I went to public schools, K - 12 and then to a state university. I don't remember too much about those days -- except for the time I put into art and theatre. The rest of it was like putting in jail time, serving my sentence until true freedom -- or so I thought. Ha! Little did I realize that resisting oppression was to be a lifelong struggle!
In junior high school, I had parts in the Christmas plays, including the part of a guardian angel in The Littlest Angel. In high school, there was no drama club, only annual junior and senior class plays directed by an English teacher who told us to always stand in triangles. I was Delicate Daisy in The Egg and I. When I think of the word "corny," I always think of this play in particular.
I wasn't in the senior class play because by then I had become a member of the Catacombs Players in Sharon Center. Directed by Gene Woodling, Jr (son of the Yankee player), the community theatre group was primarily college and high school students. Gene liked absurdist theatre, which nobody else was doing around town in the late 60s. We did Godot, The Bald Soprano (I played Mrs Smith) & The Lesson (I played the Maid), Deathwatch, and more box office friendly things like The Innocents and Dirty Work at the Crossroads.
I started at Akron U as a visual art major. By the end of my freshman year, the black students had taken over the administration building, Nixon had bombed Cambodia and four students were shot to death at Kent State. I switched to theatre arts because the art department wouldn't let me take sculpture until I took some other courses first, and they also wouldn't let me take theatre courses as electives. My problem with education always was that I was quite sure what I wanted and needed to learn. But the authorities insisted I had to take this, that and the other thing I was sure I'd never need in life. To this day, I have never had to solve an algebra problem outside of a math class.
I did this drawing of a ship in 4th grade. I liked to draw people, animals, and sailing ships. By junior high I was very much taken by scupture -- loved to work in clay. Below is a portrait of the artist as a teenager.
Here are some rare archival photos of some of my college performances. At right, as the Widow Quinn in The Playboy of the Western World. Below, with real long hair in Moonchildren.
The best thing about Akron U theatre in those days was that it was small and one could pretty much work continually on stage or back stage. I got into directing in a big way then. When I was elected president of Theatre Guild, my friends and I found a way to rewrite the club's constitution so we could become a producing group. A bunch of us chipped in some cash and for $40 we put on our first show. I volunteered to direct, and since I had been so taken with a play called Gammer Gurton's Needle I had seen performed in Olde English at the Edinburgh Festival, I proposed we do that one. No royalties! OK! My concept for the set was free cloth -- we all had to scout around and find a lot of interesting cloth with textures. Once we did that we would sew two huts out of the donated cloth for the set and use the rest of the fabric for costumes. We used our $40 on publicity, having acquired free performing space in the Newman Center. We had large and enthusiastic audiences and made $300 on the run! I was in the hospital with pneumonia for final dress and the first weekend. When I finally made it back to see my show for the first time with audience and lights, the cast had a director's chair waiting for me to sit in -- with my name on it! Truly, there's no people like show people.
Two more plays I directed at Akron U: above, Ralph Roister Doister. (Love those pre-Elizabethans!) And below, Ionesco's Improvisation or the Shepherd's Chameleon. (Love those absurdists!)
At left is a photo of The Next Stage production of The Alchemist. A group of AU theatre grads put this company together for one summer. I directed The Alchemist beginning with a visual concept of a post-nuclear landscape made of rubble (including a Volkswagen with sun roof and a telephone pole with a crow's nest.) The creatures living in this dump haven't learned a thing -- Some are still cheats and others are still gulls. It worked really well, even when we lost our "Doll" to illness two weeks before opening. I took on the part and loved playing it. Best role I ever had before Wanda.
