The Further Adventures of Younger Me.

"They've sold my seat!"

Going along the previous posting, I was in deep reminiscence about my humble beginnings in the world of the theatre.

I had done a play in middle school, and nothing much after that, until I got to high school, and was cast in this very funny comedy by Woody Allen, called DON'T DRINK THE WATER. It's not important that you know the plot, but you can still find copies of the script, and there was a movie version done of it, starring Jackie Gleason, and it still holds up well for being an "iron curtain" comedy.

The director of this play, and the director for pretty much everything that the high school did, was a woman named Beverly Gibson. To say I was fond of the woman would be a bit of an overstatement; she could be abrasive at the best of times, and enigmatic most of the other times. She had her favorites, and I, alas, wasn't one of them. But she didn't really know me then, and I got cast in a small but very funny role, and rehearsals began....

And she pretty much hated everything I did.
Not that I did much, mind you....what was I, fifteen? Sixteen?
But there wasn't a rehearsal that went by that I wasn't given very cryptic notes (remember, now, they could have been very clear but I have to repeat, "fifteen? Sixteen?") about how to play the character.

It wouldn't be the last time I didn't understand a director.

Well, opening night. And the place was packed. And in came Ms. Gibson, with a smile on her face and the proclamation:

"They've sold my seat!"

Friends and neighbors, if you've never felt it, I must tell you, there is nothing to make you feel so godlike as getting that first laugh. Double it by being young. Triple it with the knowledge that thanks to her decidedly bi-polar directions, I was fairly sure I was going to bomb.

And that was my introduction to the theatre.

There was one other educational event in there somewhere. Since then, whenever I'm around a group of actors, I tend to have a permanent quizzical look upon my mug; largely because most of the time, I'm completely stupefied by what they consider important. I've had that since high school, as well.

But Ms. Gibson was a wonder, when it came right down to it; it a decade when the arts were considered somewhat less important than everything else, she managed to produce two plays a year; teach acting, Shakespeare, Dramatic Lit, Costuming and Makeup, and a boatload of other courses; create and maintain a chapter of that strange entity called The International Thespian Society, and found a summer musical class that still runs today, and should be named after her.

But more importantly, and despite the faults I perceived in her, she taught that the art was about joy, and not job.