Poisoning Pigeons in the Park

Spring is here! Goodness, what a wet cold dreary weeks we've had. This is really the first good weekend to get out and work in the yard. I love spring. It's so much fun to work in the gardens. And I can still see the lake because the trees haven't leafed out yet.

There's a team of jogger's that just ran past, three abreast.

_________

I'm doing a show in two weeks. We have to be off book for act two tomorrow, and then I have rehearsal every day until we open.

This is community theater on the most basic level. I have to ask myself if this group should continue to exist. There is no support for it, but it's been in existence for 50 years. It's a big debate with me right now. We perform in an un-air conditioned "fellowship hall" with a make-shift stage, low ceiling, and very limited lighting. But I've seen some good shows there - most memorably was A.R. Gurney's Sylvia". It had a wonderful cast, and other than the memory of folding metal chairs, and white cinder block walls; I have no regrets about that evening. It was wonderful theater.

But what if they don't have that space?

The reason I have this debate at all is because I'm also doing the next three shows there (including this one.) Children opens on May 4, then I'll be in "The Last Five Years" next October - hopefully with Petunia (my Mrs. Walker from Tommy), and then I'm directing a show to be named at a later date, possibly Jerry's Girls.

Now, I can probably direct anywhere. But I'm chicken. I'm glad I'm going to be directing there. It's a challenge because of the makeshift stage - but that forces me to keep it small. It's very close to my house too.

Oh, back to the question at hand: What if they don't have that space? The Methodist Church only gets about $2,400 a year from the group for rent. And they've let the make-shift stage be left up at all times, which is really a questionable choice because it is not safe or esthetically pleasing. It looks like a battleship parked in the corner of a school lunchroom. The church is getting a new pastor this June. If it were me; I'd kick Springfield Community Theater out.

Would anyone miss them? Can this group be saved? Can I save them? Should I?

We open in two weeks. I'm still fat. The woman who plays my sister has gastroenteritis and will miss more rehearsals. She's been in nearly crippling pain, and it's imaginable that she'll drop out . . . with two weeks to go, and no understudy. In which case we could possibly go up with the most excellent actress we can find, who would actually read the part, as in be on book, hold a script, as she did the show. If that doesn't close this group down, I don't know what would.

________

All the Virginia Tech terrorist victims were just shown on TV, and I am sitting here in tears. I have to get a grip and get out and start doing a spring cleaning on my yard.

Tonight: a tuxedoed party for 3000 at the National Air and Space Museum. I'm Rolf's guest, it's his work equivalent to the end of year Christmas Party. It's commonly referred to as the PROM. Drinks, dining, and dancing underneath classic planes and space ships. Wow! Wow! Wow!

Spring is here, a-suh-puh-ring is here.
Life is skittles and life is beer.
I think the loveliest time of the year
Is the spring. I do, don't you?
'Course you do.