By Mike Cline
For the Salisbury Post
SALISBURY — The Piedmont Players Theatre Gala, coming up March 3, is upon us. It is taking place to celebrate PPT’s 50th anniversary, an amazing accomplishment for a smaller city community theater group.
In the days since the beginning, lots of shows have been produced, and many folks have “tripped the lights fantastic” and worked on various crews to get the shows ready for the public’s consumption.
In the 1970s and 1980s, I participated in 25 to 30 of these productions, either onstage or backstage, meeting and working with many wonderful people.
And with every show, you come away with a variety of memories. I’d like to share several with you. And look out folks, I’m naming names.
In 1977, Piedmont Players opened its 17th season with its first summer production.The choice was “The King and I,” and it was a good pick. Lots of children in the cast. A great way to guarantee big ticket sales is to do a show with lots of kids.
Every child in the cast translates to a slew of tickets sold, from parents to siblings to grandparents.
This production of “The King and I” was a great one. With Alice Mooney and Karl Hales playing Anna and the King, there were no worries with the lead characters.The same with Jo Ann Smith’s choreography. It was equally outstanding.
The large cast was a close-knit group. We socialized together a lot after rehearsals and performances. Our favorite port of call was the Prince of Pizza on West Innes Street. The building now houses an Andy Meng laundromat (you owe me, Andy).
Most of the group headed straight to the Prince every night when we got out of Hedrick Little Theatre. Pat McCloud ran the place and was a most gracious host. He set up a slew of tables in the back room for us every night.
On one particular night, Peter, the then-young teen of our leading lady, was being a bit irritating. Peter had irritating down to a science when he wanted. I’m not being mean … he acknowledged it.
Anyway, for whatever reason, that night Peter had selected my wife, Julie, as the target of his behavior.
For those who know Julie, she is the calmest, most easy to get along with person you would ever want to meet. But after several minutes of ridicule from the young lad, Julie calmly stood up, walked over to Peter’s place at the table and poured a full, large glass of iced tea over his head to the thunderous applause of her fellow cast and crew members.
He took it well.
I always liked Peter. I even gave him a job at the Terrace Theatre. Of course, that was BEFORE he pushed me into High Rock Lake while I was wearing a suit.
My dear friend Patsy Parnell sparks another “King and I” recollection. Of course, Patsy sings like a nightingale and has the personality we’d all love to have.
What I have never liked about Patsy is that she has never been a candidate (unlike me) for a weight-loss class. I mention this only because of its pertinence to the following.
When it was time to move onstage from our rehearsal facility, a couple of days were spent “blocking” each scene with the finished sets. That’s when the director tells everyone where he wants them to be on the stage during a scene.
The set for the palace of the king contained several not-so-very-wide columns. Director Hubert Rolling told Patsy he wanted her to stand behind one of them during the first part of the scene. She said OK.
So, we’re running the scene when Hubert suddenly yells, “STOP!” Visibly upset, he shouted, “Patsy, I told you to stand behind that pole!”
At that point, Patsy stuck her head out from behind the column and meekly answered, “But, Hubert, I AM standing behind the pole.”
The place erupted with hysterical laughter, and Hubert apologized.
My final “King and I” remembrance involves a fellow named Kent. I won’t give his last name, but it begins with Bernhardt. Now, it might shock some folks when I say that two or three times in his life, Kent has been “a little bit late” being where he’s supposed to be.
The Sunday afternoon before the show opened found many of us standing in the lobby of Hedrick Little Theatre. It was time to start rehearsal, and Kent hadn’t arrived. No cell phones then, so we couldn’t call him. Just as Hubert told us it was time to get started, someone shouted, “Here comes Kent.”
So we watched him turn into the parking lot in that blue Chevy he drove at the time, and catching up with him quickly was one of Salisbury’s finest with the bluelight flashing.
At least 50 people watched from the Hedrick lobby as Kent was awarded a “citation” from the City of Salisbury for lead-footing it down West Innes Street.
What the public never sees during the run of a community theater production is often as memorable as what winds up on the stage. It’s all part of the wonderful package of being involved with a Piedmont Players Theatre production.
Maybe it’s about time to do another one.
Mike Cline’s website, “Mike Cline’s Then Playing,” documents the movies played in Rowan County theaters from 1920 through 1979.