A MEMORY A DAY

Okay, okay, so it’s been a week – make that a week and a half +, but here’s a timely one:
People ask how long I’ve been with the theatre.
Since it started in 1969.
They go ‘ooh’ or ‘aah’ or some such and then ask how I got into it.
I got into it the same way I’ve gotten into a lot of things in my life – ass-backwards.
I was not a ‘theatre-geek’ in school, no thoughts of working in theatre, no aspirations except for helping with costumes for the senior play and being in another one in school where I played, as I recall, an old maid who ended up kissing the crusty old batchelor –who was played by someone I would normally not have considered kissing. Oh, la.
So how’d I end up here?
I was 25, separated, with Sara 3 years old, it was summer, I had nothing going on, no hobbies, no place to go, etc., etc. A girl I worked with, and one of my cousins, were very ‘into’ theatre and had been talking about their experiences and it sounded fun. I was working at the newspaper at the time, and Lynne and Linda were coming in with ads and stories, so when one went in about the auditions in Chatham I said ‘what the heck, it’ll take up a little spare time and might be fun’. Little did I know!
I went to the audition, went into the room when it was my turn, and said ‘I can’t sing or dance, I don’t know anything about theatre but I’m a warm body and I can help out’.
A week or so later, Lynne called to see if I could come over and help paint the space that would be dressing rooms. This was where the theatre started, in the barn on the county fairgrounds where they show cows during the fair (Nope, I didn’t show cows in it, they had another tent and then a shed when I was doing that). They were fixing up the two rooms where the 4-H kids slept during the fair (Nope, we didn’t have any rooms to sleep in, we slept in the hay by the cows) and I helped paint them, and did some other odds and ends as directed.
I was there one evening, and happened to walk past Lynne, Linda and Pat, the director that first season, and overheard them talking about an antique birdcage, needed in the first show, “My Fair Lady’. I stopped and said ‘I think my mother has one of those in her antique shop’.
The three of them turned – in unison – and said – in unison – ‘Your mother has an antique shop?’
I said ‘yeah, it’s small, just in her house, but yeah’.
They said – again in unison – ‘How would you like to do props for us?’
I said ‘OK, sure. What are props?’
Seriously had no idea what they were talking about.
Needless to say I found out, and did do props for several summers, then ‘graduated’ to being TD (which I also had no idea what that was, nor did they think to enlighten me), and so on to what I am doing now.
Which includes still doing things for props, like ordering some yesterday – oh, and that’s right, I still have to order the unbreakable glasses today. Don’t forget.
And that’s how I came to be working in theatre.
Don’t try this at home, without guidance from a professional!