42nd Street, Summer 1990

42nd Street, Summer 1990

42nd Street, TD and Lighting Designer, 1990

42nd Street is a big, fun musical based on the 1933 movie with songs added from other movies of the period.

Of course it was hard for me to jump right back into the swing of things when I returned from my mother's funeral, but once I did get back to work there was something comforting about being back in the Theatre.

Drew had design a nice set that was a mixture of all new construction with a few pieces re-used from other shows.

We had a good crew including a former student who that I was able to hire as my assistant who  had come back home to Brockport after finishing Grad School.

Like most sets we re-used some pieces, altered some stock pieces and made some from scratch.

For one scene we re-used some of the mirrors from A Chorus Line from the year before.

The mirrors were hung in a semi-circle for one song in  42nd Street.

We also re-used some of the Rosco silver slit drape that I had used in Anything Goes a few summers before.

We did some welding of several step units, which yes we still have and I just used in our last production.

In building the train for the Shuffle Off to Buffalo number my assistant Jim suggested using stress-skin platforms something I knew about but never used before.

The platforms worked out well and I have used stress-skin platforms many time since then.

As with many productions there are always a few small set pieces that are difficult to construct.

For this show it was large coins that are carried in and then danced on.

After several tries the finished coins were made of several layers of foam with 1/8" Masonite on the tops and bottoms, or should I say the heads and tails.

We're in the Money!

My crew, especially the guys, enjoy this shows as there was lots of naked girls running around back stage.

Sitting out front setting the lighting for the show I did not get to enjoy the view but I heard all about it.

As there were many quick changes the chorus girls would run off stage and into the back cross-over hall where they would disrobe, many time just wearing their panties.

As they ran along the hall they would pick up the next costume and run back onstage.

This happened mostly in the sequence starting in the train station with the Lullaby of Broadway and ending on the train for Shuffle Off to Buffalo.

As I was told the girls would run off stage and strip off most of their clothes and just put on a trench coats, go back onstage and do a number, again run off stage, drop the coats and this time put on 1930's nightgowns and underwear and then run back onstage and sing again.

My crew, always trying to be helpful, were always at the door to hold it open as the girls ran through.

Playing a smaller part in the show was the college-age son of one of our talented students.

Back then he was Scott L. Diggs but today he is Taye Diggs.

I remember a bit he did with an older character actor in the show.

We needed more time for a set change and the tow of them did a few minutes of improv about miss-matched socks or other earth shaking stuff.

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Things Change---The Grapes of Wrath, 1990

My vacation in May of 1990 started out just like the previous eight years.

After the last show of the school year was done and school was over for another year I took a few weeks off and went back to Long Island to visit my family.

As I had done most years before I came home to relax, visit with family and friends and maybe go into the City and see a Broadway show.

That May I saw The Steppenwolf Theatre Company production of The Grapes of Wrath with Gary Sinse as Tom Joad.

It was a great play but I was stupid and bought box seats on the side.

I could see backstage and saw how things worked but still I wish I had a seat more to center.

I was not impressed by the stagehands in shorts and a printed t-shirts walking on the stage at intermission.

Also while back on Long Island there were several used book stores that I liked to visit and of course I had to get some Pizza.

I am a bit of pizza snob.

I like New York Style Pizza and although I had some favorite places to go I found that almost anyplace I went on Long Island I would find better Pizza than I could back in Brockport.

This trip was different because my mother was sick.

She had seemed to have a cold or flu that had gone on for months.

My mother was in good spirits but her voice was going and she found it hard to talk.

After two weeks it was time to go back to Brockport and start work on the summer musical 42^nd Street.

When I got back to Brockport we got right to work on the play.

It was going to be a big show but we had a good crew and I was happy because I able to hire on a former student who just got out of Graduate school as my assistant.

Things on the show were going well but each time I called home my mother’s voice got worse and after a while see could not talk loud enough to use the phone.

In early June I got a call that my mother was in the hospital for tests but she was doing OK.

At first they said she had Lyme Disease. 

It seemed to fit some of her symptoms but not all of them.

After a week I got a call, my mother had cancer, but it was the “Good Kind”.

I did not know that there was a “Good Kind”.

It did not sound good so I made plans to go home.

The play could wait.

The Scene Designer and ATD said that they would take care of things while I was gone.

The day before I was leaving for home I got a call, it was too late, my mother had passed away.

She had insisted on starting chemotherapy treatment but it was too late and too much for her.

So now I was driving home for a funeral, not a visit.

Needless to say it was trip that I do not remember making.

My mother was a member of the local volunteer ambulance company and they were great in helping with everything.

There were people in uniform standing as an honor guard each day at the funeral home, EMT’s, firemen and police.

Funerals by their nature are not funny but some things do happen that can make you laugh.

I drove my father to the church and the cemetery after the mass.

Instead of a hearse the coffin rode in a box ambulance along with a police escort.

My dad smiled a bit when he saw the motorcycle cops block the entrance to the highway so that the funeral procession could get on.

As we were nearing the cemetery another funeral procession was pulled over to the side of the road so that we could go past.

The other people in the other funeral procession had seen the police with lights on and the ambulance so off course they pulled over to the side to let them by and we just drove right by them all.

This made my father laugh and said something about how my mother would have liked what had happened.

This has been hard for me to write and what makes it more poignant for me is that my mother was just 58, the age I am now.

A few days later I returned to Brockport and got back to work on the summer show.

Everyone was nice and had kind words of support when I got back and although it was hard it nice to have something to take my mind off of what had happened.

It was good to get back to work but of course my mother was still on my mind.

Somehow we all pulled together and got the show done and managed to have some fun doing it.

Unfortunately a few weeks later the mother of one of my student workers was killed in a car accident and everyone was numb for a while again.

After the show was over I went home again in August for a visit.

It goes without saying that it was hard to go home but I wanted to support my dad and sister who also lived there.

Of course this was a major milestone event in my life and these events, both good and bad,  happen on their own schedule and never seem to happen when it is convenient.

Back in college my grandfather died during the blizzard of ’77 and there was no way for me to get home for the funeral.

My one grandmother died when I was a senior in high school and her funeral was the day I was supposed to take the NYS Regents Exam, similar to the SATs, that was used to award scholarships.

After talking with my family it was decided that my grandmother would have wanted me to take the test and take care of my future and somehow I was able to do well and I even got a scholarship.

Working at a college and also in Theatre sometimes I feel a bit insulated from the real world and unfortunately it take something like my mother’s passing  smack me in the face and make me see the real world.

I am sure that everyone’s parent’s passing is hard and affects each person in a different way.

For me getting back to work was just what I needed at the time, but even today 24 years later there are times  that my minds wanders and I think of my mother and have to stop and reflect for a few moments.

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