March 25, 1998, 6:30 p.m. -- One hour till the moment of truth. One hour till the curtain rises on the final dress rehearsal of the Columbia Entertainment Co.'s Arsenic and Old Lace -- except there is no curtain. This is community theater, where almost every prop is on loan from someone's living room.
Tomorrow is opening night, the first of nine performances ending in early April, but an audience will grace the threater tonight because the Arthritis Foundation bought out the dress rehearsal for a benefit performance.
Do the actors feel the pressure? Panic? Butterflies in the stomach? Nope.
"I bet no one would have guessed that someone would someday be coloring these shoes in with magic marker," says Jessica Cutter (Elaine Harper). She scribbles furiously on her old heels, disguising worn areas with black ink.
She grins at Maggie Henson (Martha Brewster) and Judy Olson (Abby Brewster), who fit gray wigs over their hair. These three ladies, the only female cast members, enjoy the lack of traffic through their dressing room. Two doors down, 11 men squish into a room of the same size with no air conditioning.
The voice of director Ken LaTessa comes over the intercom, which is hooked up to the stage. "Two minutes till we open the doors." Swing music plays in the house.With 20 minutes to go, the women wonder if Ken is waiting on them to start the cast meeting. They recall last night's rehearsal, when they took too long to dress for Ken's satisfaction.
"He was yelling at us to get onstage, and we were naked," Jessica says. "If he wants us onstage naked, he needs to be warned of the consequences."
The women finish appling makeup and dressing in their '40s-style consumes. They file into the congested hallway that serves as backstage, where most of the men are waiting. Ken tells them he will conduct the cast meeting onstage tonight so the audience can watch. Some actors exchange amused looks. The audience wants a glimpse behind the scenes, but a cast meeting hardly illustrates what really happens backstage -- the camraderie, the exhaustion, the dirty jokes.
No one seems surprised when Ken runs the meeting as if he were performing, a result of his acting experience. While he fields some questions from the audience, the actors return backstage to make their final preparations.
A few minutes later, stage manager Paula Thomas gets the signal that everything is set to begin. "Places!" she yells. The lights go up. The play begins.
The audience members probably felt as though they were witnessing some theatrical mystery when they watched the cast meeting. To understand the Greater Mystery -- how this motley group of volunteers produced a quality show on a tiny budget -- they need to flash back about seven weeks.
They needed to attend auditions, when the hopeful actors didin't know each other's names and Ken agonized because not enough men came to fill the roles. They needed to participate in set construction on Saturday mornings, rehearsals five nights a week and evenings hanging out at a local bar.
Night after night, week after week, the cast members straggled into the theater, weary from a long day at work. They drained their energy reserves to nothing by bouncing across the stage with the energy of 5-year-olds. Each time they exited the stage, their feet dragged a little slower.
So why volunteer for this painful process and then show up for the next show's auditions? Is it really that much fun?
"I don't know if it's ever fun," Judy says. "It's fun after it's over, and it's fun when you look back. It's never fun while you're doing it."
Judy speaks from experience. She has acted professionaly and directs about two CEC productions per year. She's one of those people who can't get enough and believes strongly in the necessity of keeping community theater alive.
Judy is the most experienced actress on the stage and has the biggest role, but she rejects the label of "star." Sometimes she advises Ken on set decor or glues fake stained glass to stage windows. She'll direct CEC's next production, Fiddler on the Roof, which opens in June. Community theater is no place for an artiste, she says, because no one only acts.
"There aren't any stars here," she says. "We all do everything, up to cleaning the toilets."
CEC is a community theater in more ways than one because it's a community within itself. During rehearsals, Ken often refers to the "Black Hole that is CEC," which sucks you in and never lets you go. It becomes a second home, complete with an extended family.
Ken speaks fondly of the Black Hole, though, and the last thing he wants is for it to spit him out. He's sucked in so deep that he became vice president of the CEC board of directors, which coordinates the theater's shows and programs. Several cast members are on the board, demonstrating their unswerving loyalty to this small community.
The board also coordinates the Theatre School, a series of classes that teachs children about various aspects of play production. It's one of CEC's primary moneymakers.
Jessica is one of its many graduates and became one of the school's teachers during high school. Her mother, Karen, is costume director for the show.
Trevor Marlow, a 15-year-old who helps with contumes and plays a corpse, is another graduate. His mother, Darcy, is on the board and volunteers to keep the costume room from falling into complete disarray. When CEC grabs ahold of one family member, it sucks the others in as well.
New faces appear in the theater for each production, but the core group of actors and crew members remains the same. It's that close-knit community that keeps the theater running through hours of labor and donations of props and money. They do it because they believe their theater is an important aspect of the community -- and they have loads of fun along the way.
March 13, 1998, 7 p.m. -- Tonight is the first run-through, when a month of working individual scenes and acts comes together and the cast performs the whole play. No more scripts, and Ken will not prompt lines from the auditorium. It's either sink or swim.
The cast is now complete, which is a major achievement considering Ken searched desperately for someone to play Mr. Witherspoon, a mental hospital director, for about three weeks after rehearsals began. He finally recruited Jeff Arrigo, a veteran of CEC musicals, to play the part.
Tonight, almost all props and furtniture are in place. For several weeks, instead of an end table, the cast used a large, plasic stump -- a leftover from a previous show, Ten Little Indians. Several Arsenic cast members participated in that show, so the stump gave the theater a family-reunion atmostphere.
Before rehearsal begins, Ken shows Ashby Clark (Teddy Roosevelt) how to blow his bugle. He tells him to puff up his cheeks and blow just so. Ashby lets loose a mighty blow and out comes a squeak. He looks sheepish and tries again. It's better.
"Let's get going, or it will be a long night," Ken says.
From the stage, Ashby waves to his 5-year-old daughter, Sarah, indicating that she should be quiet. She obeys, taking her stuffed dog Daisy to play with a pile of wood chips left over from set construction. She soon loses interest and searches for a playmate in the audience, which mostly consists of actors and crew members.
Sarah, whose innocent expression is too cute to resist, is the mascot of this cast. She comes to almost every rehearsal with her mom. Her bottomless well of energy is an inspiration to the actors.
On stage, Act I concludes with hardly a hitch. Judy comments that the act felt as though it lasted six hours instead of 70 minutes. The audience agrees. They have heard the jokes so many times the play is no longer funny. Tracy Zinck's German accent doesn't evoke a giggle. Russ Brown's melodramatic retelling of a police raid is commonplace.
This cast is starved for a fresh audience that laughs and feeds the onstage momentum. Without strong audience reaction, it's hard to maintain a high energy level, and this audience becomes more and more quiet with each rehearsal. The cast hopes to break this vicious cycle at the final dress rehearsal, when some fresh faces will watch from the bleachers.
Unlike the first act, Act II is a struggle. Judy walks in seven lines too late. Josh Davenport (Mortimer Brewster) wanders out 10 seconds too early, an eternity on a stage so dependent on timing. Lines come haltingly as memorization fails and exhaustion kicks in.
In a last attempt to earn some laughter, two actors who play cops make their final entrance with donuts in hand, playing off the age-old cliche. Ken is the first to notice and breaks into gales of laughter. Assistant director Lynn Van Male sees next and chuckles. The cops grin despite themselves, and morale seems to increase.
The play concludes in about two and a half hours, which is much earlier than Ken or Lynn expected. "I'll have you know it's 9:35. I'm impressed," Ken says. He points at the cops. "The donuts stay."
The actors leave in a good mood. Most of them head home with visions of a warm bed, but six of the younger cast members want to make the most of Friday night. They want to hit the town for some fun and relaxation.
So at 10 p.m., cast members begin filtering into Everett's Restaurant & Lounge. The place is sitll crowded. It doesn't take too long to seat the group.
Jessica inspects the wine list as she waits for everyone to arrive. She's 20 years old, but she looks old enough that waiters won't card her at most venues. Still, when the waitress asks what she wants to drink, she settles for water.
"Pass me the wine list," Tracy says.
As Tracy reads the list, Russ sips from his beer and mutters quietly. "Waiter, I'd like a glass of 'the restaurant is too cold' and a bottle of 'this shirt is too tight.'"
Tracy smiles thinly and Jessica laughs. Judy just looks confused.
"What are you talking about?" she asks.
"The whine list," Russ replies, grinning at his pun. Judy's eyes light with understanding, and she smiles back.
The conversation turns to the play, upcoming productions and actors of long ago. Russ tells a story about Tim, who used to volunteer at CEC before moving to California. Tim stores Diet Coke can in the backseat of his car. Once, he was delayed from getting to a bathroom at a Department of Motor Vehicles stop and urinated into a Diet Coke can. Everyone laughs.
"Didn't I tell you there's no laughing allowed in Everett's?" jokes the waitress. "Just kidding. You can laugh as much as you like."
"We're trying to figure out why we don't like her," Judy says as the waitress leaves.
Maybe it's because of her 16-inch black skirt and Looney Tunes tie, which the actors find ridiculous. Maybe it's because she tries to join in the laughter of this table without realizing that she can't possibly infiltrate such a tight-knit group in one evening.
These actors share an extraordinary experience few people would understand. They work closely ever night of the week and know each other's perculiarities inside out. They know just how far they can push with their gentle, and sometimes not so gentle, jibes. How could anyone not intimately involved in this clique possibly relate?
The night continues with discussions and crass jokes. At 11:30, the group sorts the bill. The want to tip the waiter who served bread and butter when the group arrived. He had a nice butt.
"Oh, Bread Boy," Tracy says, jokingly. "I'd like to grease and butter ya."
"I didn't see him," Jessica laments. "Bring him back."
Then, as one, they don their coats and migrate toward the door. It's time to go home and sleep because tomorrow will be a long day. Tomorrow, the cast will transform the half-finished set into a classy Victorian home. At 9:30 a.m., the painting of the set will commence.
"I expect to see you there," Lynn says as she walks toward her car. And they will be there or endure some good-natured taunting at Monday's rehearsal.
Now back to the final dress rehearsal, as Paula receives the signal that all is ready to begin. All the heartache and excitement of the past six weeks is about to be tested.
"Places!" Paula yells. The lights go up, and the performance begins.
Maggie stands behind the flats on stage, where the audience can't see her. She is a statue, facing toward the wall for five minutes as she focuses on her character. Each actor has an individual way of preparing for the stage.
In the men's dressing room, cast members occupy themselves by reciting somes lines from Raising Arizona and telling dirty jokes. For actors with small parts, performance is the most boring aspect of play production. They sit backstage for almost two hours with nothing to do.
In the hallway, Ken walks back with a police cap in hand. One of the cops left it on stage, so Ken had to retrive it and return it to its owner.
"Thank good it's a dress rehearsal," he says before returning to the house.
Then comes the dreaded Scene 4, which has been a trouble spot at almost every rehearsal. Josh must time his phone conversation to end just in time to distract another character, Gibbs, from drinking poison wine. Josh can't quite get the timing right.
Josh yells into the receiver, pausing occasionally to let Gibbs' dialogue catch up. Some actors backstage hush their conversations to listen.
"No, I don't drink! But I'm going to start right now!" Josh yells, slamming down the receiver a second too early.
"Stop," Ken says. "Josh, we have to get this right."
"Sorry, audience," Judy says.
They restart the scene, and this time it runs smoothly. Josh comes offstage and leans his head against the wall in frustration. Ken meets him in the hallway.
"I'm fine," Josh says. "If I can just get the cue right."
"You're doing good," Ken replies, laying a comforting arm on the actor's shoulders.
A few minutes later, Tracy makes his first entrance. One could measure the play's progress through the increasing intesnity of Tracy's grimace each time he returns to the dressing room. Under the lights, the stage is uncomfortably hot, and Tracy is overheating. Toward the end, it seems that sheer determination is all that keeps him from collapsing.
In the men's dressing room, conversation fades away toward the finale. No more dirty jokes and reminisces of home. No more speculation on which plays to audition for this summer. They sit in silence for the last 15 minutes, and they file toward the stage to bow at the end.
As the lights come up and the minor actors take their bows, the audience claps thunderously, hooting and cheering. Laughter ripples through the house as Trevor, who plays the corpse, makes his entrance from the window seat, where he has spent most of his scenes.
This is why these volunteers put themselves on public display after weeks of hard work and discipline. This is why they will volunteer to do it all again in a few weeks for a different show: to hear the applause and to bask in the realization that they are providing a needed artistic outlet for their community.
Tomorrow they will do it again, for a sold-out, opening-night audience, but tomorrow is a long way off. Tonight, the actors can kick back and relax. They know that despite all the setbacks, it was a good performance.
This story first was published in Weekend magazine, based in Columbia, Mo., on April 16, 1998.
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Posted October 6, 1998