Eternal Opening Night

            When I was a young man working in Equity dinner theater  I met a veteran actor named Sidney Breese. He was eighty years old at the time. We had a mad frantic anxiety-filled rehearsal period. I was Technical Director and a brand new Equity Stage Manager. I don’t think I have ever had such a terror-driven experience as getting that show open (it was “Everybody Loves Opal” with Martha Raye who was, shall we say, difficult).

            After the successful opening I was having a drink with some of the cast and expressed my relief to Sidney and my disbelief that we had actually pulled it off.

            “It’s always a miracle when you get a show open,” he told me. “When I was in radio we got used to having a miracle happen every week. And doing live television was pretty much a miracle every second. But stage work – that’s always a miracle when it opens on schedule and goes well.”

            Last night we opened the 74^th season of The Lost Colony.

The miracle happened.

It was an excellent show. Some very minor flubs and technical glitches, but nothing out of the ordinary or that the audience was aware of.

This season is dedicated to former director Fred Chappell. There was a reception for him in the Gardens but I didn’t attend. Instead I snuck out of backstage and hung out at the alumni table by the front gate with Gail, Maggie, Doc and Mike and watched the audience stream down the path from the parking lot. The audience – the final element.

At half-hour I went back and got dressed, then wandered the back deck. The smoke from the nearby wildfire was not too bad last night and frequently blew away altogether. It was a beautiful evening looking over the sound, enjoying God’s Green Room.

           Come time travel with me.

Colonists in costume, Indians in full paint, the Queen being trussed into her massive dress, frantic walkie talkie chatter, Pavannes standing in a clump well away from Indian paint, props laid out on both tables, Brendan (Historian/Sir Walter) pacing the lower boat deck muttering lines, Sydney (Eleanor), Brett (Borden) and a few others in depression rags which they wear in Prologue jarringly juxtaposed with much of the company in their Queen’s Garden finery, the smell of freshly charged pyro devices, the children sequestered on one bench with a couple of parents (Valerie Medlin!) in charge of keeping them quiet, a backstage tour shuffles through, costumers bustling back and forth, stage manager calls echoing over the backstage PA system.

            I had a hunch and went to the backstage Queen’s Path and there I found General Manger Michael Hardy with Fred Chappell, waiting to enter for the dedication. Fred looks just the same. A warm greeting ensued; he was unaware that I was back in the pageant.

            After the dedication and other opening night recognition of major donors, blah blah blah, we started.

            And it went.

            You alumni know what it is like backstage during a performance. For those readers who don’t – it is a carefully choreographed         set-piece in itself as over a hundred people go about their business, each following their individual tracks. And the choreography isn’t planned, it just happens, and once established it rarely varies.

            Red soldiers frantically making the change from Amadas and Barlowe into Queen’s Garden, armor clattering to the ground, different armor being slapped on; Dancer Indians charging off to the showers to reappear as Buskar dancers in Plymouth;

“Clear!” as the huts are struck and stowed; the vendor carts for Plymouth being wheeled into place for their entrance, during the Ralph Lane scene the foliage is struck – “Clear!” The Plymouth ramp contraption (which hasn’t changed in all my years, it is still the same pieces – the way it wobbles when you make the turn) hurried on stage while medicine man Uppowoc (Jimmie Lee Brooks) cries to the gods, just seconds before the lights come up for Plymouth; the scurry up the ramp at the end of the scene and the even faster exit down the back stairs (hold up your capes); the intermission scene change – “Clear!”

            I won’t go into Act II because I rarely leave the stage during that act except for my change into depression garb during Queen’s Chamber – hurrying to enter from the Indian Stage for Baby Funeral/Mad Marge/Pot Scene. Also I leave briefly for a mad costume change behind Father Martin’s Cabin to enter in vestments for Christening, and after Small Skirmish I sit on the steps to the parapet and put on my knee pads because I’m about to start keeling over in the sand.

            Last night most tracks were highly focused, it was only the second time we’d gone through without stopping. As we get comfortable these tracks will get to be such second nature that we’ll barely think about them.

            Final March.

            You alumni know exactly what I’m talking about

           

            After the show was the opening night reception at the Lost Colony Building. You want to know how to attract a crowd of show people? Free food and drink, that’s how. And my, don’t we all clean up nicely. After three weeks of only seeing each other in grubby work apparel, covered with dirt and sand and sweat, it was a shocker to see everyone cleaned and dressed up.

            I had a chance to talk some with Fred and Agnes Chappell, and there were many other familiar faces of people from years gone by, and so many of the local folks that I knew from my decade of living in Manteo.

           

            When that affair wound down most of the company went back to The Grove for skits and M-M-M-Amoeba. I did not attend, my old arthritic knees were giving out.

            But Slaughter is tonight. I’ll be there.

            And so will you.