When I started at Brockport
I was not sure of my long term plans.
I thought I would give it three years and be out and on to
something new before I was 30 years old.
Well here I was about to start my fifth year at Brockport and I had turned 30 in
January of 1986.
I was pleased that the students gave me a surprise
party and a homemade birthday cake.
I still have the birthday card they gave me signed
by most of the students and staff of the department.
So the 1986-87 school was just ahead and that season we did
the following plays: Crimes of the Heart, Working, Master Harold. . . and the boys and The Dining Room.
For two years in a row we had planned to do an original, up-dated
version of Lysistrata, and both years we had to replace the play because
the script was not ready.
I still have the season fliers from 1986-87 and 1987-88 that
list Lysistrata.
We never did that production but did do a staged reading of
the play some 15 years or so later and part of a national anti-war protest when
many theatres across the country did readings of the play.
I few years ago the students staged a production of the play.
I did not like the version of the script that they had
chosen, but they all worked hard on the show and had a good time doing it.
During those mid 1980’s we also had an active arts for
children program that did a touring production each year that would go out to local public schools with a play
that the students created with their teacher.
The cast of about ten students would write the script,
design and build the set and costumes and run the whole production and I would help
the students to build the sets.
The whole production had to fit into the back of the big van
they drove to each school.
I was always impressed with how hard the students worked and
the seriousness in which they took the show even though it was a children’s
theatre production.
They would always do one performance of the show at the college so everyone could see what they had done.
Years before I had work on children’s theatre productions where
they were just thrown together with little care except for the fact that a
quick profit could be made.
It was nice to see how it could be done right.
Because I was both the Technical Director and the Lighting
Designer the powers-that-be saw fit to find money that I might hire a part-time
adult technical assistant.
I have always had work study student assistants, many of
whom have been great, but there is something having another person with training
to count on while supervising the students building the set.
We were not sure who would get the job but we would start
looking around.
At this same time a man about my same age was getting ready
to return to college after working for a number of years.
He had been a Tech Theatre major in college and had done
some work for the then WWF, World Wrestling Federation.
As Jerome is getting to come to school his mother keeps
telling to stop by the Theatre Department and see if they had a job for him.
He kept telling her that it did not work that way but would
stop by when he could.
Soon after school began in the fall Jerome stopped by my
office, told me about his prior work experience and that he was looking for
work.
To his shock I hired him on the spot.
I am sure it must have hard when he went home and told his
mother that he got the job.
“I told you so.”
Jerome was a good worker, helped me build the sets, hang and
focus the lights and supervise the students and he stayed for two years.
It was also nice to have another knowledgeable “Adult” to
bounce design and construction ideas off of.
It was a good year and I will have stories about each of the
plays, some of which are funny and some are even true.
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