B A N G !

By my junior year I had gained confidence working on the stage.
I was designing the lighting and helping building the sets.
I was given more responsibility and was enjoying it.
Our first play that year was Night Watch and I have no special recollections from this show so it must have all been wonderful and everyone had a great time.
. . . .or it was hell and I have blocked it all out.

The spring musical was The King and I and it was both fun and challenging.
We used risers as platforms for both the palace and dock scenes.
We decided to tape brown paper painted as wood grain for the dock in the first scene and then quickly tear it off for to reveal the palace for the rest of the play.
I helped paint the paper each day as it was ruined when we would tear it off.
The second or third time I decided to hide my name into the painted loops of the wood grain.
With only minutes to curtain I pointed it out to somebody who got a good laugh and we did it again the next day adding a few more names.
Never did hear any complaints from the director.

A special effect of a gunshot was needed when Tuptim or her lover is killed offstage.

* * * Now before I go on I must tell you that Sayville High School is a suburban school about 40 miles from NYC and not a rural school in the Midwest.
People are often surprised when I tell them that back in 1973 there was a rifle range in the basement of the school and it was not unusual to see somebody carrying a rifle case walking down the hall after hours.
I do not know if it is still there, but I can not imagine that they would still be using it.

So back to the play, and our technical advisor asked one of the students to bring in a rifle or two to use for the gun effect.
A blank was put into a .22 and was not loud enough.
A blank was put into a shotgun and again the teacher did not think it was loud enough.
Several live .22 bullets were fired backstage into the floor and into the stage left closet.
I saw a bullet hole in the ceiling of the closet years later when I made a return visit there.Next was a live shotgun blast into the floor up stage left under the risers.
I was running the lighting board stage right when the shot was fired and pellets from the shell ricocheted under the risers and came out on my side scaring everyone there.
The next day I had a box of newspaper there for them to shoot into and contain the blast.
I was told later that we were lucky that the paper never caught fire.
What were they thinking.

Now I have been involved in a lot of wild and unsafe stuff in theatre, and I am guilty of some of it, but this was the most unsafe, insane thing I have ever seen.
Wait, there was a crazy stunt in Barnum years later, but that story is still to come.

I do not remember why, but we did a third production my junior year.
In May we did The Wizard of Oz.
Stories about this show and touring scenes to the elementary schools coming up next.