377 days - Blog #82 - a day's intention diverted by theater nostalgia

My intention for today was to finish clearing out the bedroom where I have been depositing the things for which I have no immediate purpose and make the space open for an office.  Unfortunately, I also set myself the task of purging those things as I go along.  Some things are easy.  I mean I know to hold onto them because I do use the punch bowl a couple times a year.  I hang my tablecloths that I rotate according to season in the closet.  I also keep my costumes in there (although I will once again attempt thinning out that box). Blankets for the colder months.  Curtains I switch out for the time of year when I don’t keep the windows open.  I also keep my file cabinet in that room (where it will likely stay) and store away important papers.  I have to revisit those papers and the expiration of their importance.  Like I just traded in my car that went directly to the auction block/scrap heap.  I’m pretty sure all my records of oil changes and maintenance are no longer necessary.

I also keep a small chest full of letters and journals from past lives.  But I didn’t even get to that today.  I got stuck on the red velvet storage box atop that chest, where I keep all my theater history that’s on paper – playbills tied up in ribbons.  Newspaper clippings of PR and reviews.  Notecards from appreciative cast members and directors.  And the odd trinket that was gifted with those cards.

I knew I was holding on to too much stuff.  But I had to go through every single piece of paper and card… and okay, I skimmed the programs.  I purged some.  Not as much as I probably should.  But baby steps, right?

Here lies the conundrum.  This is stuff I look at what?  Every five, ten years?  So clearly, I go on living life very well without it.  But opening up some of those messages clarified my memory to moments from twenty years ago.  Names of people who were dear friends in that moment that I let fade out of thought.  And that’s okay – but thinking of them reminded me of happy times, of threads in the tapestry of my life.  That’s great.  I mean I always lament that my twenties were a rough patch… but reading through signed programs I remember there were a lot of really great things.

Although before I get to that, I have the programs from the first two plays to which my parents took me when Worcester County Light Opera performed at Mechanics Hall.  The first was Oliver! to which we went because my dance recital that year performed music from the soundtrack.  I was five and yet I still remember that black unit set constructed in front of the pipes of the famous organ.  I remember the horror of understanding what happened to Nancy.  I remember falling in love with theater.  The next year the same group presented West Side Story on that stage.  Yeah, my parents took me to real kid friendly shows.  But that one was kind of special.  I actually remember my mother preparing me by explaining that it was the same as Romeo and Juliet – which to my six year old self was just excitement because I frequently requested that she play her record of Prokofiev’s ballet on the stereo.  I think I was disappointed when she took out the glossy album with Natalie Wood and Richard Beymer that sounded nothing like a Russian symphony.  I did love the play, though.  I remember being dazzled by the dancing.  And that’s not just because my youngest aunt’s boyfriend and almost his entire family were in the cast (they were pretty much half of the Jets and Doc).  I really enjoyed reading that cast list today and smiling at the fact all those Dufaults are now family.

It was also interesting to read through those programs and find names I recognized that are still active in the Worcester theater community.  That was over thirty years ago.  Definitely added some perspective on time passing.  It also added perspective when I contemplated that a lot of people I know in the Worcester theater community weren’t born at that point.

Anyway, the back page ad was also a bit of a startling revelation.  When was the last time a bank offered a 5 ½ % interest rate?  Also, how many bank mergers ago was WCIS?

So let’s skip ahead to high school.  I found playbills from dance recitals and musicals and the one act competitions.  There was a whole other level of competition to those plays – one that almost broke my confidence in my ability to act.  But then I found my first playbill from a Barre Players production where I got it back.  My whole history of Barre Players was wrapped up in those ribbons. 

Wow.  People I forgot about completely and then ended up googling to see if they still existed in this world.  There are still some mysteries… but it really reminds me of the intense flame of friendship that exists in the vacuum of a play… and how it can burn out so quickly after the set strike.  Well, at least in those teen/early twenties days.  

On the other hand, there was the Once Upon a Mattress program in that pile.  The play that brought into my life so many dear, dear friends.  Friends whom I may see once a year or on Facebook or at every supper club… but with whom I am definitely connected for life.

And then, I found a whole bunch of stuff from Our Country’s Good.  The initial press clipping.  Reviews (including one where we pretty much got panned by the now defunct Worcester Phoenix, but for two raves for individual performances – mine one of them.)  I also opened up a seemingly inconsequential card and found this message from Doug Ingalls.

I think about Doug a lot as I revisit my intentions towards Barre Players.  I think of all that he did for that theater.  I think of how that theater burned him out.  I think of how we all loved him and wanted to work with him.  I think of all that we lost when his life was cut short.  So, yes, there were tears when I read that note.

There were also papers from my time at Hovey – cards of thanks, playbills, CDs of the music, and a few postcards.  I remembered the adventures of the White Rabbit and all our mischief in that booth.  Seriously, tech was a party at that theater.  And the reminder of the forge where some friendships began.  I wonder if there had been a Facebook in the 90’s would those other friends be lost?  Or would I be scrolling through their status updates glad we stayed connected?

Each play is a microcosm.  It can be tedious.  It can go too quickly.  It can be a moment that seems like an eternity – both in the scary and the very real, very I’m living it moment.  That box of papers had a lot of touchstones to those moments.  Some I was more than willing to toss.  I actually had several duplicate clippings (thanks to my grandmother and a few appreciative co-workers).  There was some stuff not worth remembering.  But there were people – names of people I wish I could talk to now.  Liz Hodgen.  Phyillis Southwick.  Vicki Hopkins.  Graham Rickert (who wrote me a very sweet letter… huh).  Kids who were in my directorial debut, with whom I was a kid.

And then, as I started to tackle that file cabinet and pulled out the theater folders, I found a bunch of other clippings.  Including this treasure of a small town editorial.  

It is really such a little thing… but to read that last sentence, “She must be a very talented person.”  I was 19 then.  Twenty years ago.  I’ve grown so much.  But maybe I don’t give that younger me a whole lot of credit.  I really don’t.

I keep her in a box.  Maybe the key is not about throwing it away.  Maybe it is about not keeping her in a box.