In May of 1991 we did Dark of the Moon was written by Howard Richardson and William
Berney.
Dark of the Moon is set
in the Appalachian Mountains.
A basic love story, boy meets girl, except the boy John is a “Witch Boy”.
John, the “Witch
Boy”, seeks to become human after falling in love the human girl, Barbara Allen.
The set was a stylized view of a rustic town and surrounding
area in the back woods of the Appalachian Mountains.
There was some fun in costumes of the sexy witch girls
played by dancers.
The cast was made up with mostly college students with a few
adults and children mixed in.
The woman who played Barbara
Allen was a bit . . . mmmmm…….Odd,
no Unique.
She was a widow with a 5 years old son who was always around
the theatre.
He was not a problem but most people were a bit surprised
that he was still breast feeding and one night during a talk-back onstage he
just came up onstage and had a little drink.
I hoping that that young boy is now a very well adjusted 29
year old man who loves his mother greatly.
This was the last play for long time and well-loved faculty director
Adam Lazarre.
Adam worked in Hollywood back in the 1950’s and 60’s was now
the department chair and had been the dean of the arts school when I was hired
at Brockport in 1982.
He had a small part in the movie Guys and Dolls and I saw
him in an episode of Perry Mason on ME TV.
After the last performance of the show a small tree was
planted in front of the building with a commemorative plaque.
The tree is still there and is now taller than the building.
I really liked Adam because he was not full of crap and
would tell just what he was thinking.
Some people did not like him because they could not bull
shit him and get away with it.
One day Adam and I were talking about nothing too important
when he just switched gears and for the next fifteen minutes talked to me about
D-Day.
He was part of the Normandy invasion on June 6th
1944.
He told about his group of men being trapped at the bottom
of the sea-side cliffs and how he spent the night listening to the injured men
that could not be reached or helped.
During the night the men called out for God or their mothers
but as the tide came in things got quieter.
I was not sure what to say so I just listened.
Back in college I had several friends who were Vietnam Veterans
and from time to time they would tell of something that had happened to them and
I found it best not to ask too much but just let them talk.
I think that they must reach a comfort level that finally frees
them enough to talk about it.
My father never talked too much to me about his experiences
in WWII.
The play was fun to work on with the various witches and a
few special scenes but a amusing moment came from our department secretary.
She was concerned for all of us working on a play that dealt
with witches and black magic so she had her church pray for us.
The next year when would produce Dracula she was even more
upset and there was even more pray for us.
Well all the pray must of worked as both plays did well and
there were no devil sightings.
Oh yes we still have a few pieces from the Dark
of the Moon and recently reused a
large shelf unit in our production of Fox
on the Fairway.
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