My Track part 1

On a typical show day I wander into the theater at about 7:20. Principal call isn’t until 7:45 but microphone check must be completed by 7:30. Go figure.

When Lisa, Max, Alice and I lived in the Bee Hive in the 90s I would walk up the path behind the Prince House (alas!), through the big parking lot and down the main path to backstage. Later, after we moved here, I generally parked at the Park Ranger building and walked down the other path by the Visitor’s Center. Now I park at the LCB and walk  down the side path that goes through the woods. Variety is good.

I wave at asst. stage manager Simmons Falk on my way in to indicate that I’m there. He is parked on the costume shop deck checking off the roll. We don’t have a gatekeeper anymore. Then I walk through the men’s dressing room and into the scene shop which is part of the same building, across from the stage right props cabin. Sound Engineer Kevin Nissley is generally in there farting around with the mic packs and he’s usually the first person I say “Hey” to. Kevin is a local and was brought in at the last minute to take the job when we had the great quitting/firing/WTF upheaval of the sound department during the rehearsal period. I didn’t tell you about that? Oh well…

Often while I’m putting on my mic pack Pyro Goddess Stephanie Sexton (Just Friends!) will be in there loading shells in to the live shotguns we use in the show. I give her a polite, friendly greeting. “Always be polite and friendly to women with shotguns” is one of my mottos of life.

From there I proceed on to the stage. The Actor Techs have already set up the stage for the first act. I walk in to the sand beside an Indian hut and cross to center on the top of the Green (because the sand has already been raked). Stand on the jetty. Up in the sound booth at the top of the hill I get the “Whenever you’re ready!” from the board operator who is also named Stephanie but I don’t know her last name because she isn’t in the program due to the previously mentioned coming-in-at-the-last-minute-sound-department snafu. We have to do our mic checks at full show volume. I warm up by coughing a big smoker’s loogie and cut loose:

“ALMIGHTY GOD OUR FATHER – WE THANK THEE FOR THY MERCY AND COMPASSION ON US. YEAH! IN THY GREAT WISDOM…”

“Thank you,” says Stephanie, and I’m done.

I head in to the dressing room, turn off my mic and park it on the little 2x4 beam above the dressing table. I don’t speak in Act I and don’t put the mic on until intermission. I check my costume pieces (“that, that, that, that, that, shoes, hats”)

That’s how I start my show day on Tuesday – Saturday. On Monday we have full fight call at 6:15. On Mondays I arrive, wave at Simmons and go in to the house and hang out until everyone is there. I usually shoot the shit with Robert Midgette while we wait. I still call him “Chief.” This dates from my early years in the show when I was Old Tom and he was Chief Manteo.  Every night during Christening Dance he and I would have a few seconds of time to chat and Old Tom always greeted him as “Chief.” It stuck.

The Dancers have warm-up at 6:00 and then wander in to fight call when they are done and we proceed. The Chief gives us notes or a pep talk, as does asst. fight director Jimmy Lee Brooks. Then we run Big Battle followed by Small Skirmish, which used to be called Little Battle, which is why Big Battle is called Big Battle (as opposed to Little Battle) but now Little Battle is called Small Skirmish. I don’t know why. Alliteration? Probably.

When those two fights are done I sit in the house while they run the Borden/Simon fight that’s part of Plymouth. I always watch this because I’m offstage at that point in the show and don’t ever get to see it. It really is well done. I recall years ago (under a different fight director) when it was so over-choreographed and long that it became unbelievable and frankly tedious. But now the Chief has it just right.

When they proceed to running the Ralph Lane Massacre I head into the scene shop to get my mic and do mic check at about 6:45. Ditch my mic in the dressing room and usually leave for an hour because I have nothing to do. I always tell Simmons that I’m leaving the premises and will check back in before 7:45. I go home. There’s nothing to do there either but it beats hanging out backstage for an hour.

Either way I end up at about 7:40-ish hanging out backstage. I read the Company Notes (“don’t clump up - spread out!”) and check for anything concerning me in all the other stuff posted there. There’s never anything concerning me.

I chat with random people, hang out in the Miss Laura Long Smoking Lounge (so named in honor of Laura, although she never sets foot there), wander backstage, sometimes I’ll go up the stage left wooden path into the breezeways and people-watch (which is against the rules but that’s the kind of rebel I am). Often I’ll shoot the shit with Juliet Eden, who is from my other life in Moore County NC. She is a dancer and gets painted early. We chat about this and that and what’s coming up in the theater world for each of us when the summer ends. Three nights a week she dashes off for Path Activities which this year has been scaled back tremendously and consists of random Indians operating giant puppets and generally harassing the audience on their way down the path. Path activities are mandatory and there is no extra money in it and it is greatly loathed by those who are required to participate.

I usually lean against the rail and kill zombies for awhile. Back to the smoking area. Kill zombies.

If it is late in the week I get to talk with Valerie Chappel Medlin. The children in the show work a split week, one group Monday-Tuesday-Wednesday, and the other group Thursday-Friday-Saturday. Valerie’s daughter Kate is in the second group.

Valerie came to the Colony my first year as Old Tom (1992) as a dancer. At Slaughter that year she twirled and twirled and was dubbed The Slaughter Princess. The following year we had Brendan Medlin in the show as goofy Ananias (later he would be John Borden). He met Val and it was True Love. I attended their wedding in the Elizabethan Gardens one spring and later that summer Val was put on “light duty” which meant she wasn’t in Indian Dance. It wasn’t until the season ended that we learned that she was pregnant and there were worries that constant exposure to Indian paint could be damaging to her little guest. Bren and Val’s son Shep was born a few months later. Conceived in Morrison Grove!

Now Val is a Colony child wrangler. She and Melissa (last name unknown – if you’re not in the program I’m clueless although she said to me a couple of weeks ago “I just realized that you had that toy store where I spent all that money on Beanie Babies!” and I said “Thanks for the money!”) Melissa and Val sit on the benches backstage and make sure the children are dressed and where they are supposed to be and generally gossip and make lewd comments about the buff male Indians.

But I digress…

So I get to hang out with Val if it is the second half of the week.

At 8:10 I head into the dressing room.

Apparently there is a show and I’m in it and have to get ready.