In between jobs after being fired from Unimart/Rent City, I attempted to see if I might be able to make a living as an actor or stage technician. I had landed an unpaid job with the Rocky Mountain Theatre Guild.
When I had first moved to Denver in 1988, I had responded to an ad looking for actors to be in a cable access TV show. When I called the number to find out more about the auditions, I got an answering machine saying I had reached this woman named Ruad and her production company and instructions to mail a resume and photo to a certain address. I didn’t have my headshots of me at the time, so I drew a picture of myself and sent it in.
Sometime later, I found out that my girlfriend Bez’ parents knew Ruad. But it wasn’t like I could call up her answering machine and tell her that I knew mutual friends of hers in hopes of getting called back by her.
In December of 1989, when I was looking for another job, I got a message on my answering machine from Ruaz. She said she had a project and was interested in having me audition. I called her back. This time I mentioned Bez’ parents. She said that her mother actually knew them fairly well.
She told me that she had a regular series on community access called “Denver Diner.” She had been doing it for the past few years and it would take on a new incarnation every year. The previous year (the year I originally sent the resume for), she did it like a standard sit-com with a live studio audience. This year, she set it like an anthology in which the owner of the diner was a writer and she was imagining these stories that she was coming up with. (These stories were plays that had been written by Ruad for independent stage productions. Some got produced, some didn’t.)
This particular episode was based around the time in Denver when the National Organization for Women and a right to life organization had scheduled their national conferences for the same week in Denver in the 1980s. There was a big protest that took place between the two sides in the park across from the City and County Building. It told the story of two women who had been best friends since high school and how they wound up on opposite sides of the abortion issue. Their story was interspersed with scenes of these three men watching the protest and commenting on it.
She held the auditions one night at her production studio. Although there were three men in the cast, there were only two of us at the audition. There was supposed to be a third guy there, but he didn't show up. Yep, my chances were looking pretty good. There were three women auditioning at the same time. The women's story included the men they got involved with and they would both be played by the same actress. I noticed that one of the women auditioning for the roles had a rather androgynous look about her. If I were casting, I would have put her in that part.
Ruad called and let me know I had gotten the part. I was to play a stereotypical construction worker She gave me the date and time that I was to show up for the reading of the script. I got there and the other guy from the audition was there, along with an actor I had never seen before. Two of the women I met before were there, but the androgynous one was not. Ruad explained that she was not able to do the project and got another actress to play the roles. We read the script and she gave us a rehearsal schedule. She set the men to come in two nights a week and the women for two nights a week. I had gotten the job at the movie theatre at that time and they were able to accommodate that.
She had planned to shoot the whole thing in one day, because that was how long she could have the community access equipment. During rehearsals, it became apparent that the men's scenes were going to be shot on a set. I asked her if she considered shooting it outside. She hadn't thought of that. She actually decided to shoot our stuff outside in the parking lot behind the studio. That shocked me! Anytime I tried to make any kind of a suggestion to any of the directors I worked with at ENMU, I was immediately shot down.
During rehearsals, the new guy wound up getting cast doing a re-creation for "Hard Copy." I got to see the episode. They never showed his face, though. He told me that he had to struggle with this kid and he was really putting up a fight. He told him, "I'm sorry, kid, but the way this turns out, I have to kill you."
The day came that we were to shoot. We lucked out because it was rather sunny that day (in February 1990). Ruad had a pretty complex shooting schedule and it caused some major problems. Because some of the women's scenes needed to fade into ours, she needed to shoot the scene before ours because she couldn't edit the fade in with the equipment the cable company had. Instead of just shooting the end of the scene, she decided to shoot the whole scene so that everyone didn't have to keep changing costumes back and forth. That turned out to be a big mistake because the actress playing the boyfriends kept goofing up her lines. They tried for three hours to shoot that scene and never could get her to do it right. We had already shot some of our scenes and we were running out of sunlight. Ruad finally gave up on the fade and rushed us outside to quickly shoot our scenes. I remember that my voice cracked while reciting a line and I was hoping we'd get a second take, but she said we were moving to the next scene.
After we completed our scenes, we were done. However, I found out that they were up until 4am shooting the rest of the episode. If something didn't go quite right, she would say, "Close enough!" and set up the next scene.
I didn't have cable, so I didn't get to see the episode on TV. I had to wait for her to send me a VHS copy. I didn't get it until November. One of the things I liked about my part was that I had the last line in the show. That line was "Fruit... CAKE!" directed at the guy I was at the audition with, who was playing a gay character. However, I was surprised to find that after my line, Ruad played audio of a scene between the two women over the end credit. I couldn't believe she did that!
I would work with Ruad again on another episode a year later. I'll be writing a separate article about that.
Did I mention I got paid for this? I got $20! And I DIDN'T report it on my taxes!
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