...Cuckoo's Nest. It was a great show.
So that was the larger part of what I remember of my first season of total immersion into the world of theatre. As I had suspected decades before, it was a match made in heaven (or wherever) and still makes me happy.
In June of 1980 I saw a notice in the Vero Beach Press-Journal that the Vero Beach Theatre Guild was hosting a Summer Workshop over at Riverside Theatre. Come one, come all, learn about theatre and the Guild. It seemed like a low-pressure way to get myself known over there. So I hopped on The Artmobile - a Honda Express motorized little bike thing, outfitted with two big baskets for carrying artwork and stuff; the signs on the baskets proclaimed it to be The Artmobile - and went over to the theatre to sign up. Most of the folks there knew each other, just another way to hang out together. Ten or twelve of us were new. We did the usual kinds of stuff one does in workshops, except that, instead of introducing ourselves and telling a little bit about ourselves, we paired up and interviewed each other for fifteen minutes, then introduced each other. It was actually kind of fun.
It turned out that the big deal for this workshop was to be three one-act plays, each directed by somebody who had never directed before. We had auditions for each one, and I was picked for The Happy Journey by Thornton Wilder, directed by Fay, a lighting designer and employee of Riverside. We all had a good time with it, and it was a good show.
After the workshop was finished, I felt confident enough to audition for the first show of the season, Bus Stop. I read the script. There were two parts I really wanted: Virgil the sidekick, and Dr. Lyman, the intellectual sleazebag. I was locked in mortal combat for both parts, and got neither. I was cast as the bus driver, Carl. It was okay, though. I had the resources and know-how to put together my own costume. I made a bus company patch for the sleeve and one for the hat - a postal hat - which I found in the window of a thrift store for 75 cents. But the biggest deal for me was that, while we were working on the set, I overheard the director and the sound man - Mike and Mike - talking about music. The director wanted something that evoked the cold barrenness of this Kansas bus station in a March blizzard. I was on the case. A few nights later I heard it! It was on, of all places, John Denver's Rocky Mountain High album. I was goosebumped out while it played, then I got the cover and looked it up. "Late Winter, Early Spring, When Everybody Goes to Mexico." I took the album to rehearsal the next evening and showed it to Mike. Needless to say, he was skeptical, but with a patronizing smile he gave it to Mike to play over the sound system. It started playing, and everybody stopped what they were doing to listen. Why? Because it was perfect. I accrued a lot of respect that night.
The next show, You Know I Can't Hear You When The Water's Running was cast while Bus Stop was running. After their first production meeting, technical wizard Read came to me and asked me if I could help with the set, "Sure," I said. There were three different plays within this play, requiring three very different sets. So they were using slides and rear projection screens instead of real walls. What they needed from me was a set of titles to show on the center screen before each vignette. He described each segment, and asked me to make each title kind of go with the ambiance of the scene. Easily done. Plus, during the run of the show, I was on scene shift crew, hauling furniture and props in and out.
A watershed moment occurred in November. Fay asked me if I was available to work a Thursday, Friday, Saturday, Sunday gig for actual money. "Sure," I said. I said that a lot. Anyway, Long Wharf Theatre out of Boston had a two-show tour going - The Lion in Winter and Private Lives - and required local help to unload the truck, assemble each set, work the two shows, strike each set and load the truck again. This was my first up-close look at scenery that is designed to assemble and disassemble, with flexibility to fit diverse stages, and load on a truck for transport. I was fascinated. But - they also had many heavy drops to hang. Somehow, I was chosen to go way way up onto the Loading Rail, where heavy stage weights are added and removed to counterbalance loads being hoisted up and down by the fly system. They told me to just stay up there while they were hanging drops, since it took so much time and energy to clamber all the way down and all the way back up again. I spent about six hours up there, listening for instructions shouted from the stage. Unfortunately, I happened to have a black marker in my pocket. I wrote on the concrete block wall: "They also serve who only stand and weight" Anyway, I worked scene shift crew Friday night. We moved furniture and props in near total darkness. I was carrying a table in under the big-ass staircase, and smacked my head a good one. I was lucky I wasn't knocked out. Hell, I didn't even curse! So after the show, we struck the set, stored it in the wings, and Saturday helped assemble the Private Lives set. It had one scene shift element, a wall section twelve feet tall and sixteen feet wide that levered up onto wheels to move it in and out of position. It required a bunch of us to finagle it safely. Sunday's show was in the afternoon, we did our scene shift, waited for the end, struck the set and loaded the truck. We finished about midnight, exhausted but elated to have been a part of such a cool thing. Take me home, Artmobile!
I auditioned my heart out for The Sunshine Boys but didn't get a part. I didn't look Jewish enough, I was told. I worked on the set, though, and helped with hanging, patching, focusing and gelling lights.
Agatha Christy's The Mousetrap was next in line. I auditioned and was cast as Giles, the owner of Monkswell Manor. My character was subordinate to Giles' wife, Molly. My blocking notes in my script nearly always said "Follow Molly." I carried a lot of luggage.
It was somewhere in here that the Joffrey 2 Ballet came to Riverside. They needed local labor, and I was now a known quantity. Everyone who was working the show had to be screened by the Secret Service, because Ron Reagan Junior was in the show. I helped with the Marley floor and the set and the lights, and ran follow spot during rehearsal and performance. There were serious-to-a-fault guys in black suits everywhere backstage whenever Ron was in the building. At one point in the performance, a light cue came up wrong. "Damn!" said Fay. "We didn't repatch those lights!" I ran out of the light booth, took the catwalk to the backstage end, descended the stairs as quickly and quietly as possible, and took off running toward the patch panel. Three serious-to-a-fault guys in black suits reached inside their jackets. I stopped, raised my hands, and slowly strolled to the patch panel to fix the lights.
I didn't audition for The Sound of Music, but was cast as Franz the Butler anyway. They needed a lot of bodies for that show. The cool thing about Franz, though, was that I was also on scene shift crew, and if anything was out of place when the lights came up, who better to set it right than the butler? Many stories were generated by this crazy show. The Reverend Jim Newsome played Captain vonTrapp, an Austrian naval hero with a deep and wide Southern accent. Every night from dress rehearsal on, you could walk into the green room to find six nuns with cigarettes in their mouths playing cards. The Terrace set was mostly flown in, and one night the pinrail guy lost control of it. It slammed to the floor with a loud BOOM, causing the audience and everyone else in the building to gasp. The next time it came in, it came in fast until it was about six inches from the floor, then eased to a stop with a barely audible thump. Everyone broke into wild applause. The stained glass window was hung from a pipe by two long cables. One time as it came in it bumped into something and began to swing, long, lazy arcs, from one side of the black drape to the other side of the black drape, back and forth, back and forth. After four or five swings, a hand magically appeared through the black drape and caught the window, stopping it in the middle. Mary Ann got applause for that. One Saturday night, after a Children's Theatre Workshop, the lights came up on the "Sixteen Going On Seventeen" set, and there was a bright green Sprite can gleaming on the bench. The actors ignored it through the entire scene. My particular event was the night I exited up the staircase during the party scene, and ran around to the props table for my tray of drinks - only to find the glasses were empty. I grabbed the tray, hurried to the green room, said hello to the smoking nuns, poured a little coffee into each glass, took them to the sink and filled them the rest of the way with water, hustled to the stage left wings and entered on cue, not a second to spare.
One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest was the last show of the season. Yes, I auditioned, and yes, I was cast. One thing you'll find in community theatre - if a show requires a lot of men, pretty much every man who shows up gets in. I played Ruckly, a severely damaged soul who spent most of the show up against the wall with arms spread in a crucifixion pose. My only lines - twice I was supposed to say, "F-f-fuck 'em all!" - were cut and replaced with rude hand gestures. I was placed wherever I went, so I had no blocking to remember. It was a very low-stress role. The only thing was the outstretched arms thing. I rehearsed holding books out for as long as I could stand it, ever increasing my strength until I could go the whole show with books. Without books was easy. The other thing was my lobotomy scar. Bill, the makeup guru, made it bigger and uglier every night. My last one was about four inches long. It's in my scrap book.
Riverside Theatre and the Guild hosted the Florida Theatre Conference in 1981, and our contribution was an encore presentation of ...Cuckoo's Nest. It was a great show.
So that was the larger part of what I remember of my first season of total immersion into the world of theatre. As I had suspected decades before, it was a match made in heaven (or wherever) and still makes me happy.
Sunday, March 7, 2010
Introduction - There's No Biz Like It
Contrary to what my dead brother might have told you before he was dead, I had great parents. He didn't, and I don't know how that happened. But that's neither here nor there. I bring this up because I am remembering that as a little boy I was exposed to many forms of art. For one huge thing, my dad was (is) a professional artist. He worked for National Geographic in Washington, DC from 1953 to '68. He started a commercial art business in Vero Beach, Florida in '68, which he sold in 1987, soon after I left for the big city of St. Cloud, Florida.
Some of my most vivid early memories are of trips to "far away" places to see shows. I have spotty memories of sitting in an outdoor amphitheater somewhere near Washington, DC, mesmerized by Danny Kaye, live and in person, singing, dancing, doing comedy schtick, just like on his television variety show. I vaguely remember a play called The Doctor's Dilemma at Center Stage in Baltimore. We saw a stage production of On A Clear Day You Can See Forever in downtown Baltimore. We went to Painter's Mill Music Fair outside of Baltimore to see The Sound of Music starring Shirley Jones. I could even throw in that I was on The Bozo Show once in Washington.
My grandmother on my mother's side LOVED musical theatre. It was her influence that carried us to On A Clear Day... Another time, she and I rode into DC with my dad and we saw Oliver! at the Lincoln Theatre. As I'm sure you recall, I was very intrigued with the sets. How do they do that? This was around 1966, long before automated scenery.
For my own part, I was drafted by the priest at our little Episcopal church in Odenton to be narrator of the Christmas play, years before I was confirmed and drafted to be an acolyte (altar boy.) This was my first active role in show business. Then in sixth grade I was drafted to play Santa Claus in a big PTA extravaganza. They also needed a sound technician with a reel-to-reel tape deck - my first of many sound gigs. I played the sound cue, grabbed my sack and bolted for the fireplace. Also in sixth grade, I cajoled three of my buddies to dress up as vegetables and sing The Jolly Green Giant at the Odenton Elementary talent show. We were a hit. I was a carrot. With a guitar.
Being me, I was unable (unwilling?) to let the onset of puberty be a good thing. I withdrew into my darkest self, had a spectacular "depressive reaction" in 8th grade, and found myself in the clutches of a psychiatrist. This was the beginning of my deep distrust of anyone medical. I mention this only because this was the time when I should have been blossoming into a theatre person. I even went to the Junior High School play with the girl next door. I was watching the play, thinking "I should do this stuff."
Then came the hardest, sharpest turning point of my entire life - yes, even bigger than moving to Albuquerque! My dad wanted out of the high-pressure world of National Geographic, where he was now Assistant Chief of the Art Department. My parents decided to move to Vero Beach, Florida, where my mother spent a large part of her life, where my dad was stationed in the Navy (the Japanese never dared to attack Vero Beach!) and where my grandmother still lived. They didn't take into account that in Odenton I had friends I'd gone to school with since Kindergarten; I had accrued quite a reputation as a photographer (with darkroom and enlarger) and was being recruited for the Yearbook staff; I was a good football player and was looking forward to being on the high school team; and I had a thing going with the girl next door. All of that came to a screeching halt when, in the summer of 1968, between 9th and 10th grades, between Junior and Senior High, between holding hands and kissing - we moved away. The end.
My Vero Beach High School yearbook has my picture and my name in its place alphabetically, just like everybody else. The only other mention is in the back, where all students are listed with all of their activities and accomplishments. Mine says "Emerson, James W. - Transfer '68."
I moved back to Maryland a couple of days after graduation. I rode the Greyhound bus with a duffel bag full of clothes and a few precious possessions. I got a job pumping gas at Montgomery Ward Auto Service in Glen Burnie, and after about eight months transferred to the Display Department. Building store displays professionally was the first big step into the world of scenic carpentry. Several of my coworkers were theatrical people. We were Firesign Theater fans, and did those wacky routines to amuse ourselves during the day. After the movie version of Jesus Christ Superstar came out, we did a fair job of performing it in the shop whenever the mood struck us. Dane was still in high school, and one night a bunch of us went to Glen Burnie High to see him in Annie Get Your Gun. A year or so later, Dane cajoled three of us into going with him to audition for You Can't Take It With You at Anne Arundel Community College. So yes, I have been to college. All four of us got parts. Dane was the romantic lead. Fred was a G-Man. Tina was Gay Wellington. I was Mr. DePinna. Within a week, Fred and Tina dropped out. They "didn't like the director." Then, about two weeks before opening night, Dane had a spectacular motorcycle accident, breaking both arms, both legs, multiple ribs, his collarbone and his jaw in several places. So of the four of us, I was in the show, my first "real" play. One other strange thing: the Guy who played Kolenkhov - his name was Guy - had been the boy next door (on the other side) when I lived in Odenton. We had been buddies for a while, then bitter enemies for years. We got along well enough to get through this show, but that was as far as it went.
A few months later, severely depressed, I set out for Kalispell, Montana, which you undoubtedly remember from "The Origin Issue" of The Gospel of Rand McNally. A few years of commuting between Maryland and Florida followed, with a trip to London to see four plays thrown in for spice. Later that summer, two of my Mongomery Ward buddies and I got together for a laugh and wrote and sang silly song parodies on a call-in radio show. Commander Jim got us a couple of (unpaid) gigs with him before he dropped us for the next novelty, and a beer drinking phase ensued, culminating in the famous Baltimore Bicentennial Backflip. I returned to Vero Beach, my depression deepening to impenetrable black, until Christmas night, 1976, after a day babysitting the grapefruit packing house where I worked, the depression lifted. Suddenly I had to learn to live without the comfortable blanket of depression to protect me from engaging in life. This is not as easy as it sounds.
January of 1977 brought with it a freeze of enormous proportions. My lung infection (or was it a blood clot?) followed soon after. I went back to Maryland for the last time that summer, and got the job delivering trucks all over the eastern United States (see the Gospel.) In March of '78 I moved back to Vero Beach, and my dad and I set out to make Emerson Art Service a force to be reckoned with. We upgraded our facilities, upgraded our equipment and within a year and a half, landed the Dodger account. Suddenly, I felt ready to do some theatre. So, at twenty-seven years old, I finally did what I'd thought I should do at fourteen. Boy howdy, did I.
Some of my most vivid early memories are of trips to "far away" places to see shows. I have spotty memories of sitting in an outdoor amphitheater somewhere near Washington, DC, mesmerized by Danny Kaye, live and in person, singing, dancing, doing comedy schtick, just like on his television variety show. I vaguely remember a play called The Doctor's Dilemma at Center Stage in Baltimore. We saw a stage production of On A Clear Day You Can See Forever in downtown Baltimore. We went to Painter's Mill Music Fair outside of Baltimore to see The Sound of Music starring Shirley Jones. I could even throw in that I was on The Bozo Show once in Washington.
My grandmother on my mother's side LOVED musical theatre. It was her influence that carried us to On A Clear Day... Another time, she and I rode into DC with my dad and we saw Oliver! at the Lincoln Theatre. As I'm sure you recall, I was very intrigued with the sets. How do they do that? This was around 1966, long before automated scenery.
For my own part, I was drafted by the priest at our little Episcopal church in Odenton to be narrator of the Christmas play, years before I was confirmed and drafted to be an acolyte (altar boy.) This was my first active role in show business. Then in sixth grade I was drafted to play Santa Claus in a big PTA extravaganza. They also needed a sound technician with a reel-to-reel tape deck - my first of many sound gigs. I played the sound cue, grabbed my sack and bolted for the fireplace. Also in sixth grade, I cajoled three of my buddies to dress up as vegetables and sing The Jolly Green Giant at the Odenton Elementary talent show. We were a hit. I was a carrot. With a guitar.
Being me, I was unable (unwilling?) to let the onset of puberty be a good thing. I withdrew into my darkest self, had a spectacular "depressive reaction" in 8th grade, and found myself in the clutches of a psychiatrist. This was the beginning of my deep distrust of anyone medical. I mention this only because this was the time when I should have been blossoming into a theatre person. I even went to the Junior High School play with the girl next door. I was watching the play, thinking "I should do this stuff."
Then came the hardest, sharpest turning point of my entire life - yes, even bigger than moving to Albuquerque! My dad wanted out of the high-pressure world of National Geographic, where he was now Assistant Chief of the Art Department. My parents decided to move to Vero Beach, Florida, where my mother spent a large part of her life, where my dad was stationed in the Navy (the Japanese never dared to attack Vero Beach!) and where my grandmother still lived. They didn't take into account that in Odenton I had friends I'd gone to school with since Kindergarten; I had accrued quite a reputation as a photographer (with darkroom and enlarger) and was being recruited for the Yearbook staff; I was a good football player and was looking forward to being on the high school team; and I had a thing going with the girl next door. All of that came to a screeching halt when, in the summer of 1968, between 9th and 10th grades, between Junior and Senior High, between holding hands and kissing - we moved away. The end.
My Vero Beach High School yearbook has my picture and my name in its place alphabetically, just like everybody else. The only other mention is in the back, where all students are listed with all of their activities and accomplishments. Mine says "Emerson, James W. - Transfer '68."
I moved back to Maryland a couple of days after graduation. I rode the Greyhound bus with a duffel bag full of clothes and a few precious possessions. I got a job pumping gas at Montgomery Ward Auto Service in Glen Burnie, and after about eight months transferred to the Display Department. Building store displays professionally was the first big step into the world of scenic carpentry. Several of my coworkers were theatrical people. We were Firesign Theater fans, and did those wacky routines to amuse ourselves during the day. After the movie version of Jesus Christ Superstar came out, we did a fair job of performing it in the shop whenever the mood struck us. Dane was still in high school, and one night a bunch of us went to Glen Burnie High to see him in Annie Get Your Gun. A year or so later, Dane cajoled three of us into going with him to audition for You Can't Take It With You at Anne Arundel Community College. So yes, I have been to college. All four of us got parts. Dane was the romantic lead. Fred was a G-Man. Tina was Gay Wellington. I was Mr. DePinna. Within a week, Fred and Tina dropped out. They "didn't like the director." Then, about two weeks before opening night, Dane had a spectacular motorcycle accident, breaking both arms, both legs, multiple ribs, his collarbone and his jaw in several places. So of the four of us, I was in the show, my first "real" play. One other strange thing: the Guy who played Kolenkhov - his name was Guy - had been the boy next door (on the other side) when I lived in Odenton. We had been buddies for a while, then bitter enemies for years. We got along well enough to get through this show, but that was as far as it went.
A few months later, severely depressed, I set out for Kalispell, Montana, which you undoubtedly remember from "The Origin Issue" of The Gospel of Rand McNally. A few years of commuting between Maryland and Florida followed, with a trip to London to see four plays thrown in for spice. Later that summer, two of my Mongomery Ward buddies and I got together for a laugh and wrote and sang silly song parodies on a call-in radio show. Commander Jim got us a couple of (unpaid) gigs with him before he dropped us for the next novelty, and a beer drinking phase ensued, culminating in the famous Baltimore Bicentennial Backflip. I returned to Vero Beach, my depression deepening to impenetrable black, until Christmas night, 1976, after a day babysitting the grapefruit packing house where I worked, the depression lifted. Suddenly I had to learn to live without the comfortable blanket of depression to protect me from engaging in life. This is not as easy as it sounds.
January of 1977 brought with it a freeze of enormous proportions. My lung infection (or was it a blood clot?) followed soon after. I went back to Maryland for the last time that summer, and got the job delivering trucks all over the eastern United States (see the Gospel.) In March of '78 I moved back to Vero Beach, and my dad and I set out to make Emerson Art Service a force to be reckoned with. We upgraded our facilities, upgraded our equipment and within a year and a half, landed the Dodger account. Suddenly, I felt ready to do some theatre. So, at twenty-seven years old, I finally did what I'd thought I should do at fourteen. Boy howdy, did I.
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