One Summer (Prologue)

Every performer has one summer they never forget. Mine was 1977.
 
Most of you have probably never heard of the Shasta College Summer Festival. It existed for only two summers, tucked between its bigger, beefier cousin, the Summer Repertory Theatre in Santa Rosa, California, and the mighty giant to the north, the Oregon Shakespeare Festival in Ashland, Oregon. Still, for a brief moment in time, the Shasta College Summer Festival became home to a remarkable collection of actors, directors, musicians, designers, dreamers... and a few unforgettable characters.
 
Like most theatrical endeavors, the festival accumulated its share of stories over the years. Some were true. Some grew a little taller every time they were told. No, there wasn't a freight train rattling the theater walls every time someone launched into a dramatic soliloquy. The train tracks were miles away.
 
The truth was even stranger.
 
That summer I was hired as part of a 20-person professional company. The smaller roles and chorus were filled by Shasta College students and members of the local community.
The season had already been announced in the audition notice: Hair, Man of La Mancha, The Hot l Baltimore, and a children's show that had yet to be revealed.

Welcome to summer stock.
 
Under the direction Cecil O. Johnson and producer Craig Thompson, we lived what felt like three theatrical lives at once. Rehearse one show during the day, perform another that night, then get ready to do it all again tomorrow. Rinse and repeat.
 
Then August arrived.
 
A massive forest fire erupted in the surrounding hills, turning the campus into a temporary headquarters for firefighters. Tents sprang up across the grounds. Exhausted crews slept wherever they could find a patch of grass and a few hours of rest.
 
Inside the company, rumors began circulating about a rather unfortunate health scare that many blamed on our newly arrived firefighter neighbors. The rumors spread almost as quickly as the fire.
 
For many of us, this was our first paid, semi-professional theater job. The company came from all over, some from as far away as Chicago, others recruited from Los Angeles and the prestigious ACT Theatre in San Francisco. We were learning our craft the old-fashioned way: by performing, failing, succeeding, changing costumes at impossible speeds, and somehow finding enough energy to party afterward.
 
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. You come together from different corners of the country, live intensely for a few short months, then pack up and disappear back into our separate lives. 
 
Nearly fifty years later, I still think about my unique life that summer—and the people who shared it with me. It was exhausting. It was chaotic. It was occasionally hilarious, sometimes heartbreaking, and almost always unpredictable. And I wouldn't trade it for anything.
 
This is the prologue to a book I've been carrying around for nearly half a century. Some of it will make you laugh. Some of it may surprise you. A few parts won't paint me or others in the best light. That's all right. The older I get, the less interested I am in polishing the past. I'd rather tell it honestly.
 
For now, I'll be sharing these memories one story at a time. My hope is that, with enough time, enough research, and perhaps a little help from those who were there, they'll eventually become the book they were always meant to be.

We sometimes spend decades trying to revisit places that no longer exist. Not because they've disappeared physically, but because they existed only at the intersection of a particular place, a particular time, and particular people. And sometimes, that intersection is worthy of exploring.
This won't be a weekly feature. More likely once a month. No promises.
Just the truth... as I remember it nearly fifty years later.
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