Good Grief, John Boy - Part Five
Boomie was as good as her word. I did not have to rehearse a lot. She called.
"Why the hell is Boomie calling me? Oh, yeah. I said I'd do that thing." Did I work on Sunday and if I didn't could I attend a rehearsal in Nelson County? Sundays and Mondays are my days off, so I didn't and I could. She arranged for Gregg, the guy playing Clay, Sr. to pick me up. I saw the Community Center and the theater for the first time; sat around for a few hours memorizing my lines; did my scene once; waited while they worked on Gregg's scene; then went home. It all felt very distant, this thing I had stepped into. Overhearing Boomie's commments to other actors, I was surprised to realize that these people had been rehearsing daily for weeks. At the end of the day, Boomie had rattled off a string of rehearsal dates, which I ignored because I knew I had to work and I knew the Boomie knew. What I didn't know was when my next rehearsal was to be, but I figured it would all work out in some way or another. Now going home, mostly I was concerned with remembering which DVDs I had to watch that night.
During the following week, I memorized my lines and requested schedule shifts from Robert but mostly forgot that I was in a play. This was Thanksgiving week, and the wineshop was to be closed on Thursday. To compensate for not having those hours, I had worked on Monday. So I didn't get my normal weekend and was looking forward to having one. Still, the next Sunday, there was another call from Boomie and Gregg picking me up and both of us trucking down to Nelson County once again. That day, I got to do my scene two or three times and then sat around while other scenes worked. Again, at the end, I was ignoring rehearsal info when it penetrated that Boomie was talking about Tech Week and Final Dress ... you know ... performance stuff, all stuff that my theater instincts told me I probably should be listening to.
But the whole thing felt dreamlike and surreal. My mind and body fully expected me to be alone, sacked out in front of the tube, watching DVDs and sipping on some fermented beverage or the other. Yet here I was in this beautiful valley, surrounded by all these new people, in classrooms that weren't really classrooms anymore, in a theater that wasn't really a theater yet. There was wood and paint around. They were building the bar. They were building the set. They were talking costumes and props. Well, to each other, but not to me. I was just this guy who had walked in. When the costume person finally came to measure me, I felt she was invading my space.
At one point, tired of reading the Buck Rogers collection I had brought, I wandered and read what was painted above the door to the black box, "The Earl Hamner, Jr. Theater".
Huh. Dig that. "The Earl Hamner, Jr. Theater" Peter had gone all out. He had named his theater after Earl and was doing his adaptation of a Hamner piece as his inaugural show with the hopes that it would become a yearly event and cash cow. It started to dawn on me that this was actually something, that people were trying to build something, and wasn't I in it? Maybe I had better get my head into this game.
People were talking tickets. Apparently Earl's got quite a following and there was much buzz about a new Earl Hamner, Jr. Theater doing a new adaptation of The Homecoming. People were calling from Texas. We had 50+ seats in the house; we could barely support the interest of Nelson County. There was even talk of an NPR story, a slot on Morning Edition. I asked Peter how we rated Morning Edition? He said, "Something having to do with Earl Hamner, Jr. is a big thing."
"Huh," I thought. "I wonder if it would still be 'a big thing' if they knew that I had had two rehearsals and was being wrapped in a sheet?"
"Why the hell is Boomie calling me? Oh, yeah. I said I'd do that thing." Did I work on Sunday and if I didn't could I attend a rehearsal in Nelson County? Sundays and Mondays are my days off, so I didn't and I could. She arranged for Gregg, the guy playing Clay, Sr. to pick me up. I saw the Community Center and the theater for the first time; sat around for a few hours memorizing my lines; did my scene once; waited while they worked on Gregg's scene; then went home. It all felt very distant, this thing I had stepped into. Overhearing Boomie's commments to other actors, I was surprised to realize that these people had been rehearsing daily for weeks. At the end of the day, Boomie had rattled off a string of rehearsal dates, which I ignored because I knew I had to work and I knew the Boomie knew. What I didn't know was when my next rehearsal was to be, but I figured it would all work out in some way or another. Now going home, mostly I was concerned with remembering which DVDs I had to watch that night.
During the following week, I memorized my lines and requested schedule shifts from Robert but mostly forgot that I was in a play. This was Thanksgiving week, and the wineshop was to be closed on Thursday. To compensate for not having those hours, I had worked on Monday. So I didn't get my normal weekend and was looking forward to having one. Still, the next Sunday, there was another call from Boomie and Gregg picking me up and both of us trucking down to Nelson County once again. That day, I got to do my scene two or three times and then sat around while other scenes worked. Again, at the end, I was ignoring rehearsal info when it penetrated that Boomie was talking about Tech Week and Final Dress ... you know ... performance stuff, all stuff that my theater instincts told me I probably should be listening to.
But the whole thing felt dreamlike and surreal. My mind and body fully expected me to be alone, sacked out in front of the tube, watching DVDs and sipping on some fermented beverage or the other. Yet here I was in this beautiful valley, surrounded by all these new people, in classrooms that weren't really classrooms anymore, in a theater that wasn't really a theater yet. There was wood and paint around. They were building the bar. They were building the set. They were talking costumes and props. Well, to each other, but not to me. I was just this guy who had walked in. When the costume person finally came to measure me, I felt she was invading my space.
At one point, tired of reading the Buck Rogers collection I had brought, I wandered and read what was painted above the door to the black box, "The Earl Hamner, Jr. Theater".
Huh. Dig that. "The Earl Hamner, Jr. Theater" Peter had gone all out. He had named his theater after Earl and was doing his adaptation of a Hamner piece as his inaugural show with the hopes that it would become a yearly event and cash cow. It started to dawn on me that this was actually something, that people were trying to build something, and wasn't I in it? Maybe I had better get my head into this game.
People were talking tickets. Apparently Earl's got quite a following and there was much buzz about a new Earl Hamner, Jr. Theater doing a new adaptation of The Homecoming. People were calling from Texas. We had 50+ seats in the house; we could barely support the interest of Nelson County. There was even talk of an NPR story, a slot on Morning Edition. I asked Peter how we rated Morning Edition? He said, "Something having to do with Earl Hamner, Jr. is a big thing."
"Huh," I thought. "I wonder if it would still be 'a big thing' if they knew that I had had two rehearsals and was being wrapped in a sheet?"
posted by - caj at 9:56 AM
3 Comments:
Now THAT sounds cool. Who cares how many rehearsals you did or didn't do? You're a part of the inauguration of a new performance space, what you're doing affects the development of theatre in this community, that's just so wonderful.
By the way, is everything okay down there after this ice storm they're talking about?
I would point you to the (latest?) National Geographic.
In it they profile my Southern cousin's hometown of Monroeville Alabama and talk about the massive yearly To Kill a Mckingbird that goes on down there in the land of Truman and Harper.
Nice to be in on the ground floor of such an event I'd say...
Get down with your famous self.
:)Lee
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