One Summer

     The following is the finished prologue to my new memoir, One Summer. If you've been wondering what the book is about, this should give you an idea.
     The 60-page book proposal has now been completed, and my agent has begun sending it to  publishers to gauge interest. Next week I'll be flying to Los Angeles to sit down with one of my fellow cast members, Michael Kamenir, for an interview. I hope to conduct several more conversations with members of the 1977 company as the book moves toward completion.
     On the surface, One Summer is about the extraordinary journey I took in 1977. But more than that, it's about something we all share—the one season, the one place, the one chapter of our lives that never really leaves us.
     I hope you enjoy this small sample.
 
 
     I had taken this exit countless times over the years. Exit 299. Head east a few miles, turn left onto Old Oregon Highway, and follow the familiar road to Shasta College.
     Long after the summer of 1977 had become a memory, I still found myself making this detour whenever I was driving between Portland and Los Angeles. Most of the time I came alone, wandering the quiet campus and remembering the people who had once filled it with life. Once, I even convinced my wife and reluctant teenage daughter to come along for an impromptu tour.
To them, it was simply another college campus. To me, it was so much more. 
     But this visit was different. This time I wasn't content to simply walk the grounds. I wanted to go inside.
     I parked, stretched my legs, and walked toward the familiar glass building that now served as the entrance to the theater complex. I rattled the glass doors. Locked. I cupped my hands against the glass and peered into the darkened lobby. Nothing.
     Undeterred, I wandered around the side of the building until I noticed activity inside one of the offices. A man stepped through the doorway, and I introduced myself, explaining that I had performed here decades earlier and wondered if it might be possible to take a quick look around.
     He smiled knowingly. “Of course.”
     A few moments later, I found myself walking through the familiar red lobby toward the double doors leading into the theater.
     It hadn't changed in thirty years. The honey-colored wood walls still framed the auditorium, the rows of red cushioned seats, now slightly broken in by three decades of audiences, climbing the gentle incline to the back of house. The blue curtain stood open, and a lone ghost light cast its quiet circle across the mostly bare stage, illuminating the stage where one summer had become a lifetime of stories.
     The sight stopped me cold. It wasn't the actors. It wasn't the skeletal framing of a half-completed set. It wasn't even the theater. It was the sudden realization that part of me had never really left this place. I quietly slipped into the back row and sat down.
     Onstage, actors rehearsed a play I didn't recognize. They never noticed me. They were too immersed in their work. I heard the rhythmic hammering of flats being fastened into place, smelled the unmistakable scent of fresh paint, and listened to the familiar scurrying overhead as technicians adjusted the lights. Somewhere backstage someone laughed. A stage manager called out a note.
     It was the third week of June. Shasta College was preparing for yet another summer theater season.
     Suddenly, I wasn't watching someone else's rehearsal. I was watching my own life.
     Nearly thirty years earlier, I had been one of those young actors, standing beneath the work lights, running lines, learning choreography, wondering whether I belonged there, convinced that the rest of my life was just beginning.
     The years between then and now quietly disappeared. For a few moments, it wasn't thirty years ago. It was yesterday. I closed my eyes. Memories that had lived quietly in the darkness for decades began stepping back into the light. Faces appeared first. Then voices. Then laughter.
Soon I could smell the familiar scent of pancake makeup, hear the orchestra warming up, feel the nervous excitement before the curtain rose, and remember the impossible certainty that comes only with youth—that somehow the future would unfold exactly as I imagined it.
     When I opened my eyes, I realized these memories deserved more than quiet visits to an empty theater. They deserved to be remembered.
     It would take another twenty years before I found the courage to write them down.
     Every performer has one summer they never forget. Mine was 1977.
     Most people have never heard of the Shasta College Summer Festival. It really existed for only two summers, tucked between its larger cousin, the Summer Repertory Theater in Santa Rosa, California, and the Tony Award Winning Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland, Oregon. Yet for one remarkable moment in time, it became home to an extraordinary collection of actors, directors, musicians, designers, dreamers... and a few unforgettable characters.
     That summer I was hired as part of a twenty-person professional company. The smaller roles and chorus were filled by Shasta College students and members of the local community. The season included Hair, Man of La Mancha, The Hot l Baltimore, and a children's production.
Under the direction of Artistic Director Cecil O. Johnson and Festival Producer Craig Thompson, we lived three theatrical lives at once. We rehearsed one show during the day, performed another that evening, then started all over again the next morning. Somewhere between costume changes, opening nights, work detail, cast parties, and too little sleep, friendships were formed.
     Like most theatrical companies, it accumulated its share of stories. Some were true. Others grew a little taller each time they were told. The truth, as it turned out, was even stranger.
     Before the summer was over there would be forest fires, impossible romances, backstage disasters, unforgettable performances, friendships we thought would last a lifetime... and one heartbreaking goodbye that would echo through the next fifty years of my life.
     Some of us would go on to careers in show business. Others would leave it behind entirely. A few are no longer with us.
     Summer stock is a little like a traveling circus. People arrive from different corners of the country, share an intense few months together, then scatter again, often never expecting to meet a second time.
     Nearly fifty years later, I still think about that summer—and the remarkable people who shared it with me. It was chaotic. It was exhilarating. It was occasionally hilarious, sometimes heartbreaking, and almost always unforgettable.
     This is how I remember it.