How I became a writer Part IX

Title How I became a writer

Part IX

I’m off in the wings waiting for my cue.  I’ve got lukewarm water in my mouth, mixed with ketchup, and it is kind of gross!  Despite the summer heat mixing with the heat of the stage, I’m wearing an army jacket.  I do have makeup on but it’s not stage makeup.  I dipped into my mime oil based paint and slathered a five o’clock shadow on my teenage face.  In my hands I’m clutching a long axe handle minus the head.  The stage is in 60 % light simulating nighttime, which is going to make what’s coming even harder and more dangerous.  A British voice calls out, asking for a passerby the time and that is my cue.  With a brutal yell I go sprinting onto the stage, running at the actor Donnie Colter.  A split second later another actor charges Donnie from the other side.  It is going to be a two-on-one stunt fight in low light and the timing must be precise.  In acting adlibbing can cover a multitude of sins but in stunt fighting everything must go right.  As I swing the axe handle in a downward motion at Donnie’s head, he blocks by forming an x with his arms, catching my wrist neatly.  If he had failed to do so, he would have been in no danger because I would have “locked my wrists” making sure it never connected.  The scene would have been ruined, however.  Donnie pulls me toward his knee and I grunt loudly, heaving my backend up, while spewing the liquid in my mouth.  Spinning Donnie confronts the next attacker but I’m not down yet!  Brilliantly Donnie foils that attack and then returns to hit me again before I can hit him.  I go down, this time for the “count.”  Donnie takes out the other attacker, leaving only the head thug to deal with.  Only seconds have elapsed on stage but those seconds took hours of planning and work.  Now the most dangerous move we have planned is about to happen and I’m nervous...I’m the director.  We are about to do a move I was NOT trained to do in my crash course in stunt fighting during the production of the play David.  Donnie is going to throw a punch STRAIGHT ON at the muscular Steve’s face from the side view of the audience.  There is no cheating here...and the trick is extremely difficult.  Donnie HAS to stop his hand right before striking Steve’s face!  To add to the illusion, Steve will move his jaw slightly and the guy with boards backstage will strike them together when Donnie “connects.”  It went off without a hitch and looked amazing!  I could relax now.  The stunt fighting that was left was easy and the audience of seventy to a hundred people were not bored:)  Donnie is beaten down and his wallet is stolen.  The boss and his confederates leave and the stage lights go down.  When they come up the final scene of the five to seven minute (skit? mini-play?) production begins.  A youth pastor and Donnie’s college roommate are coming to tell Donnie about the Lord for a second time.  A police officer on stage stops them at the edge of a crime scene with a sheet over Donnie.  They ask what happened and the hard bitten police officer tells them.  As they move away from the crime scene the pastor stresses the importance of telling Donnie about the Lord because we don’t know how long we have.   Of course, the youth pastor doesn’t realize that Donnie is the dead college student under the sheet.  The play closes with a cassette tape over the sound system of Donnie begging to go back to his body and that he needs more time.  The angel (yours truly) replies, “I’m sorry my friend but it’s too late for you.”  Donnie cries out, “I need more time!  I need more time!” and one of my first productions ends. 

When I was the drama director at the Boys JIM Club of America, I would write the script starting Sunday Night, after my boys went to bed late into the night and even into the early hours of Monday morning.  Monday we would cast and go into production.  JIM Club is a Christian leadership training camp that teaches boys 9-14 mime, ventriloquism, clowning, preaching, magic, juggling, and of course...drama.  All this mixed with sports, recreation, swimming, classes, Bible teaching, and so much more, leaves little time to practice.  Staff members are very busy and tired by the end of the day, so we generally didn’t practice after lights out...and besides, camper actors would be sleeping then.  Where had I learned how to write a script?  All my years on the BCS stage, all the reading I had done, and the large amounts of writing on my novel that I did late at night in my room, had brought me to the point where I could write my own “plays” (large, complicated skits). 

David.  The play that changed me in so many ways.  Mr. Henninger had offered me to be the assistant director in “A Family Portrait” but I turned him down.  Because of that offer though, I watched more than just the scenes when I was “off”...I watched everything.  I don’t remember who was the assistant director that year but I observed them, not to be critical but paying attention to their role.  Other adults in Mr. Henninger’s productions helped get scenes ready off stage, so I paid attention to that too.  When Mr. Henninger offered me to be the assistant director for David I accepted.  I thought I was ready for it but being an assistant director of a Henninger production is quite demanding!  I respect anyone who has ever taken on the role:)  The other way it changed me was stunt fighting!  Mr. Henninger brought in a professional from a local college to teach us sword fighting, quarterstaff fighting, and hand-to-hand combat.  I ate it up!  That one day crash course was the basis of not only the play David’s sword and staff fights but it was also the foundation for every stunt fight scene I have done since high school!

Alan Uland (last name misspelled) and I worked hard outside on our sword fight scene for the play David.  First, we practiced our sword fighting skills (something I never got bored of) and when we felt we had a good enough grasp on them, we planned out our fight.  Then came practice and more practice as we got it ready for the stage.  Those swords were made by Alan’s dad (probably why he was the principle sword fighter:) and they were real minus the sharp edges.  I loved fighting with Alan but didn’t like it that Mr. Henninger insisted we slow it down.  Even though I have run stunt fight scenes at 100% speed, I would soon learn why Mr. Henninger was so big on slowing us down, when I got injured that summer.

The Sunday night after my first stunt fight play, I was back at the keyboard pounding out another play.  This one was based on a popular Christian novel named, “This Present Darkness,” and would feature angels and demons battling for the life of a church.  It would feature pyrotechnics (we were magicians, so we had access to “flash paper”) and of course another stunt fight.  This was a new session at camp with new staff, Donnie and Steve had gone home.  Early on I noticed that this new crew of actors were good with lines...but not so good with physical combat.  I should have listened to my gut, which warned me this could be dangerous but I wanted this play to be produced, so I shoved down that voice.  To help with the actor’s lack of skill in stunt fighting, I simplified the moves making the play “more safe.”  We didn’t put as much work into the stunt fighting because it was “simple”... “easy.”  The big skit was going well.  The staff meeting in Hell had been amazing with flaming flash paper cascading around the demons as they talked about destroying the church they were targeting.  The church business meeting had gone great, all the actors nailing their parts and perfectly ignoring the angels and demons about them. Now it was the very end of the production and one of the angels was to give me an uppercut before the curtain closed.  Again, we were in low light, I don’t remember why.  It should have gone easy but low practice, low skill, and the assumption that this last move was “easy” would work against me.  The angel could have swung two feet from my jaw and it would have looked great to the audience but he didn’t.  In the excitement he was closer to me than he should have been and swung with the energy of a production going fantastic!  Wham!  His knuckle caught me in the eye!  I was bent over and so I met a punch that started low and went all the way up directly in my eye socket!  If I thought I saw stars when Heidi slapped me for real, it was nothing compared to this.  I had bigger problems than getting off stage safely.  I had to talk to the audience.  I found my way through the curtain and looked blankly at the audience.  I had a concussion but I didn’t know that.  All the words in my head were jumbled and it felt like I was underwater, but Mr. Henninger’s training was too strong and so I pushed on.  Somehow I unscrambled my words enough to be semi-coherent and then I  staggered off the stage in the dark.  I sat out back of the stage area in the fading light of the day staring off at nothing.  People came to congratulate me and I nodded trying to smile but I was out of it.  The camp doctor took one look at me and said, “You are out of the program for a day, you have a concussion.”  Today concussions are a big deal.  As an New York state high school coach I have a certificate that says I have passed concussion training.  Back then we thought of concussions as “major” and “minor,” and I had a “minor” concussion.  The Lord was good though and I bounced back within a day without harmful side effects...I think:) 

Those plays were my first action stories but they weren’t even close to novel length.  Still, writing under the gun and making a production come together in a week taught me a lot about finishing something.  Now if only I could finish a novel, I would be happy!  I would soon move away from my fantasy novel about Glen W. Cannon and move into a different kind of action story, hoping it would final lead to a book in print...or at least a finished manuscript that I liked!