An unexpected call

One Saturday night in January of 1990, I got home from work at the movie theatre around 11:45pm. (I have not written about my experiences with the movie theatre yet. You haven't missed anything, and even if you have, you can always scroll back.) I was changing my clothes and getting ready to go out. Suddenly, my phone rang.

I answered the phone. A voice on the other end asked, "Is this Fayd?" I said, "Yeah." "HI, SWEETHEART!"

All of a sudden, I realized it was Chez. I had completely forgotten that Sunday was her 18th birthday. I remembered how I told her we could be together when she turned 18. I was still dating Bez at the time. While our relationship had been coasting, I was certain it was going to turn around and we were going to be getting married at some point in the future. I couldn’t have this messing everything up right now.

I didn’t know what to do or say. All of these thoughts occurred in my head in the one second after she said, “Sweetheart.” My next course of action came as much as a surprise to me as it did to her: I hung up the phone.

In the next few seconds, I was able to sort things out. It was after midnight, so it was officially her birthday. She must have been counting down the seconds until 12am struck and she turned 18. I also never gave her my phone number, so she must have gotten it from Directory Assistance. I remembered these two letters that she had sent me over the course of the last three months. This one was mailed out 10/13/89:

The interesting thing about this letter is that her handwriting is completely different from the one she had sent in June. I don’t know why she did that. The ink is so dark, I don’t even need to transcribe it. She must have been pressing down the pen really hard (like she was stabbing me).

She went on to beg me to call her or write her and let her know for certain that it’s over. She said that no matter what happens between us, she would always love me and she’d never ever want anyone else ever again. She said she hadn’t found anyone else since I last saw her a year and a half earlier. She wrote that she felt like she had no heart because I had taken it and thrown it away.

She was also planning to move to Denver in the Spring of 1991 or 1992. She was going to attend the Colorado Institute of Art. That happened to be just a few blocks from my house, although I’m certain she didn’t know that.

On December 29th, she mailed me this Christmas card. Since this was just a couple of weeks prior to the phone call, I really shouldn’t have been surprised that she would try to contact me.

As you can see, she returned to her original handwriting style:

I know this is hard to read (literally and figuratively), so here is the text:

“(Dear Fayd), I know this unusual for me but I guess everyone (almost) can change. I have a little bit. I don’t think I will change completely. I know I won’t forget you. I know you probably don’t want to see me or talk to me ever again. (I hope we don’t wind up like that.) But if that’s the way it’s going to be, I would like to know. I still (& always will) love you no matter what. Do you want to know something? Well, I’m going to tell you anyway wether it’s yes or no. I miss you so much it hurts to think about you. I know this is just all the same old s*** over & over again but I don’t want to lose you & if I have already lost you I would like to know. I’m on my hands and knees. Please call or write me and tell me if things between us are the same. I guess I’d better let you go. I just… (want to wish you a Merry Christmas & a Happy New Year. I love you always. Chez)”

All of this was going through my head as I anticipated what was going to happen next: The phone rang again. This time, I didn't pick up. I just let it go to the answering machine. "Fayd? Why did you hang up on me? I'd care to know. Please call me back. Here's the phone number..."

Then she called back again: "Fayd? I know you're there. Please pick up the phone. I really need to talk to you."

The phone rang one more time. I know my answering machine had some kind of funny outgoing message on it, but I can't remember what it was. This time, it was someone else leaving a message, a female: "Well, that's a really nice message, Fayd. My name is R****. How could you do that to Chez? She loves you A LOT!" And she said some other stuff before getting off the phone.

The phone didn't ring again. I didn't go out. I just sat there for the next hour, replaying the messages. I felt terrible for what I had put her through. But I still couldn't bring myself to call her and tell her the truth. The truth was that I still had feelings for her, but I wasn't finished hedging. I knew my relationship with Bez was going downhill, but I thought it could be salvaged. I also knew that my parents would never approve of Chez. Sometimes, it just felt like nothing was the best thing to do.

As it turned out, it was just a few days later that Bez broke up with me over the phone. But even after that happened, I still didn't call Chez. I was still optimistic that there was a future for me and Bez. I was wrong.

But I did reach out to Chez a couple of months later. As usual, that will be the topic of another post.

Starvation Army

I have to do a little backtracking with this post. This actually occurred earlier in 1989, when I was still working at Phone Survey, Inc. and KSYY-FM. This was during the period that I was a standby employee with the radio station and didn't have a regular shift.

It was snowing one weekend in 1989. One of the other part-timers who lived in Ft. Collins called me and told me he wouldn't be able to drive to the station and asked if I could work his shift. I was hoping this would lead to me getting back to working at the station more regularly. (That didn't happen.) However, I was going to have to take the bus to get there. I had to call RTD to get the schedule, which the recording warned was way off because of the snow. I found out I could get to the station by only making one transfer and I could leave early enough to get there in plenty of time in the event that the buses weren't on schedule.

There was supposed to be a 20 minute wait between being dropped off by one bus and the arrival of the other. The first bus wound up being about 20 minutes late. I hoped that all the buses were running that late. We got to the intersection where I was supposed to make the transfer. I got out and started crossing the street to the other bus stop. While I was crossing the street, I saw the bus that I was supposed to transfer onto waiting at the stop light. I just barely made it!

I got to the station in plenty of time. The one thing I was aware of was that I was going to have to spend the night at the station because the buses didn't run after midnight. While I was working, I went into the production studio. There, I saw a small box of Cheese Wheat Thins. On the outside of the box, someone wrote with magic marker, "I love these things" and put a drawing of a skull and crossbones underneath.

After I worked my shift, I tried to sleep on one of the couches we had. I didn't fall asleep right away. I decided to go walking around the building. I went onto the first floor, where KHOW-AM was located. In the hallway, I found a large box that was filled with Cheese Wheat Thins. I decided I would grab about six boxes and save them to eat later.

I finally fell asleep and woke up in time for the first bus the next morning. I got home and put away the Wheat Thins. As it turned out, I was out of food at home and had no money to buy anything with until pay day, which was still a couple of days away. Those Wheat Thins were the only food I had in the apartment. (I had also maxed out my credit card at this point, so I REALLY had no money.)

If you never heard of Cheese Wheat Thins, there's a reason. THEY TASTED TERRIBLE! I now understood why that person marked up that one box like that. Unfortunately, I had to force myself to down those things over the next couple of days. I was so relieved when I got my paycheck and I was able to go out and get a pizza. My taste buds were saved!

I never saw Cheese Wheat Thins in the stores. They were probably just testing them out. (If radio DJs won't eat them when you give them away for free, you know you have a major FAIL on your hands!)

Since then, I've noticed that Wheat Thins do come in a variety of other flavors and they actually taste pretty good. These flavors include Chili Cheese, but not one that's just plain cheese. I guess their cooks finally figured out how to add flavor to them while removing the "yuck" ingredient.

Ever since then, I made sure I always had decent food around the house by stocking up on canned foods, like soup. I knew I never wanted to put myself through that again.

Slapped in the Face (Twice!)

When I was looking at getting into the theatre scene in Denver, I saw an ad for a new dinner theatre that was opening up in Aurora. They were looking for actors to take part in an original production called "Punch." It was based on the puppet characters Punch and Judy. The play was about Punch becoming a real person and all the trouble he got into.

They held the auditions around 9am on a Saturday morning. It had snowed pretty heavily the day before. While there was still snow on the ground, I was able to drive okay. I left extra early to make sure I got there on time. I was the first to arrive. The interior of the venue was still under construction, but they had built a stage. They still needed to complete the dining area. There were several folding chairs on the main floor. There were two men standing by a piano, talking. I went up and introduced myself. They asked me to take a seat.

After a few minutes, some other actors arrived for the audition. There wound up being five men and two women who eventually showed up. We were told about the production and the vision the producer and director had. First, we each had to sing a song we had prepared. I brought my old standby from high school: "Captain Mac." I performed it very well. However, one of the men in charge asked me to come off the stage and sing it among the actors while making eye contact with them. This was an odd request, but I did it. I thought it went okay.

They only asked one other actor to redo his piece a different way (and different from mine). Next, we got to read scenes from the script. When I looked at the list of characters, I noticed that the play called for five men and two women. I thought, "Alright! I'm a shoo-in!" However, at the end of the auditions, the producer and director said, "Okay, we're going to have to have more auditions." They mentioned two of the guys they wanted to see again and they wanted to see the two women again, but the three of us who remained were basically SLAPPED IN THE FACE! And in front of the other actors.

It didn't make sense to me. I mean, which would you rather have: Actors who braved snowy streets to come to the audition, or actors who are only going to show up when they're not being inconvenienced by the weather? And I didn't see that any one of us wasn't capable of performing the material that was written.

Before the dinner theatre had its opening night, I found out from Ruad that the men running it really didn't know how to do professional theatre. All their experience was doing small, independent projects. One of the biggest mistakes they were making was that they were paying the actors $600 a week, EVEN DURING THE REHEARSALS! No one did that in Denver. I auditioned for a production of "Noises Off" in Arvada and they paid the actors $50 a performance, for a limited run of 10 performances. Basically, that's $500 for at least two months' worth of work. No one was making a living as an actor in the Denver area. (Interestingly enough, I auditioned with one of the same actors during “Noises Off.” I told him about how they paid the actors. He was also disappointed that he didn’t get in on that.)

So that explained why they were being so picky about who they were going to cast. They wanted REAL pros on their stage. Those of us who barely passed muster in college just weren’t going to cut it.

And of course that dinner theatre closed up shop very quickly after opening. It didn't surprise me. What I read of the play was mildly vulgar and didn't make for good dinner theatre in my opinion.

But that wasn’t the only time I got shafted by a startup dinner theatre company. After I had completed the crew work on the production of “The Three Musketeers,” Rid brought a want ad to my attention. A new professional dinner theatre called The Ascot Theatre was about to open up in Littleton and was looking for people to work on its stage crew. After what I knew about “Punch,” I knew that this was going to be an organization that paid its employees for the work they did. I updated my theatre resume to include my Rocky Mountain Theatre Guild experience and mailed it in.

Within a few days, I got a phone call from the director. He asked me to come over to a certain address to interview. The day before the interview, I noticed his name had been mentioned in The Rocky Mountain News in connection with the Ascot. I arrived at the address and found out that it was the location of a house that actually had a theatre in its basement. I was told to just walk in the front door and wait. I could hear two men talking in another room. After a while, I saw this black man about my age come out and go through the front door. He was smiling, but did not make eye contact with me.

The director came out and introduced himself. I told him about seeing his name in the paper. He seemed pleased that I noticed. The interview went very well. I talked about my recent experience. He knew JA very well. I told him about the projects I had worked on in college and did what I could to appear well-rounded in terms of stage productions. He told me he would let me know if he wanted me to do another interview. I left feeling pretty confident about the interview and knew that he would be calling me back. However, I did not get to see the theatre in the basement.

About a week later, he called me to come over to the Ascot to interview with him and the producer. I went in and saw that it was under construction, like the other dinner theatre. I was able to find my way to the main office. I was greeted by the receptionist, who asked me to take a seat.

While I was sitting there, the same black guy I saw before came out of the office. He was laughing and smiling as were the director and producer. Again, he did not make eye contact with me. The director then asked me to come into the office. I got to meet the producer. We exchanged pleasantries.

And then it all went downhill from there. I talked about my extensive experience in college, where I had gotten to design the lighting and audio effects for a couple of productions. The producer said that college wasn’t real experience because all they do is just get everyone together and toss ideas around until something sticks. (While that’s true, it didn’t make our productions terrible.) Basically, he was slamming my degree.

Then the director told him to ask me the “blue sky” question. The question was what I most wanted to do working for a theatre, the sky’s the limit. I responded with wanting to do lighting design, since I excelled at it in college and did pretty impressive things. The producer didn’t seem satisfied with that answer.

Then the producer said they really didn’t have any running crew positions available and asked if I might be interested in working as a fill-in for the person who was running the spotlight. I told him, yeah, I could do that. I wanted to get back into theatre, and if this was how I got my foot in the door, so be it.

When I left that interview, no one was laughing or smiling. Again, I felt like I had been SLAPPED IN THE FACE! Sometime later, I figured out what had likely happened. They had probably decided to hire that black guy before I went in to interview. Since they didn’t want me to outshine that guy (which I wouldn’t have been able to do), they conspired to make my interview as difficult as possible, pretty much like that Monty Python interview sketch in which John Cleese reveals at the end that the position Graham Chapman was applying for had been filled a long time ago.

I wished I’d been able to figure that out during the interview. I could have at least left with my dignity. I would have said something like, “Well, in college, I had to put up with a lot of mind games. I’d hoped that I had left that behind, but I come here to find more mind games. I want to work for a professional organization, which you don’t appear to have here. Goodbye.”

Yeah, you always think of that stuff when it does you no good.

The Ascot Theatre put on some impressive productions, but even they had a hard time keeping it profitable and shut it down after a couple of years. (That means the guy they hired found himself out of a job sooner than he expected.) There were several more attempts to open it and at one point, it was a nightclub, but its latest incarnation shut down a couple of years ago and no one has tried anything new there since.

But this would not be the last time I would receive disrespect from a theatre company. I will eventually get around to that story.

Sometimes, I can reveal too much

Because I was somewhat overwhelmed at work yesterday, I wasn't able to come up with a blog post for today. I'm doing a video today instead of Friday. What follows is a peek into my latest Asperger-based obsession.



I had originally planned to keep this unlisted and shared only through Twitter. (People who follow me know how much I like the subject of the calendar.) But I needed something to post today, so here it is.

Imagine Me on TV

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!

Another Children's Song

Sometimes, you feel like Mother Goose rhymes don't tell enough story, so you have to come up with your own versions.



I don't think this will be too popular with kindergarten teachers.

Back in the Theatre Game

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.