Where does your mind go while you tackle, what some would classify, mindless tasks? And what is a more mindless task than shoveling snow, something we have gotten a great deal of practice with lately. My unusually anomalous reason navigates a wide variety of mental vistas, ranging from grocery lists, to long range garden plans, to alphabetizing types of chocolate, during the routine rhythm created when shovel hits snow.
Of all the ridiculous travels my mind takes, classifying clichés has to rate near the top of the inventory as one of my favorites. It makes me laugh, it makes me cry, it is just like going to a good movie with a long time friend.
What is my favorite cliché? The compilation of words that most often makes my top 10 list? Without a doubt it is, \”Put your money where your mouth is.\”
What exactly does that mean in the grand scheme of cliche-isms?
I’ve always believed it referred to the fact that it’s unnecessary, even unseemly, to blow your own horn. That the endeavor generates its own reward.
Personal acclaim is gratuitous if the cause you set your sites on helping benefits from your efforts.
Don’t present a grocery list of self-professed successes and expect to impress me. It doesn’t work. Quite the contrary! What works for me are the quiet people, the ones who go about their appointed tasks without any desire for public recognition, visionaries. The people who are unobtrusively shoveling snow while a litany of things to do for this organization or that organization are propelling themselves through their already over-taxed mind.
What, you may ask, does this have to do with The Tyrone Community Players and their anniversary season?
Nothing really. My husband often tells me that my mind is a vast wasteland of useless information.
I guess this gives veracity to his point. It was just something I was thinking as I shoveled the endless piles of snow from in front of my house today.
What is exciting and pertinent is that this, TCP’s 18th season, set a standard for other theater companies in the area to strive for. Because of the importance of this season to TCP I have decided to separate this year into two sections. The first segment will be about our opening and closing shows. The second will be about Peter Pan exclusively.
It started on a beautiful, gentle, melodic note as we presented Rodgers and Hammerstein’s, Some Enchanted Evening. Linda Strong gathered a wonderful cast filled with the talent, soul and gusto that symbolizes the spirit of these musical masters.
Max Dick, Nathan Pownall, Nancy Sloss, Alice Mulhollen, Angela Coleman, Oscar Stuckey, Lynne Dirkse, and Brett Keith all donned their \”Movie Star\” attire and treated the audience to captivating renditions of classics, including \”Some Enchanted Evening\”, \”C’aint Say No,\” and \”Younger Than Springtime”- (which Brett Keith sang with an audience member perched on his knee each night.)
The theater was dressed in her black tie best, white glitter-azzi curtain, a graceful, curved bride, pots of lush fern, marble pedestals, twinkling lights. It was a truly elegant evening of luscious entertainment.
TCP had never offered a musical revue to audiences before, and this one was not the originally scheduled presentation. For the second time in 18 years the performance rights to a show had been withdrawn and TCP was left without the ability to produce the show they had intended for the fall time slot.
Linda Strong, for the second time in 18 years, jumped in and took this theatrical bull by the horns. With very little prep time she organized, visualized, compromised, and prioritized everything that can usually take at least six months to prepare. It was quite an accomplishment, one that was able to be achieved, in no small part, by the cooperation and professionalism of her outstanding cast.
Summer dinner theater this season was hosted again by the Citizens Social Hall and took us on a magic carpet ride through our memory banks, landing us squarely in the late 1950’s amidst a cloud of chiffon, sequins and taffeta. The Taffetas Reunion reunited four sisters who had been a rather popular (on a local level) singing group in the late 1950’s and early 60’s. It is now 2001 and they have been asked to perform together once again.
The show, which took place in anywhere USA, began with the women in contemporary clothing trying to recreate the feel of four 1950’s teenagers. But something was missing, a spark, electricity, something. Then they realized what it was! They excused themselves for a few moments and returned in full 50’s splendor; puffy taffeta skirts, sequins, white pumps, bouffant hairdos, gloves and seamed stockings. It all worked beautifully from then on, and The Taffetas brought the audience along for a trip backwards in time.
The quartet was made up of Darcy Wilson (the red haired one), Kathy Fink (the dark brown haired one), Lynne Dirkse (the light brown haired one), and Mary Ann Kurtz (the blonde with questionable roots). Together they made beautiful music, silly jokes, and an evening of delight.
They sang all the favorites of the time, \”Volare,\” \”Old Cape Cod,\” \”Mr. Sandman,\” and \”Three Bells,\” complete with hand bell accompaniment by two of the sisters. One of the showstoppers was when Lynne Dirkse, you remember, the light brown haired sister, sang \”Where The Boys Are, \” with all the power and lushness of a warm spring thunderstorm. It was fabulous.
Joann Hedberg, in her performance premiere with TCP, made an enchanting Galaxy cosmetic girl as she weaved her way through the show offering snippets of classic beauty-tip commercials.
Karen Mayhew, as director and choreographer, created an evening filled with great fun and light-hearted humor.
I had hoped that by the time I finished this writing all the snow would have miraculously disappeared from my walks and steps, and I would be free to work on a less tedious endeavor. But alas, that is not the case. I suppose I had better \”Put my money where my mouth is\” and go about my quiet, unpretentious daily tasks. It isn’t that I don’t like the snow; in fact I like it very much. What I don’t like is monotony. I guess I shall let my mind wander to the rhythm of my shovel again. You just never know where that simple act of escape may land me this time!
