Looking Back - Part 4 - Discovering Another Side

Sunday morning I was reading a post written by Lin of Letters from Lin in which she wrote about being a dancer in her younger days and the companies she had danced with, the ballets she had performed in during that time. Her post brought back a lot of memories for me as well. Memories about fun things I did in my twenties – as I’m sure many of you can do as well.

When I was in my early twenties and living in Dallas, Texas, working and wondering what else I would like to do with my life I became friends with a young woman originally from Germany. She was involved in a theater group, I got curious and began going to the theater with her. I had no interest in acting -- well, maybe it was more a lack of confidence than a lack of interest, but I did think it was fun working back stage, helping the actors with their lines, being available backstage to prompt them during a performance. It wasn’t long before I could recite the entire play from memory.

The group was performing a play called “The Fantastiks” – their spelling, not my typo – and some of you may have seen it at one time. It was on Broadway and was later made into a movie. It was winter and there was a wild flu bug going around and the girl who had the leading female role in the play got sick just before the weekend performance. We had a sold out house and no one to take her place.

I arrived at the theater early that evening – for whatever reason, and found the director waiting for me in the lobby. He told me that I knew all of her lines, her costumes would fit me and he needed me to get back stage and get dressed. I was stunned, I was terrified, I was excited as he and the stage manager hustled me back to the dressing room.

The performance went quite well and when the final curtain fell, the director came out to tell the audience what had happened and he brought me out on the stage. The applause was mindboggling as I received a standing ovation and then three bouquets of flowers. And that was the beginning of one more era of my life.

About that same time Baruch Lumet – the father of the Hollywood director, Sidney Lumet –was volunteering at the same theater, teaching acting classes and I began attending. I slowly began to lose my Texas accent – it didn’t go away completely, but at least most people never guessed that I had been born and raised in Texas. I continued to be very active in the theater group for several years.

The director with whom I had worked with originally called on me several times to perform in various theater projects of his and in the spring of 1961 he was putting together a musical review for a local coffee house – we had those back then rather than just bars – and they offered musical entertainment of various kinds six nights a week. I was preparing to return to the university by then and was trying very hard to stash enough money away to pay for my first year tuition when my director friend approached me, told me what his plans were for the coffee house and asked if I’d be interested in performing with the group. When he told me what they were willing to pay, my decision was a no brainer. If I performed through the summer, I’d have enough to pay for more than my first year. Needless to say, I accepted the offer and prepared to start summer school at the same time.

It was a wild summer to say the least. I was taking three classes – the first one at seven in the morning. I was home by noon, had to tackle the homework and be at the theater by eight in the evening. I usually got home between one and two in the morning, slept four hours and got up in time to drive thirty miles to Denton, Texas where the University of North Texas is located.

The show was going on tour in the fall and I was asked to join them, but I had to say no, I had determined that I was very serious about finishing my degree and besides I’d lost so much weight, they were having to continually alter my costumes and I figured it was time to quit.

I never regretted my decision, but it was a truly fun and exciting time in my life and I felt -- still do, that it was the beginning of a whole new take on life, on me and what I was capable of achieving.

It frequently seems that too much of the time we tend to focus on the bad periods in our lives rather than the good. But for a change, this has been a fun-look back today, to a creative, rewarding time in my life. I believe we all have those good memories of some kind. I also feel that we should be willing to look back, to search for them and keep them around to remind us during the bad times of the joy, the fun, the fulfillment we have enjoyed in the past. And a big thanks to Lin for reminding me to do just that.