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Community Performance Inc.

December 09, 2007

I'm in the Little Rock airport, with a delayed flight and some time to write. There's one more day of shows in Morrilton, Arkansas. They begin performing a matinee at 2:00 today. I'm hoping they'll have big crowds despite the fog and drizzle.

It was exciting for a time last night, with group after group leaving the old post office and beginning their tour through time down Broadway and Division Streets. The streets were alive with actors dressed in vintage 20's and 30's costumes, tossing trees out of store fronts in one scene- filling lard buckets with old coins in front of others. The hustle and bustle of a project being born.

We've succeeded in creating a committed core cast. We've got an intergenerational and multi-cultural cast from the very start, which I think will prove to be important in the coming years. We're building this project together, and not asking others to join once it's been created. We've got white, African American and Thai participants. We've got whole families plugged in. A grandfather and granddaughter are performing in a scene together. Mothers and children, brothers and sisters performing together. I always love that about these projects. It's a place for families to get to do something fun, even with teenagers, where the teens don't think it's too dorky. I've got a 13 year old myself, now, and I know how hard it is to find something to do together as a family. This is something.

The best buzz was last night, at the end of the show in the reception room, where a white man in his 70's was telling the eight year old African American actor that he was playing the part of his own son. The man in his 70's had been ashamed of this story for years, and was now thrilled. His wife, Alda, was worried about it being told in the play- it's a funny story, it always made everyone in the family laugh-- except her husband.

A couple of decades ago, his wife, Alda, graduated from college. She;d gone back to school when her kids were in school, and she no longer had to care for them during the days. She graduated in December, and the whole family came to see her-- about 20 people. ON the way back, it started to snow, and all the roads were closed. Her cousin had a cabin off one of the roads, and they, in their jeep, transported all 20 people to the cabin- their non-4x4 vehicles couldn't make it to the cabin. The teenagers were none too thrilled about being stuck in the cabin with a bunch of adults and their 8 year old brother over Christmas. Especially since, they had enough food for that night, and that was it. The next day, one of the roads to town got cleared, but the highway was still closed. It was Christmas Eve, all the stores were closed. She found a 7-11 which had a can of soup and a 1 lb. canned ham. For 20 people. She got back with the bad news, and her husband told her the good news- he'd gone out and shot a deer. It was hanging on the porch. They'd have Christmas dinner after all.

Meanwhile, the teenage girls borrowed their mother's fingernail polish. They painted the nose on the deer red, then told their 8 year old brother that Daddy shot Rudolph, and he was hanging on the porch. and they were going to eat him for Christmas dinner. And the little boy runs out there and sees the red nosed reindeer hanging from the porch, ready to be dressed out and eaten. He cried and cried, not only for that, but for the worry that Santa would never, ever visit them ever again. They didn't eat the deer for dinner, and everyone was forbidden from telling that story in his earshot for years after that.

But after the performance last night, Alda's husband claimed the story. He went up to the little boy who cried out "Daddy Shot Rudolph! Daddy Shot Rudolph!" and said "I'm the one who really shot Rudolph. That's my story". The boys eyes widened, his mother, who played Alda, laughed, they all shook hands and talked. I love it when the story teller and the story actor come face to face, and people realize, Yes, Virginia, there is a real storyteller behind these plays. Merry Christmas from Conway County.

   

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