The older I get, the more I have those times when every
molecule in my body is screaming "Go to sleep. NOW!"
That's how I felt as we left the Davis Musical Theater
building last night. It was opening night for Shrek: the Musical and my
plan was to come home and write this entry and then go to sleep and write the review in
the morning. But my body was having none of it. All those molecules were
agitating and I could feel that I simply could not do anything but go to sleep.
Immediately.
So I did. I walked in the front door, put my purse on
the kitchen counter, changed into sleep clothes, did my evening ablutions, and collapsed
on the couch. I was asleep almost instantly.
That means, of course, that I am writing this at 4 a.m.
because I don't have the sense that God gave me and though I could probably go back to
sleep after getting up, it would bother me that I had left my journal entry un-written.
So here I am. Then I'll go back to sleep.
Yesterday was a Davis Musical Theater day. I had
recently written a feature article about the company's 30th anniversary and during my
interview with founders/directors/producers Steve and Jan Isaacson, Steve mentioned that
each year when The Enterprise puts out its "Welcome to Davis" issue,
the paper does a lovely feature on the university's Mondavi Center, where all the big time
concerts take place, and then there is a secondary spotlight on one of the other theaters
in town, and DMTC is relegated to some "also ran" slot in the back of the
insert.
Two years ago, he said, they protested that the second
place had been given to a little theater and not to them, and were promised that the
following year, they would have the second place, but the following year it went to a
brand new theater in town.
In point of fact, DMTC is the longest-running,
year-round, non-professional musical theater company in California. It operates at 91%
capacity and it really deserves more respect than it gets. I have watched its
productions grow from pretty mediocre to pretty good. It used to be that in my
reviews I was kind to the shows because they gave them such heart, if not talent, but it
has been a long time since I've had to write one of those carefully worded reviews.
I decided to go to bat for DMTC, and contacted the editor. She
agreed with me that it was time for DMTC to have a spotlight and next thing I knew, I was
assigned to write the article for the Welcome section.
I had several other things to write and I kept putting off doing the
DMTC article until night before last when, as I was going to sleep, I realized that the
article was due the next day. So I spent the day putting together an article that
would be different enough from the one I just wrote a couple of weeks ago, that it would
be interesting to read and would give newcomers to Davis (it's aimed at students coming to
UC Davis) an idea of what the company offered....and how to audition or buy tickets.
I finally got the article written
just about time to think about leaving to go the opening of Shrek.
It was a wonderful production with a terrific Shrek, the ogre you
love and his unexpected search tp find a mate. There were 29 in the cast, a huge
cast for DMTC, and they had rented costumes from a professional costume company so they
were spectacular.
Shrek has no songs you will be singing the next morning, but
it's a cute show and I enjoyed it and will give it a good review.
After the show, I looked through the DMTC scrapbook on display in the
lobby. They had recently had a 30th year celebration and so had hauled out all the
old stuff, and this first scrapbook was part of our history as well. The
very first production in 1984 was Peter Pan, for which Walt built the sets, Ned and his friend Greg did the lights, and
Jeri was the stage manager. Walt continued to build sets for awhile and Paul did a
couple of shows, though he was now a teenager and his interests would soon turn to music
and Lawsuit. But there he was in the book too.
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| Day 74: My son the Nazi. Paul in a DMTC production of Sound of Music |
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