PROJECT #160
by Carolyn Myers
For about a decade, I worked at Crater High School, in semi-rural Central Point, Oregon, in the “cafetorium,” where I directed the school plays. A couple of years after I had officially stopped working at Crater, I returned to mentor a former student directing her first play, “The Legend of Sleepy Hollow." in the final few hectic days before opening night.
Much to my surprise, Brett showed up as well. He had finished attending high school the same year I stopped teaching, two years before; but, it turned out, had kept showing up as tech support for Crater High School plays, to hang and focus the lights. Brett’s a sweet big guy who looks like, and probably is, a biker. He looked tougher than ever as a 20 year old, and he had in tow a friend named Shadow. Appropriate to his name, Shadow was tall, thin, pale, with lank dark hair, wearing black fingernail polish, and, of course, an enormous black trench coat. Even in the big gloom of the Crater High School cafeteria at night – and this was an enormous gloomy room (despite its peppy orange food-stained carpeting), he gloomed fluorescently. I was fairly certain that the parents of freshmen girls acting in their first high school play, were not prepared for Brett and Shadow and probably the Crater High School administration wasn’t either.
Community theatre, however, creates family. Brett and I greeted each other enthusiastically as professionals, and got to work. Shadow hung out way in the back corner of the cafeteria, which is very far away indeed, but he returned each night. After the dress rehearsal, long after all the high school actors had gone home, hopefully to bed or to finally getting around to learning their lines, and I had forced my student director home before she dropped of exhaustion, ‘round midnight, only Brett, Shadow and I were left in the cafetorium. Brett wanted to refocus some lights, and needed two bodies onstage, so I snagged Shadow (who was traversing the hall after going out for a cigarette) and demanded he join me.
Tech rehearsals are tedious, so we started saying lines from the play to amuse ourselves, and Shadow knew them all! It was fun until he slipped on a plate that a careless actor had left lying by a curtain. He was embarrassed and enraged. His eyes turned red, and there was even a slight rosy tinge to his facial pallor. “It pisses me off,” he steamed. I backed off, assessing danger. “What pisses you off?” I asked. “The actors” he shouted, walking to the edge of the stage and pulling open the huge black curtain with startling few yanks of the rope. “Look,” he thundered, “Just look at the mess.” Indeed, props were strewn everywhere.
“You know, Shadow,” I ventured, “There is a job in the theatre for people with your concern; it’s called “prop master.” Then I introduced him to the technique of spreading butcher paper on a table, arranging the props carefully, and then drawing the outline of each prop, so it can be replaced in the same place, even by fairly uninterested high school actors. Armed with a Sharpie, Shadow set to work and it was after 2:00 am when we left the building.
“The Legend of Sleepy Hollow” had a successful opening night. I sat between Shadow and Brett on the small smelly orange-carpeted rise from which we ran the lights. Whenever Shadow gasped or twitched at the actors’ mishandling of props, I held him back, knowing his impassioned appearance back stage would be frightening to the young. A lot of us: cast members, family and friends, stayed to help clean up. It was fun. When it was over, I told The Young Director I would lock up.
It felt like, and actually it was, the very last time after many years, that I would stand there, alone in the middle of the night, smelling that familiar old smashed french fry and ketchup smell, in the Crater High School Cafeteria. But I was not alone. I was just about to lock the door when I heard a lyrical very light singing voice from backstage. I crept back, and peered through a tear in the curtains. And there was Shadow, long black hair hiding his face, tattoos and piercings highlighted in the eerie almost-green of the safety lights, lovingly bent over his prop table, arranging. He was singing the theme song from Annie: “Tomorrow, tomorrow, I love you tomorrow, you’re only a day away.” He had perfect pitch. I withdrew in honor and respect until he lurched out, again embodying disaffected youth, angry, kicking open the heavy side door of the cafeteria, lighting a cigarette and striding off across the football field. Then the door clanged shut and I also exited into the sleepy hollow night of Central Pont, Oregon.