Age on stage: never too old?

What is it like being an octogenarian in a musical? Exciting. Fun. And exhausting.

I used my age (84) to persuade the Clarksville Community Players to let us stage “Guys and Dolls Sr.” this winter rather than wait until I really got old.

The show was a great success and a terrific experience. Here I was directing singers as music director when I might have been home in a rocking chair watching game shows on TV. I didn’t even need to play the piano—we had a recorded soundtrack from Music Theatre International.

Most fun were the auditions, in which I got to pass judgment on everyone, like Simon Cowell of “American Idol” (“Next!”) But we only got 19 applicants for 25 roles, so nobody was sent home.

With no experience as a conductor, I listened extensively and read the scores of such songs as “Luck Be a Lady” and “Sit Down, You’re Rockin’ the Boat.” With an old man’s memory, I never fully remembered the words until showtime.

Instructing the singers was a challenge since most of them insisted they didn’t know how to sing. (But they were wrong!) Director Monica Walter had to talk me into waving my hands to be beat. How do directors do that, turn the pages and signal louder or softer at the same time?

Then she suggested I should also be in the show since the non-singers could follow me. Well, that was really enjoyable. I even shaved off my beard to be more realistic as a gangster.

I looked a lot better in my loud, red sports coat and flashy pants than I do in real life. Well, so do most people in costume. The senior women dressed as bar-room dancers got to be 25 years old again.

It’s easy to make new friends when you are playing fictional roles and pushing hard like a sports team to make your event a success. Cast and crew all helped each other. I enjoyed working with the leading characters: Holly Stadtler, Colleen (Coco) Corrice, Preston Hubble and Greg Thrift.

Singing “Feud for Tinhorns” (“I got the horse right here”) with  Andrea Steehle and Gary Walter was so much fun! I embarrassed myself by missing a line on opening day but redeemed myself the next day.

My daughter and family came from South Carolina. The children loved the show and asked me later teach them “A Bushel and a Peck.” One of them was in a show last summer at the same venue, the Clarksville Fine Arts Center. I hope I am setting a good example.

Despite the thrills, my age did catch up with me. I did not have the get-up-and-go of the 55- or 60-something “kids.”. We limited rehearsals to about two afternoon hours several times a week. The show was cut by more than half to accommodate our memory and energy limitations. But it still wore me down, and it was no coincidence that I became ill several times through rehearsals.

I decided I would never do this again. Welll, until the closing show. Somehow we had pulled off a major miracle leading up to this point, taking a fairly inexperienced cast to excellence. It was exciting to  watch the theater fill up within 305 people over two days, coming just to see us. We got rave reviews.

There were more thrills: nailing a song you were never sure of felt like winning a gold medal at the Winter Olympics. Taking bows at t the end after singing a vigorous number. Greeting friends in the audience who came to see you.

And suddenly you realize that your 2 ½-month romp with the cast and crew is over. You say a lot of good things about them, and they say a lot of good things to you.

There is a cast party and they feel like your brothers and sisters, people you have seen lately more than your own family. It may be the last time you see them.

So you have dropped everything the last 2 ½  months: other social activities, travel and even your exercise class. You feel tired and wiped out but also exhilarated.  

You think, maybe, just maybe, with the declining years you have left,  on a smaller scale, you could possibly do this again.

Oh, and in case you want to see part of my act, click here. https://drive.google.com/file/d/1ZqwvZT52jadx1hhSOEytJJkFJrkFeqDJ/view?usp=sharing

 

 

 

 

Aching back or not, the show must go on!

The local seniors in “Guys and Dolls Sr.” Aren’t as agile as they once were, but they make up for it in preparedness and enthusiasm.

“Some can’t get up and down like they used to, having  knee and back problems,” says director Monica Walter. “But when I see these actors moving around, I forget they are an older group. They are active and help each out, giving each other feedback and pointers.”

The show will be put on at 2 p.m. on Valentine’ Day, Saturday, Feb. 14, and on Sunday Feb. 15 at the Clarksville Fine Arts Center. Admission is free, but donations are welcomed for theater renovations.

The musical by Frank Loesser has been popular for 75 years, but for the first time a new version is being presented  for performers over age 55 across the country. This one is sponsored by the Clarksville Community Players.

Gamblers, mobsters and their girls will zbe portrayed by an experienced cast already familiar to Southside theater goers.

Among the local actors:

— Preston Hubble as Sky Masterson, the smooth-talking gambler who is trying to win a bet by seducing a Salvation Army missionary. Hubble was a rabbi in the recent “Fiddler on the Roof.”

—Holly Stadtler as Sarah Brown, the missionary who is intent on converting sinners like Masterson. She was a pilot in “South Pacific.”

—Greg Thrift as Nathan Detroit, who is anxiously looking for a place to stage his craps game. He was Stanford Adams in “Bright “Star” and Captain Brackett in “South Pacific.”

—Colleen (Coco) Corrice as Miss Adelaide, a dancer who has been trying for 14 years to get Nathan to marry her. Corrice appeared in “Christmas Belles” and was Mama Murphy in “Bright Star.”

The group authorizing these senior plays hopes the shows will reflect the joy of the actors who have gotten another chance to perform.

“For many, it is the return of a passion they didn’t know would be available to them in the third act of life,” says Jacob Cocovinis, marketing director of Music Theatre International (MTI.)

MTI made “Guys and Dolls” and four other abbreviated shows available at lower cost for theaters and seniors groups, along with scripts, background music and instructions.

To make the show more adaptable for seniors, it has been cut to just over an hour by MTI. The play and rehearsals have been set for afternoons, rather than at night.

How hard is it to remember lines? Hubble says, “At 70 my memory isn’t what it was at at 18, but I am able to recall the lines by visualizing he published script.”

What about the physical movements required in a show? You won’t see many of the crapshooters kneeling on the stage. Most challenging for seniors are probably the movements by Adelaide’s Hot Box dancers. Says Anne Smyre, “I have always loved to dance. At 82, it is so much fun to dance and swing.”

In some ways, older actors have an advantage. They have a better view of themselves at an advanced age and are less competitive.
“Uh, don’t be so sure of that!” says Smyre.

Guys and Dolls Sr. is presented through special arrangement with Music Theatre International (MTI). All authorized performance materials are also supplied by MTI.  wwwMTIShows.com.

 

Another year around the sun

Memorable birthdays:

Ages 1 to 9: I believe that the entire California rainy season falls on Feb. 5. It always rained. We hardly ever went outside.

Age 10: Maybe we should have stayed indoors. A brawl broke out in our backyard. At least the birthday boy wasn’t hurt.

Age 13: My father took us bowling. Before the age of pin-spotters, he had to put all of the bowling pins back himself. Fortunately, we didn’t hit many anyway.

Age 16: I made a bee-line to DMV to get my driver’s license. After that I was quite popular with 14 and 15 year-olds.

Age 21: My first legal visit to a bar was boring and disappointing.

Age 30: At Stowe ski resort, I danced vigorously with  20-somethings to prove I wasn’t getting old.

Age 38: I was stood up by my girlfriend after an argument. I spent my birthday alone.

Age 40: After I played music at my party, a better pianist sat in and upstaged me. Happy birthday, Mike!

Age 42: Pickett, a much better girlfriend, suggested we all dance to music from the new MTV. Kids came too. What fun!

Age 50: I was upset all day because my co-workers and my family did not wish me a happy birthday. That is, until the surprise party, when Pickett brought a cake to my work. I was in a state of shock.

Age 60: I was depressed about being old. Old? Sixty? Let me tell you about old, kid!

Age 70: The best birthday ever. Three other singers put on a concert with me at our house, and I played Broadway tunes in a sing-along. I sang “I’m StillHere,” probably a little prematurely.

Age 74: At the opening night of “1776,” the cast of McLean Community Players celebrated with me after the show.

Age 80: I sang “I’m Still Here” again, in a Zoom birthday party during the pandemic.

Age 84: I’m still here!

My snow experiences

 

Maybe I should have stayed in California. I never saw snow until we went sledding in the Sierra Nevada when I was 15.

So moving east, I had a number of bad encounters with the unfamiliar winter weather:

1965: Why scrape ice off your windshield? In Pittsburgh, I just tossed a bucket of hot water on it. Oh! It cracks? I never thought of that!

1966: I had the bright idea to drive from Pittsburgh to my new job in Portland, Oregon, in March. I got past Chicago and Minneapolis OK, but I wanted to look at Mount Rushmore. When I saw a snowflake fall on George Washington’s eye, it was too late. My U-Haul became unhitched, and I fell on ice while I put it back and broke a rib or two.

1975: I broke another rib at Aspen, Colo., when a cross-country guide took us down an icy road that turned to pavement and I fell. Oddly, that was my only ski injury ever. I went downhill skiing several hundred times and was never hurt.

1978: The President’s Day storm dropped 18 inches of snow in Arlington the day after a big party I held at my house with few visitors. I lived off the leftover chili a friend made for a week.

1987 (Nov. 11): The new company I worked for moved to Vienna, VA, from Boise, Idaho, and managers were surprised to see a foot of snow in Virginia on Veterans’ Day. No snow day for us! The boss picked us all up in his Range Rover to go to work.

2016: During a famous blizzard, my back went out the first time I dug a shovelful of snow. Pickett, who took over, vowed to move us out of our house into an apartment. We did, but we had little snow the five years we lived there.

2026: I became hysterical in Cluster Springs over a threatened snowstorm while Pickett was gone. Fortunately, the storm was a bust and I shouldn’t have worried so much. Where was Pickett? She fled to California, of course.

At least, in snow you often get pretty scenery. Then why, in about 65 years away from the Golden State, did I see only about three white Christmases?

The bad ideas hall of shame

 

Some major mistakes in history:

 

1.         The Segway. The stand-up scooter to ride around town was bulky, hard to maneuver and over-hyped. I have seen them used on tours of Washington, D.C. monuments, but little else.

2.         Hydrogen airships for travel. They were abandoned after a fire on the Hindenburg in 1937 killed 35 passengers and crew. (The Goodyear blimp floats with helium.)

3.         Pay toilets. Still common in Europe, they disappeared from big American cities after angry reactions  in the last mid-century.

4.         Reserved seats in movies. Sorry, but most films I see nowadays aren’t that crowded anyway.

5.         Marlon Brando as Sky Masterson in the “Guys and Dolls” movie. Sorry, I have been focusing on this a lot as we prepare for our show in Clarksville. It hurts to see him sing “Luck Be a Lady” instead of Frank Sinatra.

6.         Napoleon’s invasion of Russia. What was he thinking? I heard that it’s cold in Russia in the winter.

7.         New Coke. Consumers rebelled against this sweeter version in 1985, and the company took it off the market in 79 days.

8.         Google Glasses. I don’t know anyone who tried wearing a computer on their noses.

9.         Audrey Hepburn in the “My Fair Lady” movie instead of Julie Andrews, who played Eliza Doolittle on Broadway. Julie got her revenge with “Mary Poppins” and “The Sound of Music.”

10.  Indoor auto racing. Do they still do that? The noise and smoke really bothered my dad when we attended one in Oakland when I was 16.

 

 

Southside Surprises

I thought

I knew what was going on around  here until I talked to our B&B guests. 

Three of them I met over breakfast had driven all the way from Newport News to see a Renaissance Faire.  Really? Here? Yes, Woodbine Vineyards in Buffalo Junction had 300 visitors in November for  sword-fighting, jousting and costumed revelry, followed by a legacy ball in the evening. 

Who would have thought? (I’ll bet they sold a lot of wine.) Then the two guests were going to visit an aqua-zoo in the afternoon. Huh?  What’s an aqua-zoo? Oh, it is a mixture of an aquarium and an animal zoo called the Hill City Aqua/Zoo at a shopping mall in Lynchburg. 

Another told me about a haunted hayride held every October at Staunton River Battlefield State Park. 

Really? Several years ago, guests told me about a new winery across the border into North Carolina: Tunnel Creek Vineyards. I visited the next day and they hired me to play piano. 

So I looked up a bunch of things people might not have known about in the area. 

—Kirby Cultural Arts Complex in Roxboro. I’ve seen a bunch of shows there including “Hats,” “ A Christmas Carol” and “Lady Day at Emerson’s Bar & Grill”.  It is often overlooked because it is in another state. 

—TJM Center in Cluster Springs is a great venue for community events and meetings. It hosts a seniors appreciation dinner once a month. 

—Moton Museum in Farmville recalls the 

student strike that led to a landmark court decision on desegregation and Prince Edward County’s decision later to replace public schools with private schools. 

—Prestwould Plantation, sandstone Georgian manor  near Clarksville, provides a glimpse of plantation life in the 18th and 19 th  centuries.

—  The Boydton Model Railroad Club, based above the Town Hall at 461 Madison Street in Boydton, maintains several operating model- train layouts and hosts open-house events when visitors can run trains. It is open 9 to 11 a.m. Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. 

— MacCollum Moore Gardens in  Chase City is a historic museum and beautifully landscaped garden complex showcasing regional history, art, and nature in a serene setting

—  Poplar Forest, near Lynchburg, is Thomas Jefferson’s octagonal retreat home, a beautifully preserved architectural masterpiece he designed for privacy, study and experimental building. 

—Danville Baseball: The city has two summer baseball teams of college players, the Otterbots and the Dairy Daddies. They both play at the stadium in Dan Daniels Park. 

—The Thomas Day House in Milton, N.C., has psostponed renovations until next December. That means you can still visit Tuesdays through Saturdays 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Hourly tours are given of the home of the African-American cabinet maker who was the state’s largest furniture manufacturer before the Civil War.  Info at 336-592-8120.

Me? A Gangster? For an hour, yes

 

The great thing about acting is you get to be somebody else.

When I was rehearsing an unfamiliar role for Prizery Summer Theater, director Chris Jones once told me,“Don’t be Mike Doan.”

Huh? Why not? What’s the matter with Mike Doan?”

Well, as Monica Walter, director of “Guys and Dolls Senior,” told us, “Immerse yourself in your character. Think of who that person would be.” It is a challenge for all of us.

Preston Hubble, whom we know as a mild-oannered gentleman, has to become a scheming underworld gangster, Sky Masterson. Holly Stadtler, an assertive film producer in real life, switches to the role of the bland, shy missionary Sarah. Colleen “Coco” Corrice, a smart lady with a lovely voice, becomes a low-class uneducated dancer in the role of Adelaide.And there is Gary Walter, an experienced actor who claims not to be a singer. Well, he is now!

And me? I get to play music director. Yes, it is quite stressful but mostly fun and good for my aging brain cells.

I’m also portraying an argumentative street-smart gambler who picks horses with his betting buddies. Me? I know nothing about horses. I’m even allergic.

We are having a blast in our pretend roles as we prepare for the musical featuring over-55 actors on Feb. 14 and 15 at 2 p.m. at Clarksville Fine Arts Center. We aren’t even charging admission—donations are welcomed, though.

But then reality occasionally sets in. Something to make you forget your made-up roles for a while. We are all absorbing the recent death of Mike Kimmel, who was going to play the role of Lieutenant Branigan. I barely knew him, yet I am mourning too. We are a family.

Judging our forebears

 Today would be my grandfather’s 150th birthday. My sister and I find it remarkable that we lived with someone born in 1875, when Grant was president, Victoria was queen of England, and the electric light bulb hadn’t been invented.

I have been struggling to write this column about Fred W. Gee, because I have mixed feelings about him, as many of us do about our forebears.

He was a nice, amiable gentleman but wasn’t “warm and fuzzy” or tremendously accomplished. I never thought his English reserve and understatement served him well in the raucous colonies. Blame him if I am not gregarious myself and don’t smile often.

A tailor by trade, he left England for this country at age 17 without telling his mother. When he returned for a visit many years later, she scolded him about it right away.

When his wife died in 1922, his three children, including my mother, were farmed out to relatives and there is no sign that he saw them often. Today that would seem cruel, but I am not so sure that was unusual by early 20th century standards.

With frequent dizzy spells, he was quite dependent on my mother and her brother, taking turns living at each house.My father, his son-in-law, resented this.

I remember my grandfather making high-quality coats for me as a child. I was the best dressed kid my El Cerrito, California neighborhood.

He was a decent baby-sitter, making me stop shooting rubber bands at my sister, Milly.

As a past Master Mason and member of the Sciots, he did have a number of friends but was certainly no extrovert. I was honored once when he took me to one of their gatherings to hear an Oakland newscaster talk about world affairs. I still have the ancient typewriter he used, perhaps an inspiration for me to write.

I’m not sure I ever forgave my grandfather for selling his Walt Disney stock. I was fascinated with the Mickey Mouse drawing on the envelopes. A share in 1957 would have been worth $2,700 today.

I have a few fond memories of his later years: In his nursing home, the man he shared his room with appeared to have bad dementia. Was that a problem for him? “I am my brother’s keeper,” he responded with a “stiff upper lip.”

At Christmas in 1968, his last before he died at age 93, he was fascinated with Liverpool photos on a Beatles album someone received as a gift.

Two things I remember him saying often: “I’ll give you what you want when my ship comes in” and “Don’t get old, Mike.” Well, too late for that.

(Hm. I wonder what my grandchildren will say on my 150th birthday?)