I had appeared in an episode of the Community Access program "Denver Diner" in 1990. Ruad, the producer/writer/director told me she might ask me to appear in a future episode. That happened in 1991.
She said she had a role as a police officer for me in her latest production. She said that the part didn't have any lines, but I would appear throughout. She had planned to do the taping on a specific day, which would have been a day that I didn't need to work at the Mayan Theatre. I agreed to do it and was looking forward to being part of another one of her productions.
A few days later, she told me that an actor she cast for one of the small speaking roles had dropped out and asked me to do the role instead. I accepted and went to pick up the script. I was to play the co-worker of the main character at the Post Office. After reading the script, I called Ruad and left a message on her machine. I told her that my friend Rid might be interested in playing the police officer role. She had met Rid at the Mayan Theatre when we held a midnight screening of the film "Cyrano de Bergerac." I gave her his phone number. She called back and left a message on my machine saying that she did remember meeting him and thought he would make a good police officer and had left a message for him.
That day, Rid called and asked about a message that had been left on his machine. He played it for me. It was Ruad's message. "How did she get the idea to cast me in her show? I'm a techie, not a performer." Whatever his reservations, he still wanted to do it so he could play a cop.
I played one of four postal workers who sat around all day playing poker. The concept was that for whatever reason, we would bully the lead character with our indifference. I was in several scenes that were shot in two different locations. One was at the Post Office, the other was in a break room. There were only two scenes in the break room, one of which involved the major players. It was the only time I got to meet the other female lead. We shot those scenes first.
The main thing that was different from the last time was that we didn't get to rehearse beforehand. Ruad had so many scenes to tape on separate dates that there was no time to get us together to run lines. Because I couldn't determine the chemistry of the group I was in, I wasn't able to figure out my character in time for the first scene we shot. As a result, my character speaks a little differently in one scene, although I only had one line.
The other scenes were all shot in one day, like the episode I had done a year earlier. There were a few delays here and there. When we were about to shoot the last scene, I was already an hour late for work. I asked Ruad if, since I didn't have any lines in that final scene, I could go ahead and leave. She said I could, but I felt like I had let her down.
Even though Rid was cast in the same program, we did not share any screen time together. There was a problem shortly before the day he was scheduled to appear. A bunch of guys ganged up and assaulted him. He walked onto the set with a very visible black eye. I can only imagine what Ruad thought when she saw that. But she was used to things going wrong at the last minute and just dealt with it. There was no attempt made to cover up the eye. I always wondered if anyone who watched the program had questions about why this one police officer had a black eye and if they were disappointed that they never found out if it was the lead character who gave it to him.
Even though Ruad told me it was a non-speaking part, there were a couple of scenes in which Rid had been permitted to ad-lib a few lines with the other police officer.
But the black eye was the least of Ruad's troubles. After she had shot the program, someone broke into her car and stole all the videotape. Several weeks later, they found the tapes in a dumpster somewhere. She was able to recover everything she shot, but some of the tapes had been damaged. The scenes were usable, but there was a noticeable loss of video and audio quality. She chose to use what was there instead of re-shooting.
The restoration of the damaged tapes took a lot longer than Ruad anticipated. As a result, she couldn't get the episode on Community Access through her usual avenues. In order for it to air, she had to cut it up into three parts and designate it as a "Denver Diner Holiday Special." While she went along with it, it could have been considered lacking in taste as one of the lead characters commits suicide at the beginning of the program. In addition, there was no reference whatsoever to the holidays. There wasn't even snow on the ground in the outdoor scenes.
When I got to see it, it was clearly her most ambitious project. But I don't know if she tried to do any more episodes after that.
After I had moved to San Diego, we kept in contact. She got married and had sent me a wedding invitation. I was not able to go or contribute to their honeymoon. (I've always felt bad about that.) Unfortunately, I found out from Bez' father that she wound up divorcing him a few years later. After that, she moved to Albuquerque. I got her phone number from directory assistance and left a couple of messages, but she never called back.
Since then, she has moved back to Colorado and lives in La Junta. She has become the Chairman of the Arts Department at Otero Junior College. She has had some of her plays produced there.
I'm glad to see that she's found an outlet for her creativity and she's been getting paid for it. I know all that Community Access stuff came out of her pocket.
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