When Brud, the manager of Unimart/Rent City told me I needed to start looking for another job, I decided to see what I might be able to do with my Theatre degree. I found one theatre company that was hiring for one of its productions. It was the Rocky Mountain Theatre Guild. I guess you could consider them one of the Off-Off Broadway companies in Denver. Mostly, they performed productions in the basement at Muddy's Java Cafe in Downtown Denver. (I'll have a lot more about that place in an upcoming post.) In this case, the company's director decided to take the plunge and do an extragant production of "The Three Musketeers."
I responded to a want ad looking for backstage crew members. The person I spoke to on the phone asked me to meet him where they were rehearsing. The production was being staged at the theatre on the campus of Denver University. I got there and I realized that this was the area when I had been an extra on a TV movie. In fact, the cafe where I shot a scene was right across the street. While I was in front of the cafe, I saw this very attractive woman sitting outside, waiting for her food. She wore jeans that were rpiped at the knees. She was reading a newspaper, so she didn't notice I was checking her out.
The time I was supposed to meet the person I talked to on the phone had arrived and I went into the theatre to find him. Once I did, he gave me the rundown on the production. He then took me to meet the director, JA. I hadn't realized it at the time, but JA had been in that same TV-movie I was when I was shooting scenes at the courthouse. He actually had a speaking part with one line. I also later saw that he had done local TV commercials. He was actually well-regarded in the local theatre scene.
I asked the big question: How much is this going to pay? He said that if they managed to sell out every show, I could get up to $3,000. But if they didn't make a profit, I wouldn't get anything. I didn't have anything better to do and I was itching to be involved in live theatre again, even as a crew member, so I agreed to take part. (I'll end the suspense now: The show didn't make a profit. I didn't get paid, but I had a good time.)
In the meantime, I noticed that the woman I was checking out at the cafe had come in. It turned out she was a member of the stage crew as well. I’m REALLY glad she didn’t see me checking her out.
The script for the stage production was based on the screenplays for the two Richard Lester films from the 1970s. JA's vision was to try to give it a cinematic feel, so he assigned me to change the backdrops between scenes. The only problem was that this theatre had a really clunky grid system that made it impossible to pull the backdrops up and down in an efficient manner. We only kept a couple of backdrop changes in the show. I ran just about everywhere backstage helping to set up stuff for the next scene.
The production featured a lot of stage combat. In fact, the director put in even more sword fight scenes than the script called for. The reason being was that the actor who played Porthos was also the stage combat co-ordinator. He actually got paid, so JA was trying to get his money’s worth.
There were about 20 actors in the cast, and most of them played more than one role, so there were a lot of costume changes. One of the exceptions was the actor who played d'Artagnan. He was a very good actor and had a considerable presence on stage, despite the fact that he was probably 5’ 5”. I don’t know whose idea it was, but at one of the rehearsals, he performed the part with a Southern accent. After about five minutes, it was clearly not working. But he kept up that character for the entire rehearsal. That’s the sign of a real actor.
Since there was a chance the backstage crew was going to be seen on stage, that meant we had to wear costumes. The only thing was that we didn’t have period shoes. I had to wear my tennis shoes on stage. Aside from that, it made me feel more like I was an actor in the production.
We had our opening night. We had maybe fifty people in the audience. They were polite, but I think they were put off by the fact that the production ran more than THREE HOURS! (It was all those extra fight scenes.) The reviews in the Rocky Mountain News and the Denver Post weren’t very kind. One of them said the reader would be better off renting videos the Richard Lester films and the other said he would have rather been bowling. They both complained about the length of the run time.
The next night before performance, JA held a meeting with the cast to announce which scenes were being cut. One of the main ones that got the axe was a procession of the guard early in Act I. All the other cuts were relative minor. They helped to shave 15 minutes off the run time.
JA decided to take matters into his hands regarding the critics. He wrote a letter to the editors that he titled, “An End to Optimism.” He stated that he was very put off by the irresponsible writing of the critics. He said that if one felt it was better to watch the video, he should have stayed home and watched the video instead. And if the other would have rather been bowling, he should have gone bowling instead. He said that he would not allow critics in for free to see his productions if they continued this style of criticism.
The funny thing was that in advertisements for the production, he managed to pull a couple of blurbs from those reviews that made them seem positive.
As the next couple of weeks unfolded, our audiences got smaller and smaller. One Sunday matinee on a very snowy day saw only four people in the audience. It must have been strange for those in attendance as the cast outnumbered them five to one. But that audience had class. They gave us a standing ovation.
JA cancelled a performance due to low ticket sales and the expectation that it was going to snow. However, the two weeks after Christmas saw our audience increase dramatically. The Friday night of our final weekend saw 200 people in the audience. And they were ecstatic about the show. After the curtain calls, one of the cast members said, “Finally, we opened!” Unfortunately, we would be closing two days later. We had our largest crowds for those last two shows. (And maybe that was the problem. We did this in December, when other companies are doing Christmas-themed productions. If we had waited until January to open, we probably could have at least broken even. But I have a feeling everything hinged on the availability of the stage combat co-ordinator.)
For the last performance, I decided to do what Chud did when we were in productions at Eastern New Mexico University. He would come up with cartoons that were Mad Magazine-style parodies of the shows. I thought I could come up with something similar for the cast and crew.
The strange thing was that up until this point, I had NEVER been able to draw women in cartoon form. The problem was drawing the noses. No matter what I did, their faces always came out looking like men. When I started the project, I tried drawing a woman’s face. I began drawing the nose, but I didn’t complete it. It was just a line. THAT MADE ALL THE DIFFERENCE! I can’t believe that detail had plagued me for more than 15 years and I just figured it out that instant. If I hadn’t been able to draw the women, I wouldn’t have done the cartoon.
I never realized what an undertaking that was for Chud until I tried to do it myself. I didn’t even get started on it until the night before the final performance. I thought I would be able to slap it out in a couple of hours. I WAS WRONG! I drew it in pencil and had plans to ink it. I stayed up until 4am and I hadn’t even finished the penciling. And there were things I was trying to accomplish. I had to draw each cast member at least twice. I had to draw the crew members once. The final panel featured JA getting mad at the critics. It turned out to be six pages long. (I still have that somewhere. If I had found it, I would have posted it on here.)
After only getting a couple of hours of sleep, I completed the penciling minutes before I had to go to the theatre. I walked into the green room, taped it on the wall and left to go put on my costume. I could hear the actor who played Porthos say, “Hey, what’s that?” as I was leaving the room. When I came back in, everybody was going nuts over the cartoon. I couldn’t believe it. They all LOVED it. I couldn’t believe it. They all actually thought I could draw. One actress loudly praised the work, saying it was inspired. I don’t her husband was very happy with the way she was going on and on about it, but it sure felt good to me.
Several people asked for copies. I was more than happy to oblige, but I had to ink the panels before copying them and sending them off. I actually wound up having to do all that out of pocket because I didn’t realize how much it was going to cost ahead of time.
I continued to run into the members of the cast and crew over the next two years that I remained in Denver. I mostly saw them show up as customers at the Mayan Theatre (where I started working between performances.) I also saw the attractive crew member come in from time to time, but I never got the guts to try to date her (even though I allowed her to get in for free).
JA is still active. He’s also written detective novels and appears to have a following. Interestingly enough, he doesn’t have a profile on IMDB. He should do something about that.
What’s kind of melancholy about all this is that since then, I have never gotten to participate in another live theatrical production. I mean, I’ve attempted to several times, but I’ve never been able to get in with another theatre group.
But I know my theatre days are not all behind me. That degree is going to become useful again. I just know it.
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