9/11 - Ten Years Later

On a sunny Tuesday morning ten years ago I was watching the Today Show as I was getting ready for work and saw the first reports of a fire at the World Trade Center.

Just a few minutes into the report I saw a plane hit the second Tower live on TV and like most others watching that day I knew that the World as we knew it had just changed forever.

Things happened fast that day and by the time I got to work the Towers had fallen, the Pentagon had been hit and Flight 93 had crashed in Pennsylvania.

Just before noon we got word that the State was closing down the College and all State Buildings and everyone was sent home.

Like most people I watched the TV reports for the rest of the day and tried to figure out what had happened and what was next.

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Too many people were lost that day and I found out a few years later that I had once met one of those heroes thirty-five years ago while I was still in college.

He was the twin brother of one of my friends and I enjoyed a few beers and some laughs with him during a visit to Buffalo. 

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Please take a minute to remember him and all of those who we lost on 9/11.

Geoffrey E. Guja

Age: 47

Hometown: Lindenhurst, N.Y., USA

Occupation: Firefighter, New York Fire Department

Location: Ground, World Trade Center

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Cars and Chick Peas

All through college and while working in NYC I never had or needed a car, but when I got the job at Brockport I needed to borrow my folk’s box van to move up from Long Island.

It was fun to have the van and I even used it to pick up lumber for the first play I worked on at Brockport, but soon my parents wanted it back and drove up and exchanged it for their Ford Pinto, a wonderful little car complete with an 8-Track player!

This is the infamous car that got Ford in trouble when it was alleged that they decided it was cheaper to pay off a few lawsuits then fix the problem with the gas tanks that made the cars explode in accidents.

Ford Pinto

It was one of the first hatch-backs and was not quite as ugly as the AMC Pacer and just five years later I would buy a new Ford Escort GT, the car that replaced to Pinto.

It was to be my parents’ only trip up to Brockport and I gave them the full 50-cent tour.

My younger readers may not understand why I find the next story so funny.

While out with my parents for dinner my father looks down at his salad it says loudly:

 “What’s this in my salad?”

“Mmm, it’s a chick pea Dad, you know a garbanzo bean.”

While common today’s salads, back in 1982 my Dad was still expecting the basic 1950’s salad: lettuce, tomato and maybe an onion slice, but chick peas, olives or sunflower seeds were just too new for him at that time.

For those of us a bit older it is amazing how much food has changed over the years and that younger people think that we always had microwaves and that chichen has always been boneless.

When I drove the Pinto home at Christmas I found that my parents had bought me my own car; a green 1972 AMC Javelin.

It cost $500!

AMC Javelin

The car may have had the look of a classic muscle car, but with only about 100 hp it seemed to have less power than my John Deere mower.

AMC did make the AMX model that was sexy, powerful and had a cult following, but my base model Javelin had little power and died less than two years late, but through the kindness and help of a few friendly auto parts dealers and car mechanics I did learn a lot working on that car.

I learned how to replace gas and oil pumps, the starter motor and assorted filters, fuses and belts and I was even taught how to “Hot Wire” the car with just a screw driver.

As much "Fun" (Read: lots of work, pain in the butt) as the Javelin was I had arranged to buy my sister's 1977 Camaro Rally Sport soon after she gave birth to her first son and needed a family car.

It was one of the last years that cars had real crome bumpers.

Camaro Rally Sport

Just a few days before I was to go to Long Island pick up the Camaro the Javelin blew its transmission.

Even with just the base V-8, my Camaro still had tons of power and because it was the LT model it had AC and power everything.

I enjoyed driving it for the next few years and managed to get only one speeding ticket.

Although fun to drive it was not at all a practical car and soon after turning 30 I thought it was time to get my first brand new  and “Adult” car, but for a few years I felt cool zipping about in my Camaro.

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I start my 30th year teaching at Brockport on Monday look forward to new challenges and adventures.

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Bus Stop and One Year Complete

The second production of the summer of 1983 was Bus Stop and I got to design both the sets and lighting for the play.

It was going to be first my first real full designs at Brockport and I wanted them to come off well.

Bus Stop Set Rendering, 1983

We only had 6 days between the end of Show Boat and the opening of Bus Stop so we had to work fast.

The construction started right after Show Boat opened, as we worked in the shop by day and ran the musical at night.

It made for long days but everyone seemed to enjoy it and took pride in getting it all done and often we would stop at Barbers or The Rox for a beer before heading home.

 

Although it was hard work it was not as long and crazy as the summer I spent at Gateway Playhouse when we did four big shows plus several children’s production, but it was still a lot to get done in a short time with our small crew.

We used a lot of stock canvas flats and a few custom-built triangular ones for the ceiling and side return flats.

I was very happy with the results and the play went well.

The play takes place during a snow storm and we had a little effects projector that looked OK but I think it died soon after the play opened and we had no snow effect for most of the performances.

At that time the Department would to hold the second show over and perform it one weekend right at the start of school in September.

This is why I had worked on Sherlock Holmes the first day I got to Brockport almost a year before.

I had a new place to live, one of my colleagues sublet me his house while he was away on sabbatical, and I let two of the cast members stay with me the week of the hold over performances.

Because they had just graduated and moved to Boston but came back for the shows I thought the least I could do is save them some money and have them stay in my extra room.

The first year went well but was not without incident.

I already mentioned that Ralph dislocated his shoulder during Show Boat but he also cut his elbow open at strike.

He got back from the hospital in time to take another student who had stepped on a nail to the ER.

While putting up some final decoration for the play a student came in during the afternoon and he was warned that some of the stage battens were down and we were working with them.

Well he just kept walking bent down and ducked under the first pipe but came up hitting the second one and knocked himself out cold.

He came to quickly, and although a bit Woozy, he performed that night.

Back in February there was a major incident on The Tangled Yarn just a day or two before it opened when one of the actors, who was also a bit off, went completely nuts and caused some problems and was thrown out of the show.

Of course he was pissed, made lots of noise, smashed a few things on the way out and disappeared.

He was arrested few days later when he attached a girl on campus and we never saw him again.

The actor who took over, Ralph, did a much better job even with a script in hand. 

As I went back and read through the programs from my first year at Brockport I found that about sixteen former students and six other people I met that first year are current Facebook friends with me.

Like most summers I have had  a few visits from former students and I always enjoy when they come by, regardless of whichever “generation” they are from, the 1980’s, 1990’s, 2000’s and even ones who just graduated in May.

I like to hear their stories and hope that time at Brockport had helped them along their life’s journey in some way.

I did not know back then how much the experiences and people from that first year had built a foundation from which my life would grow.

With the first year of school and productions and with a few weeks off but I was eager to start my second year and see what adventures were still ahead.

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Show Boat and Fireworks

My first year at Brockport was very exciting, challenging and lots of fun and it felt good to be in a real Theatre job.

Being a Technical Director was not the job that I had trained for but three years later when I would also become the Lighting Designer things got closer to what I had hoped to be doing back in school.

Even then I did not know that I would still be at Brockport about to begin my 30^th year.

It has always been the unknown challenges of each new production that has excited me and has kept me coming back for more.

To that point in time no design faculty had ever been given tenure at Brockport and even though that first year in Brockport was good I kept an eye out for other jobs.

I was not sure what I was looking for but it is just the nature of Theatre that while we are working on one show we are always planning for the next one and that is the way I saw my job.

As I posted in a previous blog entry, I would keep looking for another job for the next fifteen years before I felt comfortable enough to call Brockport my home.

Next up was my first summer at Brockport and two productions; Showboat and Bus Stop.

My first few summers at Brockport the department produced two shows, then cut back to one and now we have no summer show.

The production staff was all regular department personnel and student workers.

Over the years there would be more outsiders involved in the production, but back then it was just like another regular department show.

Showboat was what is often called a Town and Gown show where most of the cast were students, faculty and college staff members with a few local actors mixed in.

None of the actors were paid back then and my student shop staff made very little.

I remember one of my first fights with the Chairman/Producer was about paying the student workers.

I think they made about $1000 working on two plays over 10 weeks with few days off.

He thought that they should only get $100 each, and I told him was crazy, full of shit and that we would not have any workers if he tried to cut their pay.

The set for Showboat was a large river boat made up of three large two-story rolling sections that were moved in various positions to be both the inside and outside of the boat.

A few other smaller set pieces were also used for some of the scenes.

I was very impressed on how hard the crew worked to build and run the show.

 One night during the show one of the actors, who was also an assistant stage manager, was tripped by a platform coming by, fell and dislocated his shoulder.

Evidently this had happened to Ralph before, and although in pain told me to follow him into the scene shop.

Holding on to the very heavy table saw with his good arm Ralph had me pull on his other arm and “Pop” it back in place.

He then ran back into the Theatre and went back on stage.

The Show Must Go On.

We did party from time to time and even worked on the 4^th of July.

Working in Show Biz seems like it is all fun to those on the outside but it is often lots of long hard hours.

We did take time off those first two summers for the town fireworks, not to see them but to run them!

The then lighting designer, Mike, was trained in pyrotechnics and fireworks and ran the show.

I think back now and cringe a bit to think that all of the fireworks were stored in several boxes in what is now my office and Mike would label and organize all of the shells.

In the afternoon of the day of the show we would go over to the field and dig holes for the pipes that would be used as the mortars that would launch the shells.

We would also set up the single-use cardboard tubes for the shells that were used as part of the Grand Finale.

It was July and of course it was very hot but we still had to wear long sleeves and hats to stop the falling burning embers from the firework shells.

It is hard to describe the experience without saying it was a BLAST!

During the show I was assigned two mortars to load with the firework shells that were stored 50 feet away in a covered box.

I would run back and forth between the mortars and boxes, stopping to clean out the mortar between shots, careful not to look in or have your head over the end on the pipe.

One of the years we did have a shell that went up and came back in the same field near us, the firemen quickly put it out and we had no other problems.

During the show I was so busy I did not get to watch and enjoy much of it as I was so focused on the job at end.

At the end of the half hour show I was drenched with sweat, exhausted but very pumped up and went out with the crew for some celebratory beers.

The second year was just as much fun but I remember to wear ear plugs.

I still had one more show to design and build before the end of my first full year at Brockport.

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Plays, Parties and Beer

The forth play of my first year at Brockport was The Country Wife.

It was the biggest and most complex set of the year and it offered some challenges and I enjoyed working it.

It was a big unit set with some smaller set piece that rolled or flew in to change the scenes.

The Country Wife, 1983

One item I built myself was a large 4 x 8 window that came out well, looked good onstage and became a frequently used item in our scenery stock.

Almost 30 years later we still have the window and it was most recently used this past year in the set for Black Comedy.

The Country Wife window re-used in 2011

Also a part of the set were three signs cut out of ¼” ply that represented various shops that were supposed to be on the stage.

Two of the signs, a shoe and beer mug, were mounted on the scene shop wall until the recent renovations and I saved them and hope to put them back up along with a few other pieces from the past.

Images of the signs will fellow soon.

There were plenty of other that kept me busy that first year; teaching classes, music events and numerous student productions.

Harlequins, the Student Theatre group, did a production of Happy Birthday Wanda June by Kurt Vonnegut.

Like too many other student shows over the coming years, they used too much scenery and platforms that were too high for the Lab Theatre.

I have tried time and again to advise the student designers about what will work in the Lab, but most of the time they want to do it themselves and do not want to listen to experience.

Over the years there have been a few very nice student sets that worked well and fit nicely in the Lab Theatre, but not too many.

When I was first hired I was just the Technical Director so I jumped at a chance to design the lighting for one of the senior projects and helped on many others as well.

I did not mind working on the music events except when a concert was planned for the afternoon right after the night we struck a big set.

It was a bit tuff working until 2:00 AM or later, having a strike party and then coming in early the next day to set up for a music concert. 

My first year at Brockport the drinking age was still 18 and drinking was an important part of all cast and strike parties.

Within a year or two the drinking age was moved up to 21 and we no longer could have a cooler of beer onstage for when the strike was over.

It was always a celebration of another production coming to an end, not about people getting drunk.

Strike parties have a long tradition in Theatre but things change and we could no longer have alcohol on campus.

Yes, drinking still goes on at student parties but I have not gone to one in a long time.

Unlike K-12 teachers, most college professors do not take any classes in how to teach.

So that first year I had to figure it many things out fast; how and what to teach, how to run college crews and probably the hardest thing - What was going to be my relationship with the students?

Boss? Friend? Big Brother? Teacher?

It is different today when I am almost 30 years older than most of my students, but back then when I was just a few years older than most of the students and often would run into them at local bars or at parties.

Because there was no rule book I had to figure out my own rules and guidelines but I knew enough that I would not date any of my students.

I know that I made a few mistakes, but that never stopped me from flirting and having fun.

But nothing would be wrong with dating a student who graduated before I came to Brockport or was a Theatre major at another college.

It was good that I did have some non-Theatre friends (the Deadheads and others) as it was impossible to live in town and not run into some of my students.

I did not try to hide from my students and often would have a good time hanging out with them but there always was that little thing in the back of my head that kept reminding that me that I was now an adult and was expected to make the right choice.

Being an adult, oh well.

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First four Plays at Brockport

Most years the Theatre Department at Brockport produces four major productions with faculty or guest directors.

A few times have we done only three because of scheduling problems but we have done five plays on a couple occasions.

My first year we did four plays: An Enemy of the People, by Henrik Ibsen, The ABC’s by Beth Linnerson, The Tangled Yarn by Stephen Levi and The Country Wife by William Wycherley.

I have already covered what most of what happened with An Enemy of the People and having survived that first production and was ready to jump right into the next show.

The second production was a Children’s Theatre piece.

Children’s Theatre has always been big at Brockport and when I first came here it was a major part of our production program.

When I interviewed for my job in NYC one of the faculty asked me what I thought about Children’s Theatre and not knowing that she ran the program I opened my big mouth and told just what I thought.

My only real exposure to Children’s Theatre had been during Summer Stock six years at Gateway Playhouse.

At Gateway they used whatever set was on the mainstage at the time and produced their play in front of it the afternoons before the evening musicals for adults.

Most of the actors were from the pool of sixteen year old girls who were “studying” acting at Gateway and they wrote their own scripts based what they knew about the basic story lines of the classic children’s stories.

A few of the adult actors were used to help run the shows and we made a few small set pieces and props in the shop to make the shows work.

When they did Puss and Boots on the Candide set it looked pretty good, but I do not think it worked quite as well when it was performed in front of the Gay Bath House set of The Ritz a few weeks later.

I was not impressed by the results the plays.

Build it fast, build it cheap and then pack the Theatre with hundreds of screaming kids on hot summer afternoons.

Of course they would sell them candy and get them all sugared up before the show.

So I told the woman who ran the Brockport Arts for Children Program about this and that I saw Children’s Theatre as a bit of a rip off and I felt that they often talked down to the kids.

I heard later she was upset at my answer, but if you do not want know what I think then do not ask me.

In any case I did get the job and now I was ready to do a “proper” Children’s Theatre production, The ABC’s.

The target audience was three and four year olds, so you know this was going to rival Shakespeare.

About eight actors in pajamas running about the stage play with six large blocks with letters painted on them

The smallest cube was one by one foot and they got bigger and bigger with the last one being four by four feet.

The largest one set in the corner of the basement and I just got rid of it two years ago at the start of the building renovations.

“Hi kids, A is for Apple, B is for Banana and C is for what a pile of Crap!”

OK maybe I was being a bit of a Theatre snob, but it was not my favorite play and we would do much better Children’s plays in the coming years.

Maybe the play was not really all that bad and it would have worked better in a small Theatre or room, but it was lost on the big stage especially with the kids sitting down in the auditorium seats far away from the actors up on the stage.

I thought getting back to working on an adult play for the third play would be better but I was wrong.

The Tangled Yarn was an original play by a playwright somebody found and had brought in.

I do not know if he was someone’s friend or what, but I was not impressed by the script, I would tell you the plot but I never figured it out.

It was memory play about the main character’s mother, growing up with repressed sexual emotions, blah, blah, blah.

The set was an big open black void, a few acting cubes, a simple table and a big spider web of jute twine over the stage,

The Tangled Yarn,

      get it,

         do you need me to explain it,

               I will,

                     you see . . . . .

The forth play of the year, The Counrty Wife, was much better and there were also many other productions to keep me busy that first year, senior projects, student plays, music events and more.

I will try to figure out the rest of my first year at Brockport and tell you more next time.

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THE MEANING OF LIFE, and other small things

After a crazy few days of classes, rehearsals, signing forms, and just getting settled in my new job I was surprised it did not take me too long to find a place to live.
It was a small one bedroom apartment in a house with four units.
I am not sure why, but the landlord had to two guys living there move upstairs to another apartment.
It surprises me that I am still friends with many of my first students, the Deadheads and others from my first party in Brockport but even more surprisingly I am still friends with Woody, one of the two guys who had to move before I could move in.

As I look back there are many people I met that first week, month and year both that I still run into and see with from time to time.
Just last week I had a meeting with the handyman who used to work for my first landlord and I still go to the car mechanic who helped me keep my first crappy car going.
Yes I know that there are many others who I have forgotten over the years but when I think back to my first days in Brockport I am lucky to have met so many good people who helped make it easy for me to stay.

I did not know at the time but a strong foundation was being created at the time that would grow and affect my life later on.
At first I was going to stay in Brockport for three years and then move on, but things change and three years became seven, then I got tenure and soon seven years became ten, then twenty and soon I begin my thirtieth year at Brockport.

For the first 15 years working at Brockport I kept my eye on other jobs and averaged one interview a year.
I got some nice trips all over the country and visited some great colleges but also visited some that made me feel lucky to come back to Brockport.

But in 1997 things changed as I met the woman who would become my wife and I also was invited to come to Boston interview for a job at MIT.
I had always enjoyed going on the interviews but this time I was not sure and called them to say I was not interested.
They called me back and begged me to come; they all but said that I had the job.

I had really just started dating Connie and was not sure how things would develop although I knew I really liked her.
I needed to figure out what to do and decided to walk through downtown Brockport to help me think about what I should do.
It was a nice sunny day and I think I ran into everyone in town that I knew on the street that day.

Hi Gary!


     How’s it going?


          What’s up dude?


               Glad to see you.


                   Nice day, be well . . .

It was on that day that I decided to stay at Brockport and not look for other jobs any more.
I had no way of knowing what would happen, but we really never know about what path our lives will follow.

If you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans.

A few years later I met the guy who took the MIT job and he told me it was a perfect job for him and he lived close enough to walk to work every day and was very happy.

I used to tell people I turned down the job because MIT is right across the Charles River from Fenway Park, and for this life-long Yankees fan it would be torture.
But in reality I guess I had figured out a bit of the meaning of life that day.

Love and Happiness.

It took me a while to while to figure out that although fame and money may be nice, its friends and family are the really are the most important things in life.
What I was looking for was already here and those people who I had met from my first days in town plus all the others I have met over the years helped make Brockport a comfortable place for me to live, even though I bitch and moan from time-to-time.



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