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31 August 2003 |
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My life in the theater One of my interests as a child and a teenager was theater. When I was 8 or 9, I joined the Winchester Children's Theatre School and participated in a number of productions over the next few years. I was even tapped to play a child part in an adult reading production put on my some New England theatrical association. I high school, I was involved in a few productions, although I missed all the big ones. I even directed a couple of plays. I don't have any record of most of them, but I recently dug up a few programs from things that I did. The Yeomen of the Guard, 1967 This was a production at Abbot, for which they recruited boys from Phillips to play the male parts. I was only a Lower (sophomore), so I felt fortunate to be in it at all. I had the smallest solo singing part. This is the only time I have ever been called upon to sing solo on stage. Me in costume with two other members of the cast Victims of Amnesia, 1968 This is the first play I ever directed. I don't know what possessed me to undertake this odd, obscure Beat Generation play. I didn't understand it then, and I don't understand it now. The only thing I remember about it now was that a woman is supposed to give birth to a light bulb, which was a bit of a technical challenge. The play was not a great success: the cast members cordially hated me by the time it was over. The program. Most programs for Drama Workshop productions began "The Phillips Academy Drama Workshop presents..." but this one doesn't. It was my Upper (junior) year, and I and my classmates in the Drama Club had a feud with the president of the club, a Senior whom we considered incompetent. One of my friends saved me from adding to the program in the acknowledgments, " and to [the club president's name] with whose assistance this never would have been possible." I substituted the "Gray Room" a name I and some friends had adopted for our little circle of would-be poets. I did acknowledge the faculty advisor to the Drama Club. A Man of Destiny, 1969 My other venture into directing was an odd sort of production. For some reason, I was fascinated by a little one-act piece by Bernard Shaw about Napoleon, so I edited it down, combined it with the scene from Shakespeare's Julius Caesar in which Decius calls on Caesar to bring him to the Capitol, where he will be killed. In between I stuck a scene from a play my roommate had written and produced earlier, in which the misfit teenage protagonist discusses some sort of deep things in life with a nameless girl. I had the same actors play the roles in the two major acts, although only two appeared on stage. The two actors who played the minor parts spoke offstage, their places on stage being taken by dressmaker's dummies. I actually got a review for this in the student newspaper, and it wasn't very negative, just a bit confused: with reason, I now realize. The program. Note the avant-garde absence of capital letters. |
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