 |
| Getting ready to take a bow. Left to Right: Bob Hall, Brigid Amos, Paula Ray, Robin Buckallew, and Bob Graybosch. |
"It's
live theatre!"
The
waiting audience burst out laughing as the staff continued to fiddle with the
lights in the conference room, at one point plunging it into utter darkness.
The observation came not from an actor but rather from an ebullient audience
member. The live theatre had not, in fact started just yet.
Let
me back up a bit and explain how we got to that point.
About a week before my husband and I
were to leave for a family Christmas/ski vacation in Montana, I received an email from fellow Angels Playwriting Collective member Robin Buckallew saying
that she was still looking to fill some roles in a reading of her one act play "Until
They Forget". She also had some exciting news about the play: it had been
chosen as one of three regional finalists in the Kennedy Center American
College Theatre one-act competition. But that reading was to be in Minneapolis
toward the end of January. The reading she needed to cast was to take place at
the Lied Lodge & Conference Center in Nebraska City, Nebraska on Sunday
January 4.
Robin is completing her MFA in
Playwriting at the University of Nebraska at Omaha. "Until They
Forget" is one of the plays that make up her thesis, and one of the
graduation requirements of the program is a reading of an excerpt of a play.
Hence the concern about finding actors. When my husband Bob Graybosch got home,
I approached him about the idea of the two of us taking the roles. I assured
him that it would just be a reading, i.e., sitting at a long table with our
scripts open in front of us. At the most, perhaps standing at podiums. What was
I thinking?
The reading was scheduled for 5:15 pm,
and there was to opportunity to rehearse before convening at 1:30 pm in the
timbered lobby of Lied Lodge. The other two actors arrived: Paula Ray,
playwright, actress, and psychologist (also an Angels Playwriting Collective
member) and her husband Bob Hall, playwright, actor, director, founder and
artistic director of Flatwater Shakespeare Company, comic book creator, and
artist. We were in great company, and that was reassuring. Robin introduced us
to our director Michael Oatman, Playwright-in-Residence of Karamu House in
Cleveland, Ohio. We followed him into the conference room where we would
rehearse, and after the first read through, Michael cordially dismissed the
stage direction reader and announced that we would perform the play as a staged
reading (i.e. still reading from the script, but up on our feet, moving around
and carrying out the physical action of the play).
Michael is what I would call an
"actor's director," and it was such an exciting experience to work
with him. He is the type of director who can intuitively sense the potential in
actors, and knows how to draw that potential out. My husband Bob has no stage
experience (although he and I did once take an acting class with Sarah Imes
Borden, and I thought he did quite well.) In a very direct, demanding, but kind
way, Michael challenged Bob to find the character within himself, to loosen up,
and to deliver some of his lines with confidence to the audience.
I should also say that we were very
grateful to have theater veteran Bob Hall in the cast. It is always nice to
have a really solid actor that leads the way and whose performance everyone
else can latch onto!
We moved into the big conference hall
for one last run through, which brings us to the last minute light checks and
other technical scuffling about. After very moving speeches by Charlene A. Donaghy,
Robin's playwriting mentor, and by Robin herself, we launched into the
performance. Although the play examines serious themes of life and death, there
is a great deal of comedy in it, and the very engaged and appreciative audience
laughed throughout. We received wonderful comments afterwards, as did Robin for
her writing, and we all retired to the Timber Dining Room for a well-
deserved
meal. (By the way, I also had a chocolate martini and my husband had a
Guinness.)
An epilogue:
A few days after the staged reading, I
was hanging up the slacks I wore that day. (In order to tell this story, I have
to reveal a bit about my housekeeping habits.) Out of the pocket of the slacks
fell a '63 Corvette. OK, that sounds weird, so let me back up again with a
spoiler alert. At some point during the play, Bob Hall's character, Larry,
pulls a toy '63 Corvette out of his pocket. My character, Andi, takes the car
and plays with it for a while. I needed to get the car out of my hands, and it
seemed natural to put it in my own pocket. Each time we ran through the play, I
handed the car to Bob Hall to put into his pocket, but of course, after the
performance, we ate dinner instead. I sent the car to Robin, and she will take
it to Minneapolis for the reading there. That little '63 Corvette sure gets
around!
 |
| Reading through the script. Left to Right: Bob Hall, Paula Ray, Brigid Amos, and Bob Graybosch. |
