Gateway, Part 3

By the end of the first day at Gateway we all knew a few things about how the summer would go.

The shop had no bench power tools: no table saw, no band saw, no radial arm saw, not even a hand-held laser cutter.

Our rooms were small, the beds were awful and the food was even worse.

From those who had been there the summer we heard stories before how bad the food had been and they told that we should be happy how good it was now.

Evidently they went through a few cooks, one who made the cast sick because she did not know that you take the giblets out of turkeys before you cook them.

Another cook served the cast and crew beans and franks on the opening night of one of the plays and they plastered the walls of the dining room with the food.

The cook the summer I worked at Gateway tried his best to give us good food and even some special treats when he could, but on a whole it was pretty bad.

We always had a big vat of “Bug” juice to drink, Mmmmmm.

In those first few weeks we quickly learned about each other as we worked on the first play “West Side Story”.

We explored the buildings and grounds of Gateway; the two theatres, storage and work spaces and found our favorite places to hang out after work.

I used to like to sit up on the roof of the rehearsal hall late at night and look up at the stars.

But we always seemed busy with little time off.

Sketch I did at Gateway back in 1976

Actor Kieth Rice by the pool and building in my drawing.

The only power tool that we had was a circular saw which was by far not my favorite tool.

By the end of the summer I had gotten over fears and became pretty handy with it.

I had also brought the tools that I had bought for school, including my hammer, and they all got a great deal of use.

It was that summer when my hammer gained some of the magic that is now in it.

It seemed to me that the Technical Director spent most of his time dealing (fighting) with the producers and I do not remember him working in the shop too often.

We had problems with the wiring of the lighting boards and I worked with the Technical Director and a few others to re-wire the lighting boards.

We worked all night right after we closed “West Side Story” so that the dimmers would be ready for the next show.

That night turned out to be July 4th, which was America’s Bi-Centennial and I heard but did not see any fireworks.

The three lighting boards were old Luxtrol Autotransformer dimmer six-packs.

I had worked with this type of dimmers before and had some knowledge about them, but learned a great deal more that night.

Some of the wiring had insulation that was so old and dried out that it was crumbling off and causing short circuits.

More fun was yet to come.

Updated 12/18/18

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Gateway, Part 2

The summer of 1976 was a great deal of fun for me.

It was the summer of America’s Bi-Centennial; I was 20 years old, had two years of college behind me and had just spent a month working off-Broadway and now I was about to work the rest of the summer doing Summer Stock Theatre.

Gateway Playhouse is in Bellport, Long Island and has a long history, starting first as a hotel in 1941 and then producing their first musical in 1950.

More about Gateway’s history can be found on their Web site:

http://www.gatewayplayhouse.com/history.html

The summer that I worked there most of the company was made up of college aged actors and technicians from all over the country.

My family home was only ten miles away and a few others were also local but many came from off Long Island, some as far away as California.

There even was a woman from Columbia; a funny story about her will be in a later post.

We all lived at Gateway in one of several buildings ranging from the big main house and former hotel to a few small simple dorms.

I was lucky enough to live in the “Hilton” with the other male members of the technical staff.

The “Hilton” was part of the original old Barn Theatre and we thought our rooms had once been stalls or chicken coops.

We were on the far side of the new Mainstage Theatre building far away from everyone else and the dining room in the main house.

This was both good and bad at different times that summer.

For the most part we all got along and had fun that summer, but of course there were a few big bumps and interesting surprises in store for us.

Not everyone there was a college student.

The Directors, Designers and Technical Director/Lighting Designer were all older professionals.

To a 20 year old older could have meant anywhere from 28 to 40 or even 50, my memory is not clear on it.

I do remember that the Scene Designer was local High School Art Teacher and the technical staff got to go to his house for a party.

Perhaps I should have said the first scene designer and Technical Director/Lighting Designer, as the there would be big changes in the middle of the season.

The male technical staff was made up of mostly college students with two exceptions.

One was an older man (30 – 40?) who was a career counselor at a local community college and the second was a 16 year old high school student, who along with the 16 year old son of Gateway’s owners, would get themselves into some interesting adventures that summer.

In the years since working at Gateway I have come across several of the people who I worked with that summer.

With the aid of Google and Facebook I have found that some of those who worked with me that summer stayed on to work in Theatre, while others have seemed to have followed other life paths.

We all got along fairly well with only a few exceptions.

There was one guy from California who annoyed everyone by always telling us how better it was back at his College and he hogged the only payphone talking for hours with his girlfriend back home.

Tales of the two 16 year olds will follow soon.

But as a whole we got along if only to fight against producers and how the theatre and shops were run.

The scene shop was extremely underequipped with few power tools, open to the air on one end and we were given nails in one pound boxes.

We had to ask for more nails several times a day.

It was only when the ATD was sent out to buy 25 more one pound boxes and returned with a 50 pound box for less did the producers see that maybe there might be another way of doing things.

There were other issues and problems with the Theatre and some of them lead to the first Technical Director firing or quitting after the second play.

Regardless to any of the shortcomings or problems that may have occurred that summer, I learned a lot and gained a great deal of confidence in my own skills and have always been glad that I worked there.

More details to follow in make next installment.

Updated 12/18/18

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Gateway Playhouse 1976, Part 1

There are many things that I want to write about during my summer at Gateway Playhouse.
We did four plays: West Side Story, Annie Get Your Gun, Candide and The Ritz plus several Children’s Shows.
There were so many memorable things that happened and I have started a list to help me remember the details.
I have not decided what I want to talk about first and I am not sure that I want to write about things even after 33 years.
You may have to wait for my book to find out the fun details, but who knows, I may tell you anyway.

Stay Tuned.

The Outline so far:

Mostly College Students
The Hilton
Hurricane Belle
Bicentennial 4th of July
Pound of Nails
Pizza and Miss New York runner-up
Ragtime
The Hobbit
Costume Designer Quits
Re-casting Annie Get Your Gun the last day
The Benefit Show
Jackie Gleason’s TV Sets
The High School Girls
Hugh and the Girls
The Shower
Missing Girls
ATD Bob
TD and Scene Designer Fired
Children’s Theatre
Parking Cars
Going back ten years later to visit one of my students
The Food
The Snake
The Bee Sting
Bugs
The Shop and Tools
Re-wiring the Light Board
Double Headed Nails
The Producer’s 16 years old son
The guy from Cal State Irvine
The Pool
The Character Actor

And yes, Naked People!

Still Here, More to Come Soon

I have been very busy with the current play that I am working on, A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, and have not had any free time to write.

http://www.brockport.edu/theatre/

In addition for the first time in 27 years I am moving to a new office and have to pack up everything by the end of next week.

I have given away many of my extra books and have been bringing my plants home as my is new office is smaller and has no windows.

This move is only temporary as they are renovating the Tower Fine Arts Center.

It takes a long time to pack when I am always stopping to go through the papers, photos, draftings and toys that I have accumulated over the past 27 years.

I will get back to writting over the Christmas break and will continue the story of my favorite summer working in Theatre.

Working for a month in NYC was great but many more adventures would happen at Gateway Playhouse.

As I noted in an earlier post the Theatre at St Clements Church has been both an active Church and Theatre for many years and is still going strong:

http://www.stclementsnyc.org/

Gateway Playhouse too has a long history as a Summer Stock Theatre and more information about it can be found on its WEB site:

http://www.gatewayplayhouse.com/

If you dig through their WEB Site you can find copies of the programs for the shows that I worked on back in 1976.

I am looking forward to getting back to telling my stories, adventures and mostly true tales.