In the spring of 1989 our first production was a Hispanic
Theatre Festival which was made up of two one-act plays.
The first play, La Hiel Nuestra de Cada Dia, was
performed in Spanish and the second play, Leaves from Hell, was performed in
English.
For the first play a simple one room box set was set up in
front of the set for the second play and then removed during the intermission.
The Spanish speaking cast was made up of all adult non-students.
Although I asked many times I never got an English
translation of the script.
My limited knowledge of French was of no use to help me
light this Spanish play.
I had a native Spanish speaking student who sat with me
during a run through of the play whispering to me what was going on.
It was a bit frustrating for me because several time during
the play I would ask what is going on and she would say: "Oh it's not important, they're just talking".
Somehow I was able to create the lighting and cues for the
play.
The second play was in English so I had a better chance of
understanding it.
The entire cast was made up of college students, including
our chairperson's daughter.
The play was set in some un-named Latin American country and
dealt with a corrupt government, torture and other assorted evils.
The set was a stylized military base with camouflage nets,
barbed wire, ammo boxes and real rifles.
Real rifles?
Sure what could go wrong.
We had a student who had several rifles that were kept in a
gun locker at the campus police office and brought over for each show.
I do not think that I had worked on a play since high school
that used real guns onstage.
Unlike "The King and I" we did not fire
any of the rifles but did use a blank gun for one effect.
During one scene a woman is thrown against a wall and shot.
The wall had been prepared with several small holes drilled
through it and half of a plastic bowl attached to the back.
As the woman was thrown against the wall and the gun was
fired stage blood was poured into the cup.
The effect was very real but the director always wanted the
blackout to come too soon and many in the audience never got to see the blood.
After each show the fake blood was washed off the wall.
Looking over the program I was reminded of the number of
good students we had at that time and the good job that they did.
* * *
