VINCENT (3) (SHOW&OUT)

I dim out the house lights. There is a silence from the audience. The Van Gogh ‘Starry Night’ fades up on the backdrop of the three picture sheets. The voice of Don McLean singing his Starry, Starry, Night, aka Vincent, fills the theater.

I see the dark form of Leonard Nimoy off to the side, looking at the painting, listening to the song. The painting fades. The song fades.

I slowly fade up the stage at center stage. There is Leonard. He quickly introduces himself as Theo Van Gogh. He has the audience right from the first sentence. There is no silliness like applauding when the lead/star steps on stage. No whispers – Mr. Spock. Mr. Spock. They save their applause for the end, the Curtain Call. The applause is for the play… and the actor.brothers,

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The play was about a quarter of the first act over when the house and stage was flooded with the starkness of white light from the lobby. Two women walked in, leaving the door to be closed by an usher who wasn’t obeying the red No Admittance warning light.

(The light would not be turned off until the first act was over, and turned back on when the second act started. Harsh? No, late-comers have no right to disturb those who arrived on time.)

The women took their time getting to their seats, which were front row center. Leonard stood center stage, watching them, but not saying a word. Once they were seated, Leonard surprised me and I imagine some of the audience. I expected he would chastise them for their rudeness. I once saw an actor get into shouting match with an audience member who disturbed the play. But not Leonard.

He stepped center stage to the end of the apron, just a few feet from the two. ‘Right now, you missed quite bit of the play,’ he said. ‘I’ll fill you in on what you missed.’ And he did. Going very carefully, so he would not to miss anything. When he got them caught up, he said , ‘Okay, Don and Dennis, let’s go from where we left off.’

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I had not made the time for the out at show’s end so as to give me a little respite between the show and the out. When I walked into Leonard’s dressing room, Eric the dresser, handed me my usual whiskey and water. Leonard and Dennis were drinking their martinis. Eric continued packing the the wardrobe trunk.

‘Got to admit, Leonard,’ I said. ‘You sure were calm and collected with those two women. I figured you would rough them up a little.’

‘As much as I wanted to, I felt if they weren’t embarrassed by my telling them what they missed,’ Leonard said, ‘Nothing I could say would embarrass them.’

‘Yeah,’ I said. ‘Good seats. Bet they were comps. Probably from big shot of the complex… or high mucky-muck like the mayor.’

‘I would not have let them off easy,’ Eric said. ‘I would have stood there and unzip. And give them two minutes to leave…or I would piss all over them.’

Leonard and I gave a gasp and Dennis said, ’He would too. On our off day last week, he talked me into going with him to see The China Syndrome. Really a good movie. Except, there were two jackasses behind us who were talking and laughing. Eric stands up. Turns around. Unzips. And tells the two he is going to piss on their heads. They left in a hurry.’

Some times when we had a free day on the tour, Dennis and Eric had asked me to go to a movie with them. I turned them down every time.

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The Rapid City Out went well. I wish I could have prolonged it to get the crew a little more money. One said he wanted to go to the show, but the tickets cost bit more than his budget allowed for. That’s when I told them a Cardinal Rule of the stagehands: Never buy a ticket when you can watch the show from the booth or backstage for nothing. I had room in the booth. I told them that since I became a stagehand the only times I bought a ticket for me nd my wife was to see Sinatra in Vegas…several times. And sometimes, you can even get your wife and kids to sit in the booth or maybe get them comps from the promoter.

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Leonard and Dennis made sure there was a case of beer for the crew after the out. A practice that was carried on for the entire tour. And Dennis gave each of them a Vincent tee shirt. Even one each for Ding and Dong.

‘Cool’, said Ding. I asked if they saw the show.

‘Nah,’ said Dong, ‘We ain’t into that artsy-fartsy BS.’

Neither was the mayor. ‘My wife and her sister used my two comps,’ he said. ‘They said they liked it’.

I wanted to ask him if by chance they arrived late; but, nah, that would be too much of a coincidence.

(The selling of the Vincent tee shirts was something Dennis started back during the Guthrie run. Sandi Nimoy voiced her opinion that it was a tacky thing to do. It would take away from the seriousness of the play. Dennis had OKed it with Leonard and had purchased a large amount, telling the manufacturer, many more orders would follow in the coming months.

He paid members of the ushering staff a commission to sell them before, at intermission, and after the show. Eric notice that they sold like hotcakes and told Sandi. She watched the sales and decided that she would take over the tee shirt franchise once they left the Guthrie. She would handle the selling, and Eric would handle the heavy lifting, It worked out better than expected. It gave her something to do and kept her out of our hair. It also gave her spending money. Sandi loved to shop and spend.)

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After the out some of the crew had some more things to discuss. The big thing was to come to Minneapolis during Met Opera week and maybe get some work. I told them they would be welcome. I couldn’t guarantee how much work but I said there are times I really need hands for the Met calls, and often there a rocker or two in town that week. For several years they came and a couple stayed, getting both steady work and union cards in the St. Paul local.

John, the crew steward and BA, said that David R, the District Rep, had put them up asking about giving them work. John figured that David R. wanted to get some of the heat off his back because of the bad contract.

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The mayor, with help from Ding and Dong, loaded the set boxes on the pick up and assured me that it would be on the plane for Grand Rapids, Iowa, first thing in the morning. Then he gave me the usual hullabaloo about it was nice to have the show and would welcome us back any time.

‘And don’t forget more tee shirts,’ chimed in Ding.

‘I would be curious if you have any other mayor on the tour helps you out like I did’, the mayor said with a smug smile. As soon as he finished his spiel, ne nodded to Dong that it was okay now to turn up the volume on the police scanner.

As promised, the set was on the morning flight to Grand Rapids… and so was the Vincent crew.

I learned lot in my short stay in

Rapid City

I increased my knowledge

of dinosaurs

my knowledge of bad contracts

my knowledge of bigotry

and my knowledge of

Leonard Nimoy’s

talent and

humanitarianism

And no Mayor, we never had any other mayor ever help us with the load nor did we ever had to listen to any other goddam blaring police scanner run by two brainless bigots.

VINCENT (2) (THE MAYOR&SONS)

I wasn’t surprised when a pick up came early in the morning to get me and the set from the airport and transport us to the theater. The door had Collin’s Nursery painted on. There was a man driving and two teenage boys in the rear. The rear window was open so the boys could chime in and so we could also have the ‘pleasure’ of listening to their police scanner.

‘Its pretty early, do you think we’ll have any trouble getting the set out of hock?’ I asked, as I slid in.

The boys laughed and one shouted out, ‘Dad can get it out! He’s the Mayor of Rapid City!’

Now that was a surprise! He introduced himself as Mayor Collins. And then introduced his two sons. I called him Mayor from then on and as for the two loudmouths, I didn’t call them by name. In my mind the older was Ding and the younger was Dong.

As the mayor was pulling out, Ding shouted, ‘Don’t forget our park, Dad’.

‘It will only take short ride and you can see Rapid City’s biggest attraction,’ said the mayor. ’Or rather second biggest now that we got our civic complex.’

‘Boy,’ said Ding, ‘Did Dad ever work hard to get that complex. Dong chimed in with agreement. The mayor suggested that if someone else had been mayor there would not be a civic complex.

When the praise was over, we were given a blow by blow account, by Ding and Dong, of the city police at work as we followed the numerous signs to Dinosaur Park.

‘Ta Dah,’ shouted one of them ‘Come on out so you can see them better.’

I got out and looked up and around. There was seven gigantic concrete dinosaurs scattered around the park. Seven different species. Ding and Dong gave me the names of each and details about their lives. ‘Great huh?’

‘Yeah,’ I answered, tongue in cheek. ‘I think we better get to the theater. My crew is waiting. I’ll try to get back out here some other time.’

‘They just pulled over a driver on Elm street for suspected DUI. Bet he’s an Injun.’

And so it went, their running commentary and their display of bigotry.

The Rushmore Plaza Civic Center, now called The Monument, is a huge complex of numerous places for event from conventions to the home ice for the pro hockey team. The theater abutted the Summit Arena which had hosted the rodeo. And the smell that wafted through the theater attested to that fact.

We backed up to the loading dock of the theater and Ding and Dong handed off the set boxes to my eight man local crew.

‘Can we help?’ Ding shouted. ‘Oh, I forgot we ain’t UNION.’

‘Boy, was Dad pissed when he had to sign a contract with the union,’ Dong said. ‘Oh. Look, you even got an Injun on the crew,’ he pointed to one of the men. ‘Good luck trying to get any work out of an Injun.’

I was shocked at what this bigot was saying. Shocked that the bigot was saying it three feet from the ‘Injun’. I was shocked that the mayor nodded his consent at what his son said.

Hammerstein’s lyrics from South Pacific rang through my head. ‘You got to be taught to hate and fear…….You have to be carefully taught.

The mayor had been a ‘good’ teacher. His sons had been carefully taught. When the mayor left, he invited me to go out to eat with him and his sons before I left town. I didn’t elaborate. I just told him that I would probably be too busy.

It was a good crew. I had sent a set plot and a lighting plot ahead. Every thing I needed was there. The steward was forthcoming and apologized because it was their first job in professional theater. Before that it was high school or college.

‘Don’t sweat it. We’ll make it. The language might be different. You say ellipsoidal. I say leko. You say movie screen. I say picture sheet. We’ll make it,’ I assured them.

They were newly formed. My old nemesis, David R, the 9th District Representative got their contract worked out a shameful contract. The pay was okay for Rapid City but there was only a one hour minimum when they were called in. The minimum is at the very least four hours any place else. And if they go into the next hour that pay is not the full hour like every place else. It is broken down in quarter hour segments, They could get called in and walk out with an hour and a quarters pay. Probably less than it cost them to drive to the call.

When I told them what a good contract should be like, the steward frowned and said he would have to phone David R and with demands for the next contract, or Rapid City would experience new happening…a union strike.

I divided the crew. Some in electrics. Some putting the picture sheets together. And one to help Dennis with the projectors and sound. The set up was slated for eight hours, We finished in less than four, which was my set up time the rest of the tour.

(Scott, the hand that took Vincent out the second time, told me that at the end of the Leonard thanked him. And then asked him why all the set-ups took close to eight hours, while all of Don’s took four. When Scott told Leonard that the set-up couldn’t be done in that little time, Leonard pulled out a notebook and went city by city on the first tour, all set-ups less than four. How did you do it, Don? I didn’t do it, Scott. My crews did it. I had hoped that I had taught Scott a lesson in getting people to work, but Scott continued to hurt himself by ticking off people who had to work under him. I swear, Scott could even piss off Mother Theresa. He sure had the knack )

Once again, I digress, this time to brag, something I never did when I was in charge of a crew.

Leonard and is wife, Sandy came into the theater to look things over, and Sandy wrinkled her nose at the stink. She asked if that stink was what she thought it was and Leonard told her yes, it was what she thought it was. I suggested that a large part of the audience probably had attended the rodeo and wouldn’t be bothered by it. Leonard suggested leaving the AC run to lessen the smell. That worked.

I went out and had a buffalo burger with a few my crew after. Lo and behold, who comes in but the mayor and a gentleman in an expensive suit. As he came by our booth, the mayor stopped. He glared at the Injun and then he gave me a hello-nod and walked on by.

The ‘Injun’, Matt, came from his family’s about forty miles west of Mt. Rushmore. In addition to large herd of Black Angus, they had a large herd of Beefalo,a cross between domestic cattle and buffalo. Plus several prize winning quarter horses. Matt had graduated from U of SDak with major in Humanities and minor in Art. He was living in Rapid City and was getting a national reputation an award winning stain glass artist.

The only reason he was in the Stagehands was an occasional relief from his art and the steward was an old friend.

And because he did not want to cause his friends trouble, he took the BS from the mayor and his sons.

In one ear and out the other.

Consider the source.

(I remember an interview with in the Twin Cities in the 60’s with Dick Gregory, comedian, actor, and social activist. When asked if he found much prejudice here during his visit. He said there wasn’t as much prejudice against the blacks here as elsewhere. The reason being there was such a large number of Native Americans living here and the WASPs were too wrapped up in their hatred of the Indians to bother hating the blacks.)

I don’t imagine

the mayor and his sons

bothered to hate the blacks

Next up

the performance & out