1963 Courter Tech High School
Producer/Director/Drama Teacher – I “did” the plays.
The Story
Opening night was Friday, November 22, the day John F. Kennedy was assassinated.
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 main plot of the show is that Mrs. Savage has been put into an asylum with a bunch crazy people 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.