Life is a Stage

Oh my gosh! I've wasted so much time the past several days trying to find parts to craft a candlestick telephone. I am Kim's assistant for the next Baytown Little Theater play after Titanic the Musical. Kim is directing the 1927 play, Front Page. It is the story of a 1920's news room and the writers that inhabit it. When the play was written it was a modern-day story, but today it is a period piece. That makes the play's properties list a challenge since so many of the pieces needed are not produced any longer. One such thing are candlestick telephones...five to six candlestick telephones to be exact. We have a wall telephone at the theater that I bought for another period play. We only have one candlestick telelphone like the picture here, that we bought on eBay. They don't go cheap and so to spend $150.-$200. of our show budget on telephones just isn't an option. I'm hoping that local community theaters will come to our aide.

Kim brought two books home from the library about making various types of props for plays. Each has a design for the candlestick telephone. I have worked on one of them using thread spools, an oval wooden craft plaque, a wooden dowel and other things to make it look right. It doesn't look right. Then I searched Lowe's today for pipe and lamp parts to make another version of the phone. Some of the parts were so unknown to me and I was reluctant to just ask for help. I figure that other people need help to find materials for home projects. It's hard to explain to a serious home repair person that I want PVC pipe to make a telephone.

When and if I find the 6 candlestick telephones, I'm not finished. We still need a human sized roll-top desk that a small man has to actually hide in it.

Ah, theater...what a joy! Seriously, what a joy. It really is a lot of fun being part of a theater.

Get a Job, Sha-na-na-na-na-na-...

Over 50, retired, white, female, still productive, desires to contribute to the financial status of current household. Will work part time or full time if hours are flexible. Skills include, but not confined to, writing composition, problem solving, managing people under age 10, ordering supplies, computer expertise in Word, Excel,and Power Point, can type at least 60 wpm, answer telephones, however will not do telemarketing, has experience in the theatrical arts industry, can operate an automobile, plan and implement a lesson on reading skills to 5-10 year olds, can use copy machine and unjam paper from all areas of mechanism with minimal frustration, has a desire to accomplish tasks at least 20-25 hours a week not including weekends.

I recently found a website called, Retirementjobs.com/ I thought I'd give it a try and I began filling in all the little spaces on the forms. After which I clicked "search" and got 0 hits. So I narrowed my search criteria and clicked "search" once again, still 0 hits. This went on for quite sometime until I put in something like "sales" and job title "sales representative". That got 60 hits, none of which I would want at this stage of my retired career.

I can see that this will be no easy task to change a 30 year profession in education. I would rather not have to teach children directly. That is to be translated as no substitute teaching and perhaps no tutoring. However, I won't rule out tutoring since my last school asked when I left if I'd be willing to come back as a TAKS tutor. Its a paying job, but not one that will pay enough to supplement the TRS paycheck.

"What do you want to do?" many friends have asked. I'm not sure. I wish I had a simple, positive answer for what I'd like to do, but I don't. I've thought about working in a teacher supply store selling all the stuff I used for 30 years in the classroom. I have been approached by a neighbor that works in a nearby school district about testing students for pre-AP courses and the TAKS which doesn't sound entirely bad, but still it is in education.

What I picture myself doing (in the perfect world) is a job at my computer with the occasional phone conference or face to face meeting with a client or customer and working my own hours, preferably in my houserobe and slippers. Or perhaps working in a small office situation where I do some computer work, a little phone calling, filing and working for a couple of bosses would be nice if the bosses were pleasant guys. (I say guys because I'm not too keen on working for a female. Please no hate mail.) But how to go about finding such jobs and ones that will supplement my pay enough to make a difference is going to be another thing altogether.

Any suggestions on what I can do for the next 10-15 years would be appreciated.

Drama at the Theater

Please, excuse our mess. Friday the 13th proved to be a very bad day for a woman that lost control of her vehicle at a traffic light more than 500 feet away from the east wall of the Baytown Little Theater. Apparently she had a medical emergency and never applied her brakes as she picked up speed and ran through the traffic light to a grassy field across the street. She dodged bushes and a tree as she continued across the vacant field and into the theater parking lot where she avoided collision with a line of parked cars and rammed through the east wall of the theater taking out everything in the car's path before resting center stage. As you see from this picture, it left quite a big hole in the side of the theater. You can view more photographs of this freak accident on Kim's blog. You will need to click on Touchtone's Globe to find the video and pictures.

The first play I saw at the Baytown Little Theater was Fiddler On the Roof in the summer of 1972 when Kim, his dad and brother performed in the summer musical. After college, Kim and I were married, moved back to Baytown, and continued the family tradition of performing and working with the BLT. Kim's first play to direct/perform in after our return was a spunky little comedy called, Born Yesterday which stared Judy Holliday in the 1950 film version. My involvement in theater began with the BLT 1984 summer musical, Music Man. Kim played Prof. Harold Hill and the whole Martin family, minus 3 year old Ryan, had parts in the play.

Ever since then the Martins have performed on stage, worked backstage, made costumes, worked box office, managed the house, directed plays, served on the board of directors and various committees to help the theater. The non-profit organization depends on its membership support and donations to produce quality plays. Many families, friends and acquaintances from all over the community have enjoyed and profited from their involvement with the Baytown Little Theater.

So, what will this recent accident do to the BLT? Well, as the saying goes, "the show must go on" and so it will. Our current production Titanic, the Musical was due to go up July 27 and run for 3 consecutive weekends through August 11. It will likely open a week or so later, but plans are being worked out as I type to find another venue, possibly a local school, in which to perform the play. The director and assistants were busy immediately following the accident, calling cast members and finding rehearsal space to continue preparations for the show.

As to the future of the theater's building? We aren't for sure, but given the age of the building and repairs needing to be made prior to the accident, it well may have to be demolished. If that happens, we will be sad to see the old structure go because of all the great memories we've shared from play rehearsals, performances and just general good times. However, we also look to the future with the knowledge that we will rebuild and make new memories in the new BLT for many generations to come. As the Unsinkable Molly Brown said, "We ain't down yet!"