TDW – VP Production, Whodunnit, Father’s died 8/2, Jim Forte abuse, Bill’s Retirement Party, Bill & I in NYC, Amahl opera production, Maplethorpe trial.
Dear Family and Friends,
I’m starting my Christmas letter on Thanksgiving Day, looking out a window at palm trees, Italian cypress and olive trees; not exactly the post card version of trekking to “Grandma’s House – through the woods and over the snow.” But I’m here in Las Vegas, Nevada with my family – my cousin Fred Munier, his wife Robin, Joey, 7, and Suzanne, 5, happily relaxing for 6 days after a very rough year generally that had some really nice highlights.
“The Theater” dominated everything from November of last year thru June. By default more than anything else (no one else was willing to do the job), I ended up as Vice President of The Drama Workshop – in charge of production and producers. That on top of the fact I was directing the winter show, by far the most difficult of the season, Whodunnit. With a little creativity and constitution bending, I put together a production triumverate of a fantastic technical director, Bob Allen (more about him later), an ex-P & G executive to handle the business end of the production, and I coordinated everything along with directing the show. Whodunnit ran 2 weekends the first of February and was a success both on stage and at the box office. For all the intense work this monumental task entailed, it was still a very rewarding and satisfying experience filled with lots of fun. Everything would have been fine if I could have closed the show and quietly pulled back to rest and recouperate a bit from this very intense experience.
Unfortunately, the “roof sort of caved in” in February. Not only did I have to co produce the spring show for TDW (which drug out from its first of May performance dates into a mid-June production at the Community Theater Convention), but I did all this on top of coping with my father’s terminal decline and especially coping with my next door neighbor going into an active campaign to abusively harass me and (to quote him) “make my life miserable!” (He did!)
Dad’s wife Faye took care of my father night and day at his home from February until he died on Aug 2 at the age of 99. In between teaching my speech courses at UC, handling my theater work, and singing in the church choir when I could, I drove to Dayton 1 to 3 times a week to spend the afternoon with Dad and to relieve Faye. For all the negatives of my Father’s illness and passing, I was pleased to renew ties at the funeral with family I hadn’t seen in 1 to over 10 years. Leola Crowell, Bud Brown (no relation to mother), Violet McCane and others on Dad’s side of the family offered much support. And on my Mother’s side, it was wonderful to see and visit with Bruce Shue, Lee and Hazel Brown, Glenn and Francis Brown; and then in Oct to spend the evening with Glenn & Evelyn Brown, Francis & Ronnie Brown (Glenn & Evelyn’s sons) & their families.
Concurrently with all of this (and still on-going) is the harassment mess with my next door neighbor, Jim Forte. It started with a phone call to me out of the blue in mid January with him ordering me to rake the leaves in my yard, offering an ultimatum and threats profusely sprinkled with profanity, if I didn’t. I had raked my leaves in Nov., all except one 5′ x 15′ rectangle. As usual (for the last 24 years) my yard contained residual blown leaves which I always left until spring to rake. Actually the leaves were more of an excuse, I think, than the real problem, which is Jim himself. He fits the classic profile in psychology literature of an abuser. Anyway, since that day, I have amassed 13 pages detailing his abusive behavior and incidents including telephone harassment, illegal trespass, borderline harassment, disorderly conduct charges, 2 personal complaint court sessions, lawyer letters, etc. etc. In March I had a 6 foot privacy fence erected along our property line and fenced in the rest of the back yard. That didn’t stop his harassment, but it did make me feel safer and it has been wonderful for Hecuba and Tootsie to run free throughout the back yard. I guess it is hard to imagine self reliant, assertive Carolyn reduced to uncontrollable shaking, true fear and tears – but that is what has happened on several of the confrontations forced on me in our front yards. Through all this Bill has been my rock and my support, and hopefully next year I can report an end to this madness.
On to happier events during the year, like Bill’s retirement from teaching. During the spring it seemed time passed so slowly to June 1, but that wonderful day finally arrived. Mary Rouse, from Bill’s school, and I planned a semi-surprise retirement dinner for him. He only knew that Mary and her family were treating him to dinner in Cincinnati (he lives 50 miles northeast of Cincy) and I was invited. He walked out on to the Forest View Gardens Restaurant patio where our private before-dinner party was held. His Daddy, having driven in from Huntington, W.Va. with his wife Beulah, said: “Happy Retirement, Son!” Shock is a mild word for Bill’s complete surprise as he hugged his Daddy and greeted 18 other friends from Lynchburg and Cincinnati who came to help him celebrate retirement. After dinner the Gardens has a Broadway and Opera floor show and we followed that with a 1 hour show of our own for Bill: songs from Kismet & Showboat, tributes from a teacher and an ex-student, Bill singing “Old Man River” in his beautiful baritone voice, and a champagne toast climaxed with a “tie-burning ceremony”. (He gleefully burned the tie he had to wear for 13 years at school.) Nature took over the fire works about that time with an unbelievable lightning display that accompanied the June 2nd tornadoes that cut across Northern Hamilton County that night. Fortunately everyone in our party got home safely.
Bill and I drove to New York City for several days at the end of June. I saw 4 shows and we enjoyed late evenings at a couple of restaurant/bars that feature singers of opera, light opera and broadway shows. I got out the sewing machine in August & Sept. and finished 7 clothing pieces before fall quarter at University of Cincinnati started.
My latest project until mid-Dec. was stage managing a production of the opera, “Amahl and the Night Visitors.” Bill sang the lead king, Melchoir, Glenn Coven sang Caspar, and a member of our Immanuel chuch choir sang the bass king – who is black. When we started doing makeup for the opening night production, the bass king said “I can’t have makeup – I’m allergic”. Whaaat?!! The score says 3 kings and one of them is black. We were really at an impasse. What do we do now??? Finally Bill spoke up and said “What the heck. I’ll wear black makup”. And so Melchior, in our production, became the black king.
Besided singing Melchior in Amahl, Bill sang 2 recitatives and 2 solos for baritone in our church choir’s 1 hour Christmas portion of the Messiah Dec. 9. He has such a good voice. I melt & get goosebumps every time I hear him sing.
My letter would not be complete without some mention of the Robert Mapplethorpe (a famous photograper known for his nudes) controversy that hit Cincinnati this year from March thru October. I was “on the fringes” of the center of this controversy at both its beginning and its end. Bob Allen, my Whodunnit tech director, is CEO of the only corporate sponsor of this show in its entire U.S. tour. I was with him at the Contemporary Arts Center on its opening day – the day of the Grand Jury tour and the “police raid.” Then, in Sept., Bill tore up his ankle running for exercise & ended up on crutches for 3 weeks. Since he couldn’t do much else, & the trial started the next day, Bill attended every session for the full 2 weeks. I got to attend 4 representative sessions, including jury selection, prosecution case & defense case days. It was an exciting, educational, and enlightening experience – as good as LA Law any day! When the “Not Guilty” verdict came in, the Arts Center Board Chm. & Bob Allen, 2 apparently staid businessmen, were so loudly jubilant that the judge threw them out of court!
Well, it has been quite a year! I hope your year has been more equitable than mine and held more joy than sorrow. And I hope that for all of us for next year!