technicolor dreams 3

JOSEPH AND THE AMAZING TECHNICOLOR DREAMCOAT
THEATER 66
-spring 2002
I had thought i'd remain in Lee County until professional acting work stopped coming, then head for the Rockies for some unstructured traveling. But Paul Longua, my old buddy whose Scope Shack had provided a home for the Orpheus-banned DRINKING IN AMERICA, had moved his photo shop\gallery to a location right on the beach's Times Square, on the second floor of the Seafarer's Village Mall. He wanted to focus more on the arts, and asked me to start a theater. I agreed, out of friendship and loyalty, and also because he supported my pushing the taboo boundaries which had held us back at the Orpheus. The space was fifty feet long, and thirty feet wide at the back where we would perform. There was an adjoining backstage room, and comfortable seating for fifty. Paul started filling the place with the work of local artists. He found several chairs that were fashioned after high-heeled shoes. Tom Waits became our patron saint, his album SMALL CHANGE our soundtrack. Wonderful Sheryl Ruppert, from ON TIDY ENDINGS, told me of her lifelong dream to be the narrator of JOSEPH, and i decided we could do the show as a two-actor vehicle. It was the first show i'd ever had a lead in, when i was sixteen. It wasn't hard-hitting, but i didn't want to be a slave to one genre, and for a first show, it might be a perfect crowd-pleaser. I also thought the world of Cheryl, so it gave me special happiness to do this for her. It would be sweet to finally play Pharoah, a role i almost would have taken over Joseph, all those years ago. We cut a couple songs and shortened others, which Sheryl said would excerpt us from royalty obligations. I wasn't positive about that, but went along with it. We rehearsed at a clubhouse near her home. It was a madcap version we created, with wigs, beards, and hats flying fast and furiously. Once we arranged the music and found the proper keys, i went to Sarasota, where Jim Prosser recorded the accompaniment (amazingly as always). I played Joseph and Jacob and Levi (with Sheryl as a harmonizing cowboy brother) and Reuben (with Sheryl as a beret-bound brother). One night, during my first lines, i started singing an octave too high (i hope that wasn’t the night we taped). I played butler and baker, doing quick spins with puffy hat and serving napkin. Jim Conti at the Wood Theater couldn't have been sweeter about loaning us costumes. I spewed a slew of silly accents, from cockney to cowboy to french to brit-twit to Elvis. It was satisfying to be a better singer than my first go around. I gave Paul and Sheryl a percentage of the take. We had good-sized, very happy crowds. Paul put up a multi-colored parachute on the gallery ceiling. I wrote to Valda, my director from JOSEPH seventeen years earlier, and she mailed me our original amazing coat. So wonderful. We even had an opening act - Paul had found ten year-old beach resident Bonita Violette, who did a monologue called "Cosmetology Class". Tweren't bad, not at all. Soon after the run, we did a multi-media evening, with Jim Corsica (Father Mark from TONY AND TINA’S) and i doing the opening bar scene from SEXUAL PERVERSITY. My esteem for Jim was huge, and the scene was wonderful. I played my old role of Danny - at first i was concerned i had unwisely tried to recapture old glory, but when Jim finally got the Mamet dialogue, the scene just soared. He was a veteran's veteran, and i was touched to my core when he said that it was as much fun as he'd ever had on a Florida stage. JOSEPH was wonderful, in part because my more "straight" relatives, plus some of the children's troupe i was acting with on Sanibel, could enjoy it whole-heartedly. Back at the Wood, Shelhammer joked that i needed to stop playing Jews, already. Orpheus vets Amanda and Donna both came, and it was very sweet to give them more entertainment than they expected. Around this time, the county arts magazine “Happenings” did a story on me, the first time i'd ever been the sole subject of an article. The interviewer was sweet Dick Westlake from ECC and TONY AND TINA’S. The article ran several pages, with a picture of me all tattooed and mohawked.