An Actor's Diary: The Final Chapter

If you've been following along at home, you know that I've been involved in a production of Neil Simon's "Rumors" since back in May.  Well, we wrapped up three performances this past weekend and I'm happy to say, for the most part, it was a rousing success.  I'm not gonna lie and say each one was perfect, but I think we really pulled it off and then some.  Before I return to Fantasy Football silliness; I just want to wrap up this wrap up.
We didn't get a formal cast picture with all of us in costume, which I'm kind of pissed about.  I mean, we got ourselves all rigged up in freakin' BLACK TIE for this thing and nobody took a cast photo.  So, shots from the green room and ones taken during the performance will have to suffice.
So, the play was staged at the Smith Mountain Lake 4H center (Head, Hearts, Hands, Health); which is more of a compound out near Smith Mountain Lake.  It was way bigger than I was expecting and you literally have to go through the middle (or backside) of nowhere to get it.

I didn't see the 4H center until about a week before we opened.  We'd been rehearsing on the actual set in the basement of one of The Smith Mountain Lake Arts Council's board-members.  Kay and Mike volunteered their home for six months.  That's half a year!  Why did we rehearse this for half a year, you ask?  I don't know, quite frankly, I reply.
​At first, I thought...oh, cool...I won't even need to study my lines...they'll simply sink in over that length of time...I'll learn them by osmosis.  Yeah...ahhh, no...that's not what happened.  Actually, that extraordinary amount of time allowed me to keep putting off actually learning them, so I had to cram in the last few weeks.  I got into a certain amount of "trouble" for that.  But I'm not going to go into the negative aspects of those six months: except to say that pretty much the entire cast, including myself, came down with Covid, which didn't help matters.  Oh and my OCD flared up to pre-Zoloft levels (more on that later).
As I mentioned, the actual set was in the basement of the aforementioned couple.  It was then disassembled and put back together at the 4H center.  Here it is:

Here's a shot of the cast during rehearsals:

Sorry it's blurry.  We had a lot of technical difficulties with this show.  And two cast members are missing. Here we are in costume, during a performance (there were only three; which is another weird thing):

Oh, that's actually the curtain call.  Left to right, the cast:

Gary Noesner as Officer Welch
Shirley Sorrentino as Officer Pudney
Pam Gabriel as Cassie Cooper
Scott Sayre as Glenn Cooper
Wendy Neuman as Chris Gorman
Me as Ken Gorman
Mike Dittrich as Lenny Ganz
Sue Halloran as Claire Ganz
Phil Servidea as Ernie Cusack
Marion Wetcher as Cookie Cusack

Interesting cast note: Gary Noesner is something of a celebrity.  He was one of the FBI negotiators at Waco and he wrote a book about his career:

Did I ever think I'd end up on a stage in ruralish Virginia, acting along side an FBI hostage negotiator?  Short answer, "no."  But life is strange.  This was Gary's second play.  His first was a part in "Of Mice and Men" in college.  He is quite a charming and amiable man and a natural actor.  He was a stand-out in the improv class we did back in May.*

That's our director Nancy King with Scott Sayre who played the weasly politician role.

So, they always take "head shots" at most community playhouses and put them out in the lobby...often without identifying names; which seems kind of pointless.  And nobody, but nobody knows how to take a good head shot of me.  I don't know if it's the photographers or if it's me or if I have difficult to light face...I don't know.  I think I'm a fairly good looking person. My head is rather shaped like a lozenge; or an elongated watermelon. I am able to take pretty good selfies of moi-self (which frankly is getting harder and harder...I'm about to turn 57).  When I was a kid, I didn't photograph all that well; often appearing goofy and gangly, particularly as a teen-ager.  When I got into my mid-twenties all the way through my mid forties I couldn't take a bad picture, more or less.  Nowadays, it seems, all I can do is take a bad picture.  Yes, I'll admit I'm a bit vain; but I am an actor.  And a human being.  I want to look good for as long as I can.  But I totally get why a lot of celebrities demand "picture approval" on various and sundry projects.

I think I film pretty well.  When I'm in motion, it's better for all of us.  It's the still pictures I don't like...the camera doesn't lie, right?  Anyways, here is my favorite picture of myself as an actor.  It was taken by Cynthia Stearn who directed the first version of my play, "The Son'll Come Out Tomorrow."  It was not planned or a formal sitting.  A bunch of us were just hanging out on stage and she came over and said, "let me take your picture!"  So I let her.  She captured everything it was that I fancied myself as a performer without even trying.  Of course, this is from some twenty some odd years ago.

Well, that's enough mirror gazing for now.

​So, our opening night was by far the best of the three.  We had about 140 people and they laughed throughout the show, quite heartily; and a couple of times for a really long time.  In fact, it was the most laughter I've experienced, thus far, in my years of doing this.  It was a Friday night and there was wine on hand and they loved it.  Saturday night was about a hundred or so people, maybe more.  They were kind of a "tough crowd," as the saying goes.  Getting the laughs was like pulling teeth; but by Act 2 they were primed and yukking it up.  The Sunday matinee was SOLD OUT.  150 people.  150 people who had probably just come from church, skewed on the octogenarian side and were definitely not lubricated with potent potables.  We had to really work to get them to come around...but we did.  On Saturday, demure as they were, they gave us a standing ovation. Friday too. The Sunday folks did not.  Standing ovations are not a given...so we had that going for us.
So, all that rehearsal for only three shows.  Usually, there's at least two weekends for any community theater production.  And you usually get a review in the local papers.  I cannot supply that here.  I'm pretty certain we would've received a "good review."  Not that getting a good review is what substantiates whether or not you actually put on a good show.  I was in a production of "Hedda Gabler" that devolved into a comedy.  If it had been reviewed, I'm sure the critic would've trashed it.  But it got a standing ovation.  Oftentimes, as we know, critics and audiences don't react to things in the same way. We had a lot of screwed up sound cues: late, wrong, etc. But it somehow made things funnier, I thought.​
​Meanwhile, back in the green room...

That's Pam, Sue, Wendy, Marion and Scott (left to right).

Phil, myself, Gary, Mike and Scott (left to right).

So that's the unlikely tale of Neil Simon's Rumors at Smith Mountain Lake.  Would I do it again?  Well I loved working with my castmates and crew but the short answer here is "no."  No to a rehearsal schedule of that length, anyways.  These things usually take about six weeks; not six months.  Plus, SML is 45 minutes away from where I live, which isn't that big a deal, if it weren't for the exorbitant gas expenditures (gasoline!). Between gas and other expenditures for this show, I definitely went into the red; but I get my pay in applause, n'est ce pas? 

​There are plans to create an Arts Center in a massive building that was formerly a furniture store.  So, who knows?

That's like a 600 seat theater!  And there are already...ahem...rumors that most of the shows there will be "professional" with union actors shipped in from NYC.  Hopefully there will be room for both community theater and "legit" theater.  Whatevs...

The denouement.

So, in wrapping up this wrap up...
I mentioned that I was going through a pretty bad OCD flare-up in the final days of rehearsal and into the performances.  Let me give you a little insight into that particular challenge.  So for me, acting is a process of figuring out my character and what they want in the context of the play.  Not so much who they are, but how do they act? Because in real life, we only see that in other people. What they do and how they behave.
I learn the lines to the point (hopefully) where they are second nature.  You open your mouth and the words come out.  The trick is making the words, which you've said dozens of time, come out as though you're just saying them for the very first time.  While also simultaneously trying to "forget" what you're going to say; that is: to not anticipate any of your dialogue coming up.  It's kind of like typing, when your fingers are flying over the keyboard and you're not even conscious of it.  Or like letting go and letting the Force be with you.
So, that is hard enough.  But if you're experiencing OCD intrusive thoughts while your attempting to think and simultaneously not think; you've got to control the third set of thoughts at the same time.  And deal with panic.  And then just the simple stress of being in front of an audience, wanting to please and entertain them.  People think acting is easy; or more precisely, they tend to dismiss acting as somehow frivolous.  It's not.  It's hard.  I would say that kind of intense concentration is as exhausting as any marathon.  It makes me tired.
Yes, acting is hard.  And comedy is harder.

Here is another favorite acting photo of mine.  My husband took it.  He takes very good pictures of me.  This is from the disastrously sublime production of "Hedda Gabler."

I played Hedda's morose, suicidal, decidedly Scandinavian "boyfriend."  The only line of his that I remember is: "I didn't throw the manuscript into the fjord!"
I'm sorry; but there is no way to utter the word "fjord" unless you are from Oslo.

Ciao!

​CFR 10/28/22