92: The One Where We Met in St. Louis

 

Anita Hodder as Lucille Pentard, Jason Connell as Lon Smith, and Chandra Maloney as Rose Smith in our senior class production of Meet Me in St. Louis, Thursday, November 14 and Saturday, November 16, 1991

Out of a class of one hundred, only maybe a quarter of the class was involved in the senior class play whether onstage or in backstage capacity.  I was one of the lucky ones who had a part to play; Duffy, essentially the villain of the play.  The production was the stage play (as opposed to the musical) Meet Me in St. Louis and it is one of my favorite memories of our senior year. 

As I recall, parts were cast back around the end of September and rehearsals began, I believe, the day of the Fall Picnic. Rehearsals were held several nights a week and I remember enjoying meeting up with cast and crew to rehearse at the music building.  That auditorium came to feel like a second home, cozy and safe, where we made our way through the play. Some of my good friends were in the play as well--Greg Wedel, Carissa Berard, Jeff O'Connor, Anita Hodder, and Pamela Foard were in the cast, and J Carlos and Geri Haupt were in the crew.  And of course, Chandra Maloney had the starring role as Rose.  I also made new friends with cast members that I hadn't known very well, people like Tonya Simoes, who met through the play.

Matthew Neimeyer who played Fred Gregory and Tonya Simoes who played Tootie Smith, hanging out backstage during dress rehearsals.

There were times when the rehearsals got tiresome or frustrating. Our director Julia Smith, and her student director, our classmate Mae Williams, were tough taskmasters with high standards.  By Senior Survival I was wishing I could just quit the whole thing.  Thankfully, I didn't and in retrospect I have to give credit to our directors.  They brought out the best in us.

Our director, Julia Smith

Our student director Mae Williams applying make-up to Julie Pederson, who played the family maid Katie, while crew-member Rachel Berlus and cast member Sean Forde look on.  Sean had a very short part but it was very memorable! He played the street car conductor who burst on stage to toss the dummy that the younger girls in the Smith family made and placed on the streetcar tracks, causing the streetcar to derail.  Sean's dramatic entrance brought down the house!

The play itself was so much fun.  The story revolves around four headstrong sisters (played by Chandra Maloney, Pamela Foard, April Watson, and Tonya Simoes) who are determined to prevent their father (played by Steve Jeffers) from receiving a promotion that will move their family to New York City right as the world is coming to St. Louis for the 1904 World's Fair. There's drama, romance (one onstage kiss between Chandra and Jeff Fulford, who played her love interest), and even violence (Chandra also "slapped" Jeff in the face and threatened to throw a lamp at him.  And Tonya, who was brilliant as the youngest sister, "bit" Greg Wedel's character, Mr. Dodge on the leg).  My character Duffy was determined to get the promotion promised to the girls' father and conducts his own scheming to make that happen.  I enjoyed the play so much that 18 years later I had my theatre club, REAL Christian Theater stage Meet Me in St. Louis in the spring of 2009.  I really enjoyed revisiting the familiar material and watching my students bring the characters alive that my high school pals had once inhabited (I also took on new role, taking on the part of the father originally played by Steve in our senior year production).

Chandra and Pamela on stage as sisters Rose and Ester. Among their misadventures were swallowing chicken hearts (actually pieces of jello) in the belief that if they shook hands with the boys they loved afterwards they would be destined to marry.  Hilarity ensued as they girls struggled to avoid shaking hands with anyone else in the meantime less they end up destined to marry someone else.

April Watson as Agnes Smith. She and her youngest sister Tootie got up to all kinds of mischief, which ultimately led to the "chipped tooth" you see in this photo

Steve Jeffers as Mr. Smith holds forth, while his daughters look on

Me in character as the scheming  Mr. Duffy. In the background Rachel and Jeff Fulford who played John Shepherd share a hug.

Eventually the hours of rehearsal paid off on opening night, on Thursday, November 14, 1991.  Here's what I wrote in my journal about the performance:

"Well tonight was it. The big performance. And it was awesome. It went great. Much better than we ever expected it would.  It was so much fun!  I can hardly wait until Saturday night [the second performance]. Our senior class production of Meet Me in St. Louis was a smash hit.  I did pretty good on my parts.  I didn't forget any of my lines and the only problems I had was about saying my lines too soon and almost laughing during the funny part of Act II.  Overall, the crowd loved the play. Rumors were going around that people were saying that this was the best class play they've seen in years.  They really seemed to like it.  We got a lot of laughs and applause.  They liked the thing about Chandra "Rose" and Pamela "Ester" not being able to shake anyone's hand because they ate chicken hearts.  The only mess ups, was well, the only big one was when Jason was supposed to join Carissa on stage but couldn't because he was still changing.  Carissa ended up stuck on stage by herself for at least 3 minutes. It was awful but Carissa handled it very well.  She stayed in character and tried to make it look natural.  Finally Jason got his clothes on and the play continued.  All in all an excellent performance."

Funny thing about Jason Connell's delay in the costume change. The issue was that he couldn't find his pants. I guess he finally found some pants but he never did figure out what happened to the pants he was supposed to wear.  Only later, would I realize where those pants were.  I had put them on by accident!  I never told anyone that I was the cause of Jason's late arrival on stage. Sorry about that Jason!

Two days later was our encore performance and it went well also, though not quite as well as the first. I wrote about the second show in my journal, while at a cast party held at Chandra's house. The date was Saturday, November 16, 1991:

"Put on our final performance of "Meet Me in St. Louis".  Tonight wasn't as good but the audience couldn't tell the difference.  The loved it.  Word is this is the best play anyone has ever seen. Sounds good to me.  The only screw-up was when Chandra skipped over a page of lines in Act III.  But Carissa, Steve, and Pamela covered it, Chandra kept her cool,  the skip was (surprisingly) not noticeable and the audience never knew it happened. 

Cast party now going on here at Chandra's house.  All of the above are here [I had listed all the cast and crew in the top margin of that page of my journal].  The food is excellent and good time is being had by all."

You may not have picked it up from my journal entries, but both performances were well-received.

That darn third act was tricky.  Some of the scenes were so similar that it was easy to get them confused (and also made it easy for the audience, who didn't have a script, to not realize we'd missed some dialogue).  But Chandra and company handled the misstep like pros and the show went on.

I think senior year is where I developed my love for acting and the theatre. I would go on to start several traveling drama troupes for kids,  as well act, write, and direct on several projects for both stage and television--most recently, just last year in the short film, Rear Views.  My favorite thing about being involved in a production is the camaraderie that develops among the cast and crew as we work together to bring a story to life.  It's those memories even more than the applause that I find most rewarding.  And it all began with our senior class play.  

Crew member J Carlos and Steve Jeffers on stage during rehearsal

Crew members J & Esther Pierre Louis, and Matthew who I would like to say is studying his lines, but I suspect is simply reading a magazine

Sound tech Tanya Castor and Greg Wedel who played my boss Mr. Dodge

Jeff O'Connor who played Grandpa, the family patriarch with Carissa Berard who played Mrs. Smith

Matthew with Geri Haupt who worked on the crew in set and makeup and Anita. I feel like that is Geri's mom doing Anita's hair.

Chandra and I share the stage. One of the climatic scenes on in the third act was the confrontation between Rose and Duffy.  We were nemeses on stage, best friends in real life.