Besides the Fall play, I also did the variety shows with Mr. sullivan before he got picked up from school by the police for pornography or something. I was also in charge of the theater/auditorium for the whole year for other events.
I got to meet Aretha Franklin c. 1964 I was “in charge” of the stage and production when visitors came for the Cincinnati Public School Artist Series. I got to meet Ms. Frankin when she did a show at Courter Tech for this series. She came to Courter Tech on one of her first tours.
they gave me a class of Low IQ kids and that lasted a couple of days until I went to the principle and told him I’ve never been able to handle children. You hired me for plays, but I will do the low iq kids even though it is not my best subject, but only if I don’t do the plays. so you have a choice which class you want me to teach. In 1968 they started transitioning our theater building to junior college and asked me to change, but I told them it was not my bailywick.
By 1972 I moved to Oak Hills.
Clementine
Fall 1962 Courter Tech High School – 1 play per year
Producer/Director/Drama Teacher – I “did” the plays and also a variety show with the band director.
Clementine is a very simple play with simple high school char so that I could get a feel for the quality of the students and their acting ability. I found out my kids were pretty good, so I moved on to more challenging scripts. About 20 years later Bill was in charge of plays at Lynchburg High School, so I pulled out the script with all of the blocking and told him that this is a good one to start with and it’s already blocked. So Bill did Clementine too, using my notes and blocking.
The Curious Savage
Fall 1963 Courter Tech High School – 1 play per year
Producer/Director/Drama Teacher – I “did” the plays and also a variety show with the band director.
Opening night was Friday, November 22, the day John F. Kennedy was assisinated. At 2 o’clock the PA announced that Kennedy was shot and school was immediately dismissed. This was the Friday before Thanksgiving Week. As if of one mind, every member of the cast and crew of Curious Savage automatically gravitated to the stage. So the question was, do we cancel the show or go ahead and do it? The cast voted to do the show and show respect for Kennedy and what had happened. At the beginning of the show, I went on and gave a little speech letting the audience know that there would be no curtain call and asked that there be no applause at the end of the show. The whole point of the show is that Mrs. Savage has been put into an asylum with a bunch crazy characters by her 3 children who are trying to get her money. She carries a teddy bear with her everywhere and it turns out that the money is in the teddy bear. I “re-staged” the ending of the play so that the teddy bear was put in a chair, center stage. A large spotlight brightly lit the chair, got smaller and smaller until it lit only the teddy bear – a hold for 10 seconds then blackout.
The Miser
Fall 1964 Courter Tech High School
Revised, Produced, Directed
I needed education hours to update my teaching certificate and was allowed to use this project for those hours. I took 3 translated versions and two original French versions of “The Miser” and scene by scene, act by act, re-wrote/translated the play for a simplified/shortened high school production version.
It was submitted to the University of Cincinnati Theater Director, Jack (?) for review and authorization for credit.
They had a thing in the 50s called “Sol Hurok Presents”. He brought various broadway tours to college towns. In 1951 he brought George Bernard Shaw’s “Don Juan in Hell” to Marshall College. The cast (Charles Boyer, Cedric Hardwicke, Charles Laughton, and Agnes Moorehead) came over to Marshall theater while we were in rehearsals for Moliere’s “The Miser” and taught a master’s class for our theater group. When Charles Laughton spoke to us, he said that no college theater should ever attempt to perform farce. That we weren’t trained enough and we’d just butcher it. In 1964, I proved him wrong by producing “The Miser” with high school students at Courter Tech.
The star of our production, Mr. Kaplan, was perfect for the part. The kids loved doing farce in all of it’s exaggerated form, regardless of what Charles Laughton said. The kids were wonderful and the play was a success.
Unfortunately, the following year, that same University of Cincinnati Director put The Miser on his season. The play he presented was a direct plagiarism of my revision, except for adding Act 4, which I had deleted.
Another example of College Professors stealing students’ work.
The Diary of Anne Frank
Fall 1965 – Courter Tech High School – 1 play per year
Producer/Director/Drama Teacher – I “did” the plays
Our Town
Fall – Courter Tech High School – 1 play per year
Three One Acts
Courter Tech High School – 1 play per year
Spring variety Show – Courter Tech High School – 1 play per year
1969 – Courter Tech High School – 1 play per year
The Thurber Carnival included the plays “Unicorn in the Garden”, “Little Girl & the Wolf”, “Take Her Up Tenderly”, “If Grant Had Been Drinking at Appomattox”, and “The Secret Life of Walter Mitty”
May 1970 Courter Tech High School
Producer/Director