My first year after High School, I wasn't sure what I wanted to do with my life, and since I had a love of theater (production backstage work) I applied for several theater internships around the U.S. It now surprises me how I took such a big risk at age 18 in 1985 after an exhaustive search through ArtSearch. I moved away, despite not having a support system-- after having an offer from Virginia Stage Company in Norfolk. I think sometimes my phone-bill back home to New Jersey was more than my $400.00 monthly stipend as a Properties Intern -- I missed my friends and family a lot, but I needed to find something to do with my life as I considered more school. And this was the way to do it.
So this weekend, I was going through my files doing some "pile destruction" (as one of my Clients calls it) and I found a folder called "old theater jobs." I reminisced about my "Properties Intern" position at the Wells Theater in downtown Norfolk, next to the Granby Mall where I hoped someday I'd be somebody. The show at the time was J.P. Donleavy's The Beastly Beatitudes of Balthazar B. The United States Premiere drama was being courted by Broadway Producers, and I was ordered by my supervisor Gretchen Gregg to compile a detailed list of my duties that could be passed along to the show's artistic team.
I found those 10 worksheets this weekend, almost 20 years later-- and quickly dredged up spending an entire 8 hours glued to an IBM Selectric on my only day off-- Monday -- sitting in an uncomfortable folding chair in the corner of the marketing office of the unrestored and crumbling Beaux Arts style building.
Page after page I detailed hand and set properties, timing and proud display of anal organization. All in the hopes that important people would be reading the sheets, and having me tag along with them to the bright (and at that time, creepy) lights of 42nd Street and 10th Avenue.
Intermission Metamorphosis - 15 to 20 Minutes, begin Stage Right:
- Strike all props and dressings from college room wagon to storage drawers
- Dress Harrod's chandeliers with red lampshades
- Set drapery in drawing room
- Check Harrods and hotel dressings
- Check dressing on drawing room wagon including:
- Place picture of Fitzdare
- Locate fountain pen and top
- Arrange Checkbook
- Wad of bills on top of end table
- Preset suitcases for Bell Hop, UR
- Hand-off Beefy his Harrod's newspaper
What a really odd thing to hold onto I now ask myself-- the sheets with the Times New Roman font, yellowed-brownish paper, three hole punched with a snappy cover on the theater's raised letterhead.
A quick search on the 'net and I actually found a website that lists the credits for the show and the follow-up Reading at the Douglas Fairbanks Theater in New York, 1987. I wasn't invited to attend and unfortunately the show didn't really live-on. But my name was listed on the website.
In the one picture I have from that year (above) you can see Gretchen Gregg, Property Master (middle) and John Lee Beatty, Set Designer (left) listening to something important I thought I had to say during those hellacious 10-of-12 theater dress-rehearsals.
Sometimes you just have to hold onto things for no reason, like my 20-year old Worksheets and photo. I know it's just a file but the preservationist gene in me reminds me that this process leads to self-knowledge. Well, at least it's just a file and not a pile.