During the period of time in which I had nothing better to do during the summer of 1993, I decided to give the local theatre scene a crack. As you'll see here, I really couldn't get it to open.
While looking for jobs in the classifieds, I saw that the Fritz Theatre was looking for volunteers. I gave them a call and they asked me to show up on a specific day and time. They'd have some work for me to do. I met this guy about my age. The work involved some cleaning up, rearranging and putting some stuff in place for their current production. We also had to drive out to another location to get some wood and bring it back. We loaded it inside the theatre. Not long after that, the founder of the Fritz came in and started yelling at the guy for bringing that wood in and leaving it on the floor. He tried to explain that we had just brought it in and were about to properly put it away.
During this time, I met several other people associated with the Fritz Theatre, including the company's artistic director. They also had their set designer there. He demonstrated how he made a wooden staircase look like it was made of marble by putting wallpaper with a marble design on it. It reminded me of the creative solutions we would come up with in college and with the Rocky Mountain Theatre Guild in Denver.
After we had finished everything we could do, the person I was working with said that while they couldn't pay me, I was welcome to come see one of their productions for free. They were doing two productions. One was David Mamet's "Sexual Perversity in Chicago," which they performed at midnight on Fridays and Saturday. The other was some independent play. He said that while "Sexual Perversity" was their bread and butter, the other play was more in line with what the theatre was trying to do artistically and encouraged me to come see it. He said he would have my name at the box office.
I arrived the night of a performance. There was a young woman at the box office. I introduced myself and said my name was supposed to be on the list. She said it wasn't there, but trusted that I had done some volunteer work for them. She was actually an in-house playwright for the Fritz Theatre and had a few of her plays produced there. (She did not write the play I was attending.) Her husband was in the cast. I told her I had gotten a degree in Theatre at Eastern New Mexico University. She told me she and her husband had attended New Mexico State University before coming to San Diego. If I'd gone to NMSU instead of ENMU, I still probably wouldn't have known them because she looked about four years younger than me. I felt even more like the ENMU Theatre Department was simply not capable of pointing me in the right direction.
About three other people came in to see the performance. I took a seat next to the aisle. I saw the name of the guy I worked with in the cast. There were three other people in the cast. It's a good show when the number of people in the audience match the number of people onstage. I don't remember the name of the play, but it involved all four of the actors playing dual roles. Sometimes, they were on videotape as their secondary characters, which meant that quite frequently, they were acting with themselves. An actress I met during my volunteer session was also in the play. At one point in the performance, she came into the audience and sat right next to me in the aisle. She looked at me as she said one of her lines.
It was a good performance despite the low attendance. It made me want to get involved in theatre again, even if it didn't pay. A few days later, I called the Fritz Theatre to see when they wanted me to volunteer again. I spoke to the guy I worked with earlier. He said I was pretty good and they would call me if they ever needed me. They never called me again.
A few months later, I got a call from the artistic director trying to get a hold of Jadd. They were holding auditions for "Sexual Perversity" in which they were going to cast women in the men's roles and men in the women's roles. I asked if it was an open audition or if they were specifically seeking Jadd. He said it was open and invited me to come down. When I arrived, I saw the husband and wife and the artistic director. None of them acted like they'd met me before. It was kind of irritating. (Actually, the husband hadn't met me. I only sat in the audience that one time.)
I had arrived a little late and they were already auditioning people with cold readings. I was filling out their paperwork and watching the others audition. I then noticed this attractive young woman doing a reading. I realized I recognized her. She was a high school student in Portales when I went to Eastern. She had gotten to take part in the Theatre Department productions and when we were in "HMS Pinafore," I had been paired to dance with her in a couple of performances. When she was finished reading, I went up to her to say hi. I asked her if she remembered me. She did, but they were calling me up to read at the time. When I was done, we tried to talk, but we had to keep quiet until the audition was over.
We went outside and got to actually talk. She told me she had seen me come in the door. She had turned to the actor next to her and asked, "I know that guy! Do you know that guy? His name is Fayd! He went to Eastern!" She said she would call me and we'd hang out or something. However, she never called me. I wasn't expecting a relationship to start (because she was WAY out of my league), but it was still disappointing because I thought I would finally have a friend, someone I had things in common with.
I then found another theatrical troupe called Buffalo Chip Productions. They were holding auditions for a western comedy style of show. The director had me come down to Old Town to audition. It turned out not to be an actual audition. He'd already cast the show and was rehearsing it, but was trying to get more people involved in the event that actors dropped out due to other commitments and so forth. He told me he didn't really care much for the audition process and just wanted everyone to learn the show so they could step in if needed. As far as compensation, if we sold tickets to the performances, we would get a commission off of those. However, he didn't have any set date for the opening or even a location lined up. For now, we were just practicing in the part at Old Town.
I came to a few rehearsals. The play was kind of funny and the cast appeared to be having a good time, but I preferred the style of theatre that was being done at the Fritz. Since the director said he was going to use me, I kept coming. He allowed me to read and start learning one of the roles. Things were looking up. One day, he came to me and said that we were going to have to find another place to rehearse. He told me where to come to and what time to show up. I arrived at the new location and there was no one there. I asked around, but no one knew anything about Buffalo Chip Productions. Since the new location was about a half-block away from the old location, I went over, but no rehearsal was taking place there, either.
A few months later, I ran into one of the actors while auditioning for a student film at San Diego State University. He remembered me. He told me that they did one performance and had a good time, but there was almost no audience because they couldn't sell any tickets. He said the director really didn't know what he was doing. I told him about the change in the rehearsal space and that's why he never saw me again. He said that the director had a tendency to change the location and would send actors he didn't like on a wild goose chase, but those who remained in the cast didn't figure out until later what was going on.
Buffalo Chip Productions has no presence whatsoever on the Internet now. The Fritz Theatre appears to have closed in 2007. That meant that they had a run of at least 15 years. That's pretty good for a small theatre company.
My experience with these and other independent theatrical companies led me to a lot of speculation about how they work and how they thrive. I'll have an article about that on Monday.
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