2014 will be memorable for a lot of reasons, but what springs to mind as I sit down to write is the title “Weddings, Funerals and Broadway Shows”. Val’s gone back to school to pursue her Master’s degree, so she spent a lot of 2014 “in the books”. That’s right! I’m married to a co-ed! Woo hoo! We started the year by celebrating the wedding of my nephew’s son – the first of that generation who are my dad’s great grandchildren. Hard to believe that this means my brother Bob has reached the age where he may have great grandchildren of his own running around, soon. Right before Christmastime, we traveled to Alabama for Val’s youngest brother’s wedding. He’s just 20, I believe – a full two generations behind my side of the family- and a marine! It was wonderful watching these two young couples as each of them started their new lives together. We said goodbye this year to my older brother, Mac. His strength and determination, defying a diagnosis that barely gave him months and stretching into years so he could spend more time with his grandkids, his kids and his loving wife have been an inspiration. He fought the good fight, but in May, it was his turn to rest. Then, this past week, I found myself speaking at the funeral of a high school classmate who had been a really good friend. As I gallivanted around the globe, I always knew when I came back to the old home town, Brian Boyer would be there, behind the counter at Hayes’ Automotive. It’s one thing, as I get older, to start noticing the obituaries of folks ‘around my age’ in the paper (another thing, I guess is that I still read ‘the paper’). But Brian was quite literally ‘my age’, give or take 36 hours or so. We were in the same maternity nursery back in ’61. His passing came unexpectedly and suddenly, and is one of those things that really makes you think. With my brother Mac, we had three years of knowing that time was limited –though we didn’t know how long he’d be around or how soon he might be called away. I knew that the time I got to spend with him was precious and I appreciated it. Brian’s sudden passing made me realize that there were precious moments with him that I’d wasted these last few years. After taking a few years off from the stage, I decided to get back out there on the theater scene in 2014. I spent a good deal of the summer playing the part of “Max Detweiler” under the stars in the outdoor Springfield Muni’s production of “The Sound of Music”. It was a part that was not even on my radar when I went to auditions for the Muni season, so the call from the director to offer me the part came as a huge surprise. You see, a few months earlier, Val and I had watched the NBC Live version of the show, and I remember her saying “I’d like to see you play the part of Max”. I believe my response was something clever like “Yeah, whatever”. But the second it was offered to me, it was like a light bulb came on and I knew I had to play that part. It was an absolute blast. The show had a huge cast, and I not only got to meet dozens of new friends (and share the stage for the first time with my incredibly talented grand-niece Molly) but I also got to work with dear old friends like Linda Schneider - who was with me in my first Muni production, “South Pacific” way back in 1980! As I was fighting off the “after the show is over” doldrums later in the summer, I found out that auditions were coming up for Springfield Theatre Centre’s fall production of “Harvey”. It’s hard to explain – there have been specific roles that I’ve auditioned for that I REALLY wanted; some I got and some (most) I didn’t, but either way, I was never fixated on a part as I was with Elwood P. Dowd in “Harvey”. I drove Val crazy in the month leading up to auditions. I was obsessed. Thank goodness Kelly Bassett cast me! I can’t even imagine what my autumn would have been if she had not. I really have no explanation. I’d never seen more than a few YouTube snippets of the stage play, and had only seen selected scenes from the famous Jimmy Stewart film version. It wasn’t “the part I’ve dreamed of my whole life” – it was just the part that, from the moment I heard they were doing the show and read the script, I was hooked on. Playing Max and Elwood practically back-to-back made this my most satisfying and enjoyable theater year in a long, long time. For old guys like me that don’t sing or dance, the number of really good roles starts to dwindle, and here I was lucky enough to get two in the same year! And so, 2014 comes to an end. So far, I don’t know of any impending weddings out there on the horizon for 2015, I could really use a year without a funeral, and I doubt lightning will strike again so soon with another year on the stage like I had this year. It looks like the new year will be quite different than the old, and I’m fine with that. I’ve still got my co-ed, and together we’ll find new adventures in 2015. Happy New Year, everyone. I hope that the new year brings you peace, love hope and all that other good stuff. In a year, I hope Im here to write the recap and that youre here to read it!
Posted on: Thu, 01 Jan 2015 01:25:02 +0000
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