Theatre Design & Technology - Summer 2014 - 19

stuff off without any detrimental effect to the show, we grabbed at the chance.
And this crew was beyond professional with spot-on timing and accuracy and never a hair off. And considering how things
played out that evening, that's not just a manner of speech.
So as theatre traditions have a way of establishing themselves, so did this one. Returning two years later, commando night
played itself out with vigor and increasing creativity. Outsiders and on one occasion a couple of folks from the front office disrobed for the cause, so when we played the venue on yet another Christmas season tour, Tuesday night was rife with curiosity
about what was going to come down, or come off, but I was not to perform again until the weekend because sometime during the
night there was a horrific auto accident back in Texas that instantly killed three people, and one of them was my first son. What
followed was several days of unpracticed numbness, familiar faces, wise ministers, of grieving mothers, of bugles and rifles and
folded flags, and the last thing on my mind was the show, but the day after the funeral my instincts drew me back to my work,
back to my theatre family, and I think part of this need to return and face an audience was self-applied therapy.
I knew that as long as I was on that stage that I would have to hold it together, to discipline my emotions, and to think of
something else other than my grief.
The stage manager dropped by my dressing room and told me they needed me on stage for a sound check, so I followed
him out onto the set, got miked up and waited, when I heard some kind of disturbance that drew my attention to the wings. I
noticed that everyone was looking up, so I followed suit, and what I saw was three union stagehands, wearing harnesses but
otherwise completely naked being lowered from the rafters. And I reacquainted with the ability to smile and even laugh.
And just as this address began with an apology, I believe it should conclude with an expression of thanks; for that which best
describes you is summed up in the word, indispensable. For me, you built a bridge that spanned from the ramparts of Elsinore to
the Formica table tops of Tuna, Texas, and beyond. You illuminated my every step along they way. I thank you for my first visit to
Venice, which I experienced from the tenth row of the Richard Rodgers Theatre, trembling as I saw a single dancer pole an invisible gondola past a wall of reflected water, water which was actually light. Thank you for revealing Elizabeth the Queen or Mary of
Scotland, as they must have been because a costumer was a genius at the art of cutting cloth. A thank you to the lighting designer
David Nancarrow, who when a comic bit wasn't working at the end of the act said, "I think that every time Vera uses her cell
phone on the plane we should instantly go to black." The critics praised our comic genius, but it was the lighting that garnered
the best laugh of the night. I want to thank Marsha Hardy, the TD who dealt with a pompous set designer's put down: "I doubt you
can leg and build twenty-seven raked platforms before opening." Two days later the entire set was up and functional, allowing
me weeks of rehearsal time. Some said that my character of Puck seemed almost airborne. Thank you, Marsha, for granting me
the time I needed to learn to fly. Thank you to Linda Fisher for the footwear you designed for me when playing a preadolescent

summer

2014

theatre design

& technology

Theatre Design & Technology - Summer 2014

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