On Sat, Jun 12, 2010 at 6:46 PM, Jerald Head <jlhead1952(a)gmail.com> wrote:
Mike,
All jesting aside, I do remember the Lear performance 30 years later, and I
was amazed, eyeballs and all. And I remember Joy, and Robert, and Jeff. Joy
was such a delight and Robert was soooo evil. Some guy as you mentioned,
Bruce Meyer was there too. It is such fun to stir up such memories. Although
I will never concede "best class" I tip my hat to "80.
The fact is, every summer is special, and each summer is special in its own
way. I had been in the class of '79, and I had learned an immense amount
that summer, especially from Maria Black, who gave the most informative and
nuanced line readings for Rosalind that I had ever heard (I still believe
her Rosalind is the best I've ever seen, for that matter, and I've seen a
bunch since then). Maria, Bruce Wharton, and Richard South were returning
from the previous summer, as I recall, and each of them taught me a lot. But
those of us for whom 1979 was our first summer also had so much to offer --
Bruce Meyer, Jeanne McCarthy, Britt Block, Teresa Jaynes, Robin Mize, and
David Sharpe come immediately to mind.
In 1980, those of us returning from 1979 and from previous years were all
very aware that it was the tenth summer. We especially knew what kind of
impact your classes had, Jerald -- people in the community still talked
about them -- and we knew we had to build on that in 1980. We knew we could
do comedy, but were not entirely sure we could do a whole tragedy. (Well,
maybe some of us were sure -- I was nervous, though.)
I strongly believe that if 1980 stands out, it's largely because of the
strength of experience -- not just the strength of experienced individuals
(although we had a lot of folks returning to perform that summer) but the
strength of the shared experience and community of knowledge that was
created by people like you, Jerald -- and Mary and Terry and Maggie and so
many others -- and communicated in some profound cultural way so that we
quickly grasped the magnitude of the tasks before us, and we were able to
hit the ground running as a group. (I remember with great clarity a moment
when David Polley and I were sitting in the chairs and coaching Robert
Faires about different ways we thought he could play evil Edmund -- I think
we both took as much pride in Robert's performance as he did.)
For me, summer of 1981 was a lot harder -- fewer returning students, plus a
role (Leontes) that I had immense difficulty figuring out. But one of the
sweetest compliments I ever got at Winedale came from a kid who was watching
me perform as a guard (no lines) in "Measure for Measure" -- "I was
watching
you the whole time! You were always in character! You were really acting!"
Where did I learn how to do that? I had to wonder. And I realized I learned
it pretty much from every one of you who had worked at Winedale, either with
me or before me. Quite often I felt as if all of you were with me as I
performed. (There have been times in the years since that I have performed
some moment of comedy or madness and find myself thinking "that's how Bruce
Meyer would have done it" or "that's how Terry Galloway would have done
it.")
For most of the 1980s I was in the audience. If you were performing, you
probably heard me laughing at some point (I'd even laugh in tragedies, which
one summer got me a threatening look from an audience member). And seeing
Robin or Jeff or David Sharpe performing in later summers, I'd always feel
this little pang -- I wanted to be performing with you folks again. And I
could see in 1986 (and before, and after) that whole groups of people I'd
never performed with (Willie Wilson! David Ziegler! Stephanie Modlin!) were
feeling the same magic I had felt. I wanted to work with them too. (In 2005,
finally got to perform with Zieg!)
The fact is, every summer I performed in, and every summer I attended as an
audience member, has given me something special that I will remember for the
rest of my life. (Performing once more in summer of 1989 was, as I now know
New Orleans folks like to say, "lagniappe," although it did give me the
peculiar pleasure of having Bruce Meyer walk up to me at intermission and,
with horror and disbelief at my performance in "Shoemakers Holiday," cry out
in anguish that "You sang!" Bruce has always been a "fan" of my
singing
voice.)
Speaking of New Orleans, it's probably worth mentioning that a new addition
to our list, Angela Breckenridge (1988 and 1989), is performing the title
role in "Hamlet" in New Orleans this summer. It's mentioned in this
newsletter --
http://www.dcc.edu/networks/31/ -- and you can see a pic of
the remarkably unaged Prince of Denmark here (the one on the left):
http://www.dcc.edu/networks/31/Hamlet-Publicity-033.jpg .
--Mike