#23: Theater Participation, vol. 1: the Early Years

The attentive reader may have noticed in a previous blog I said that at another time I would write about my early participation in theater. That time has arrived!

I got an early start in theater. As a lad of six or eight, my older sister and I presented a theatrical performance for the neighborhood children. I suppose our mother was there as well. As I recall, we sang “There’s a Hole In the Bucket.” I don’t know that anything else was performed at that time.

We must then skip ahead several years—bypassing a dramatic parody I wrote entitled “Romeo and Jewelry,” which my 11-year-old brain thought a terribly funny title—to junior high.

Our eighth grade social studies teacher, for reasons best known to herself, would let us out of class to work on theatrical projects. I didn’t care so much about theatrical projects, but I was all for getting out of class, so around the holidays I proposed an adaptation of Dickens’ A Christmas Carol. I had evidently not taken into consideration the work involved in writing the script so, although we did get out of class a few times, that never got off the ground.

However, at that time, Readers’ Digest was running a series of articles called “I Am Joe’s Heart” and “I am Joe’s Gallbladder” and such things. The social studies teacher decided that we each needed to be in a skit based on one of those articles. (Evidently, “social studies” encompassed a wide range of subjects.) I put myself in charge of “I Am Joe’s Hypothalamus” and gathered a crew to help me dramatize it. Of course I took the main part. There was a large prop control board we found backstage that must have been used for some sci-fi play and I used that as the control center for the hypothalamus because—as you know from your junior high science class, or perhaps from Readers’ Digest—the hypothalamus is responsible for controlling many things, such as body temperature and salivation rate. I would like to report that the skit was a roaring success, but I have no recollection of the actual performance or in fact of anything else involved with it.

Then came high school. The big production when I was a sophomore was The Death and Life of Sneaky Fitch. I decided I would try out. The director asked what part I was trying out for and I said, Sneaky Fitch. I thought it an odd question; what else would I be trying out for? In any case, I was cast as Cowboy 2 (“Come quick, Doc.” “It’s Sneaky Fitch. He’s a-dyin’!”) and was the understudy for the lead. Fortunately the actor playing Sneaky Fitch was never incapacitated as I never even looked at his part. I suppose the production was a raging success, but once again I have no recollection of the performance.

By senior year I had changed school districts and the new one decided to put on The Sound of Music and I decided to audition. I walked in for the audition and the orchestra conductor said, “You can’t audition! You have to play English horn in the orchestra!” So I sat in the pit. I did have the brilliant idea of having the orchestra, during the dress rehearsal, play the “Can-Can” when the nuns came on. I even wrote out parts. However, no one would go along with it which, in retrospect, was fortunate for three reasons: first, because it would have taken up valuable rehearsal time; second, because I would have gotten in trouble; and third and most important, because I didn’t know anything about orchestral arranging so it would have sounded terrible. I’m afraid I don’t recall the actual performance of the show. I do have a vague memory of the cast party and of someone putting the moves on the cute French horn player, but that’s it.

Do you have recollections of grade school or high school plays you were in? If so, let me know in the comments section!

Phil