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.
Don Ostertag: Off Stage 