Continued from below. This, of course, weighed heavily on me, so much so that at one point I walked out. I thought it was the usual "personal and creative differences," but in truth it was probably just fear of what lay ahead of me (at that moment, nothing). They graciously took me back, and I eventually got a job as an apprentice electrician at Syracuse Stage. Doing nothing would have been preferable to that experience, but that's another story.

We did four adult shows (California Suite by Neil Simon, Speed-the-Plow by David Mamet, Jerry Finnegan's Sister by Jack Neary, and The Glass Menagerie by Tennessee Williams). I designed scenery for three of them, acted in two of them, and directed one. Our entire scenery budget was $300, but we manged to do something stylish, and while my portrayal of Tom in Menagerie would not rank with the great performances of the twentieth century, I think we all put on a great show, especially for seven bucks a ticket, which at the time was slightly less than most movie theaters charged per ticket, even in Maine.

We begged, borrowed, and stole to get by. On one memorable occasion, Brent talked the resort owner into serving us a free dinner. We made a (very) little money and had a lot of fun.

We also decided to do three children's shows, and assigned them to Theater-on-the-Pond's Playwright-in-Residence... me.

... to be continued in the next entry...