The summer of 1976 was a great deal of fun for me.
It was the summer of America’s Bi-Centennial; I was 20 years old, had two years of college behind me and had just spent a month working off-Broadway and now I was about to work the rest of the summer doing Summer Stock Theatre.
Gateway Playhouse is in Bellport, Long Island and has a long history, starting first as a hotel in 1941 and then producing their first musical in 1950.
More about Gateway’s history can be found on their Web site:
The summer that I worked there most of the company was made up of college aged actors and technicians from all over the country.
My family home was only ten miles away and a few others were also local but many came from off Long Island, some as far away as California.
There even was a woman from Columbia; a funny story about her will be in a later post.
We all lived at Gateway in one of several buildings ranging from the big main house and former hotel to a few small simple dorms.
I was lucky enough to live in the “Hilton” with the other male members of the technical staff.
The “Hilton” was part of the original old Barn Theatre and we thought our rooms had once been stalls or chicken coops.
We were on the far side of the new Mainstage Theatre building far away from everyone else and the dining room in the main house.
This was both good and bad at different times that summer.
For the most part we all got along and had fun that summer, but of course there were a few big bumps and interesting surprises in store for us.
Not everyone there was a college student.
The Directors, Designers and Technical Director/Lighting Designer were all older professionals.
To a 20 year old older could have meant anywhere from 28 to 40 or even 50, my memory is not clear on it.
I do remember that the Scene Designer was local High School Art Teacher and the technical staff got to go to his house for a party.
Perhaps I should have said the first scene designer and Technical Director/Lighting Designer, as the there would be big changes in the middle of the season.
The male technical staff was made up of mostly college students with two exceptions.
One was an older man (30 – 40?) who was a career counselor at a local community college and the second was a 16 year old high school student, who along with the 16 year old son of Gateway’s owners, would get themselves into some interesting adventures that summer.
In the years since working at Gateway I have come across several of the people who I worked with that summer.
With the aid of Google and Facebook I have found that some of those who worked with me that summer stayed on to work in Theatre, while others have seemed to have followed other life paths.
We all got along fairly well with only a few exceptions.
There was one guy from California who annoyed everyone by always telling us how better it was back at his College and he hogged the only payphone talking for hours with his girlfriend back home.
Tales of the two 16 year olds will follow soon.
But as a whole we got along if only to fight against producers and how the theatre and shops were run.
The scene shop was extremely underequipped with few power tools, open to the air on one end and we were given nails in one pound boxes.
We had to ask for more nails several times a day.
It was only when the ATD was sent out to buy 25 more one pound boxes and returned with a 50 pound box for less did the producers see that maybe there might be another way of doing things.
There were other issues and problems with the Theatre and some of them lead to the first Technical Director firing or quitting after the second play.
Regardless to any of the shortcomings or problems that may have occurred that summer, I learned a lot and gained a great deal of confidence in my own skills and have always been glad that I worked there.
More details to follow in make next installment.
Updated 12/18/18
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