First four Plays at Brockport

Most years the Theatre Department at Brockport produces four major productions with faculty or guest directors.

A few times have we done only three because of scheduling problems but we have done five plays on a couple occasions.

My first year we did four plays: An Enemy of the People, by Henrik Ibsen, The ABC’s by Beth Linnerson, The Tangled Yarn by Stephen Levi and The Country Wife by William Wycherley.

I have already covered what most of what happened with An Enemy of the People and having survived that first production and was ready to jump right into the next show.

The second production was a Children’s Theatre piece.

Children’s Theatre has always been big at Brockport and when I first came here it was a major part of our production program.

When I interviewed for my job in NYC one of the faculty asked me what I thought about Children’s Theatre and not knowing that she ran the program I opened my big mouth and told just what I thought.

My only real exposure to Children’s Theatre had been during Summer Stock six years at Gateway Playhouse.

At Gateway they used whatever set was on the mainstage at the time and produced their play in front of it the afternoons before the evening musicals for adults.

Most of the actors were from the pool of sixteen year old girls who were “studying” acting at Gateway and they wrote their own scripts based what they knew about the basic story lines of the classic children’s stories.

A few of the adult actors were used to help run the shows and we made a few small set pieces and props in the shop to make the shows work.

When they did Puss and Boots on the Candide set it looked pretty good, but I do not think it worked quite as well when it was performed in front of the Gay Bath House set of The Ritz a few weeks later.

I was not impressed by the results the plays.

Build it fast, build it cheap and then pack the Theatre with hundreds of screaming kids on hot summer afternoons.

Of course they would sell them candy and get them all sugared up before the show.

So I told the woman who ran the Brockport Arts for Children Program about this and that I saw Children’s Theatre as a bit of a rip off and I felt that they often talked down to the kids.

I heard later she was upset at my answer, but if you do not want know what I think then do not ask me.

In any case I did get the job and now I was ready to do a “proper” Children’s Theatre production, The ABC’s.

The target audience was three and four year olds, so you know this was going to rival Shakespeare.

About eight actors in pajamas running about the stage play with six large blocks with letters painted on them

The smallest cube was one by one foot and they got bigger and bigger with the last one being four by four feet.

The largest one set in the corner of the basement and I just got rid of it two years ago at the start of the building renovations.

“Hi kids, A is for Apple, B is for Banana and C is for what a pile of Crap!”

OK maybe I was being a bit of a Theatre snob, but it was not my favorite play and we would do much better Children’s plays in the coming years.

Maybe the play was not really all that bad and it would have worked better in a small Theatre or room, but it was lost on the big stage especially with the kids sitting down in the auditorium seats far away from the actors up on the stage.

I thought getting back to working on an adult play for the third play would be better but I was wrong.

The Tangled Yarn was an original play by a playwright somebody found and had brought in.

I do not know if he was someone’s friend or what, but I was not impressed by the script, I would tell you the plot but I never figured it out.

It was memory play about the main character’s mother, growing up with repressed sexual emotions, blah, blah, blah.

The set was an big open black void, a few acting cubes, a simple table and a big spider web of jute twine over the stage,

The Tangled Yarn,

      get it,

         do you need me to explain it,

               I will,

                     you see . . . . .

The forth play of the year, The Counrty Wife, was much better and there were also many other productions to keep me busy that first year, senior projects, student plays, music events and more.

I will try to figure out the rest of my first year at Brockport and tell you more next time.

*

THE MEANING OF LIFE, and other small things

After a crazy few days of classes, rehearsals, signing forms, and just getting settled in my new job I was surprised it did not take me too long to find a place to live.
It was a small one bedroom apartment in a house with four units.
I am not sure why, but the landlord had to two guys living there move upstairs to another apartment.
It surprises me that I am still friends with many of my first students, the Deadheads and others from my first party in Brockport but even more surprisingly I am still friends with Woody, one of the two guys who had to move before I could move in.

As I look back there are many people I met that first week, month and year both that I still run into and see with from time to time.
Just last week I had a meeting with the handyman who used to work for my first landlord and I still go to the car mechanic who helped me keep my first crappy car going.
Yes I know that there are many others who I have forgotten over the years but when I think back to my first days in Brockport I am lucky to have met so many good people who helped make it easy for me to stay.

I did not know at the time but a strong foundation was being created at the time that would grow and affect my life later on.
At first I was going to stay in Brockport for three years and then move on, but things change and three years became seven, then I got tenure and soon seven years became ten, then twenty and soon I begin my thirtieth year at Brockport.

For the first 15 years working at Brockport I kept my eye on other jobs and averaged one interview a year.
I got some nice trips all over the country and visited some great colleges but also visited some that made me feel lucky to come back to Brockport.

But in 1997 things changed as I met the woman who would become my wife and I also was invited to come to Boston interview for a job at MIT.
I had always enjoyed going on the interviews but this time I was not sure and called them to say I was not interested.
They called me back and begged me to come; they all but said that I had the job.

I had really just started dating Connie and was not sure how things would develop although I knew I really liked her.
I needed to figure out what to do and decided to walk through downtown Brockport to help me think about what I should do.
It was a nice sunny day and I think I ran into everyone in town that I knew on the street that day.

Hi Gary!


     How’s it going?


          What’s up dude?


               Glad to see you.


                   Nice day, be well . . .

It was on that day that I decided to stay at Brockport and not look for other jobs any more.
I had no way of knowing what would happen, but we really never know about what path our lives will follow.

If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans.

A few years later I met the guy who took the MIT job and he told me it was a perfect job for him and he lived close enough to walk to work every day and was very happy.

I used to tell people I turned down the job because MIT is right across the Charles River from Fenway Park, and for this life-long Yankees fan it would be torture.
But in reality I guess I had figured out a bit of the meaning of life that day.

Love and Happiness.

It took me a while to while to figure out that although fame and money may be nice, its friends and family are the really are the most important things in life.
What I was looking for was already here and those people who I had met from my first days in town plus all the others I have met over the years helped make Brockport a comfortable place for me to live, even though I bitch and moan from time-to-time.



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