The Boy Friend, Summer 1988

In the summer of 1988 our production was The Boy Friend.

It was a summer of change as it was the first time in many years that Adam Lazarre was not directing the production.

Santo Giglio, the long time choreographer, would take over the directing duties.

The play was chosen in part because it would not be too much of a challenge.

For those who know it, The Boy Friend is not a deep musical, very light and to me it seems very similar to the classic No, No, Nannette in style and plot.

The musical has no show stopping tunes or ones that must people would know.

That summer we also had two outside designers working with us.

Both the scene and costume designers were from SUNY Geneseo, 40 or so miles to the south.

I knew the scene designer as I had worked with him a few times before and became friendly with the costume designer as well and we all had a good time that summer.

Our production was not bad and as always I had fun working on it.

The summer musicals were always lots of work but we always made sure that we had lots of fun too.

Wednesday lunchtime cookouts on the loading dock and of course cast parties after each show, and many of the rehearsals as well.

I do not have too many special stories from this production, good or bad, but as with many other shows I have bits from the shows still hanging about, literally.

Until the recent renovation we had a bright yellow plywood Sun from the show hanging in the shop.

Not sure where it is now, I will have to find it and put it back.

I had enough fun with the two outside designers that we talked about getting together after the show was done.

That fall one of the student assistants and I went down to Geneseo to see one of their shows.

Wrong show.

The play we chose to see was about women prisoners during the Holocaust.

It was sad and very Loooooooooong.

There was maybe 10 to 15 women in the play, all dressed in death camp outfits, very pale grey makeup and a few of them even shaved all of their hair off.

They did a fine job but it took more than just a few minutes to shake off the play and get into the mood to go have a few beers with our friends when it was done.

I guess that speaks to the effectiveness of the production and its very difficult subject.

When I left to go see the play I did not know what we were going to see, I just thought we would see some normal college production and have a few beers and laughs after.

The next school year would be the last for the scene designer and we also be getting the first of several new costumes designers.

We would have four different staff costume designers over the next five years and other staff changes were also ahead in next couple of years.

Through it all we still did our productions, most of them good and had a good time doing them.

 

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The Last Baron of Arizona, 1988

The Last Baron of Arizona was written by one of our faculty and directed by another.

It was a Youth Theatre piece, which means that it was based in part on historical facts and had to have some great moral or message, which has been lost to me over time.

It had a large cast with some of our better actors of that time and I am sure they did a good job but I really do not remember much about the play. 

We had a student scene designer and if I remember correctly we reused part of another set, the raked stage from Androcles and the Lion, and added a few new pieces to it.

We only did one week of regular shows but three “Creature Features”, student matinees, at 10 AM the same week.

What fun.

I know I have photos from the play; I just have not scanned them.

When I was looking for photos of the play I came across one that I thought was from the play but turned out to be from one of the Children’s Theatre Mini Tour productions that we did about the same time as many of the same actors were in both plays.

The Play was Low Bridge: Stories, Songs and Sketches of the Erie Canal.

The play produced as part of a class and the students worked hard developing the Mini Tours as that spent half of the semester working on a script and the rest of the time they toured to local schools performing the play.

The set had to be simple as it had to fit in the back of a big 12 person van.

I often did the scene design for these plays or helped a student do it.

They would always do one performance of the show at the college which I liked because it meant that I did not have to go out to see the play at some elementary school full of little kids.

Now I do like little kids, but when you too many together they can be scary as they all have runny noses and carry some awful kid diseases.

We do not call the school matinees “Creature Features” for nothing.

I will  scan and add the image program for the Mini Tour here as soon as I can.

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Jitters, 1988

Jitters by Canadian Playwright David French was written in 1979.

The better known Noises Off, a similar backstage comedy, was written three years later and was made into a movie in 1992.

 

When the play begins we see a traditional box set on the stage and actors come on and start to perform in what looks like it is going to be an awful play.

After a few minutes the “Director” stands up in the audience and stops the action on stage and we find out that we are watching a play-within-a-play.

Now this would have been funny except our director decided to add some preshow action with fake stage hands that gave away the joke.

He would make some other changes that did not help the show either but it was still funny, well for the most part.

After a set change the bad box set is removed and a two story dressing room unit is rolled downstage.

On this big rolling platform we also see the stage door, bathroom, stairs to the upper level and the greenroom.

Through an opening in the middle we can see part of the set that has been reassembled upstage.

It was a nice effect and worked fairly well.

I really like working on these kinds of sets and like all the added details that make it real and make it fun.

There were old theatre posters and programs, working mirror lights and even fire extinguishers under the stairs.

Fortunately unlike Picnic we did not need them during the show.

There was lots of action with people running about the set with one of the characters being knocked out at one point.

Over the years we have had many of our play adjudicated; now it is called a “response”, but the one for Jitters was extra special.

As I had said the director added some bits to the opening of the play and also cut some lines because he thought the plays was running too long.

Now we all know that if you read the fine print on your royalty payment forms to the publishers that you are supposed to do the play as written without any changes, but again we know that everyone makes a few changes from time-to-time.

The changes were big enough that during the talk with the adjudicator she asked if there was a different version of the script used in Canada because she did not recognize the play.

Opps.

As it turned out that her husband wrote the play.

VERY BIG OPPS ! ! !

This play had about three non-student actors in it but there were plenty of parts for the students.

I know that many students enjoyed the department costume designer who was in the play.

Was her over acting real or part of the show?

Depends on who you ask.

Still everyone involved had a good time.

I wonder what ever happened to that cat?

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