And The Winds Come Sweeping Down the Plains

Dear Boo and Bubble,

We are now together at the Outer Banks for our annual after-Christmas, welcome-in-the-New Year celebration. I drove down from Sugar Mountain on Saturday with your cousin Taz and we were listening to NPR and the audience favorites from the show, “Wait, Wait, Don't Tell Me.” One of the segments was an interview with Shirley Jones, an actress and singer from my younger years who achieved big-screen stardom in such movie musicals as “Oklahoma!” and “Carousel,” written and composed by the masters of the genre, Richard Rodgers and Oscar Hammerstein. She has just released a personal memoir.

She recollected how her life took the permanent turn from the pursuit of veterinary medicine to the Broadway stage. At the age of 18, she was in New York City looking at colleges when she spotted an audition call in the newspaper. Since she loved to sing, she thought it would be fun to have the experience and took a cab over to the advertised theater. Upon hearing her sing, the person in charge of the audition suggested that Mr. Rodgers should hear her personally and she was asked to wait. Jones had never heard of either Rodgers or Hammerstein, and didn't realize the significance of the opportunity.

Her pianist had to leave before Rodgers could get to the theater, and so, when he arrived, she performed a cappella. He stopped her mid-song and said, “There's an orchestra across the street rehearsing. I'd like to go there and have you sing with the instruments.”

On a lark, Shirley Jones was discovered by one of the most prominent composers in American music. She never made it to college as he hired her to begin performing in “South Pacific” the very next day. After the play's run ended six months later, Rodgers dispatched her to Hollywood to star as Laurie in the screen version of “Oklahoma!” Her unanticipated career path was launched.

The interview took me back over 30 years ago when Captain and I lived in Gaffney with your mom and Aunt Bee. There was a Little Theater there …... and it was literally a little theater with a stage measuring about 35 feet in width and 20 feet in depth with two wings. The auditorium held no more than 100 seats, old rows of chairs salvaged from some high school that had undergone a renovation. The deficiencies in the facility never dampened the enthusiasm of the volunteers who organized, promoted and acted in the live performances. Since I had a dance background, they called upon me from time to time to choreograph pieces – nothing elaborate, just simple steps to accompany simple tunes.

So...I was quite surprised when Bob Stratton, the president of the Little Theater, called me one night to say that the board had decided to add “Oklahoma!” to the season's repertoire and they would like for me to choreograph the Dream Scene, the fifteen minute mini-epoch segment of the play that, with a cast of hundreds, captures the struggle of the main male characters, Curly and Judd, for the affections of female protagonist, Laurey. In the end, Laurey sacrifices herself to Judd in order to save Curly's life.

I couldn't imagine how that small stage might accommodate such a massive production, including the part of it assigned to me. I bought the soundtrack from the musical and listened to the score from the Dream Scene repeatedly until I figured out how to cut it down to about five minutes. My version would feature only three characters – Laurey, Judd and Curly.

We went into rehearsal. When time came for the Dream Scene, the girl cast in the part of Laurie took her place at a well downstage and posed as if daydreaming. The stage went black. She exited the stage and I took her place for the dancing role. When the lights came up, our very fundamental version began, watered down to fit the stage and circumstance.

After seeing the choreography, the director decided that some fog would enhance the scene. He placed an order to rent a dry ice machine which didn't arrive until the afternoon of the dress rehearsal. A couple of volunteer stage hands were assigned the responsibility of setting it up and having it ready to pipe fog from underneath a slightly raised rear scrim curtain at center stage just as the lights went dark for the exchange of Laureys at the well. The effect would be a gentle mist to emphasize the illusion of the dream. We were all excited about this addition.

Our audience for the dress rehearsal that night was composed of students from the alternative high school in Gaffney. Most of them had never experienced live theatre before. The occasion gave them a unique cultural opportunity while providing living, breathing bodies on whom the cast could test the show. At 7:00 PM, the curtain went up on “Oklahoma!”

Things went along smoothly through the first act. In spite of a compulsion to snigger, the students seemed to be enjoying the play. Mid-second act, the time came for the Dream Scene. The stage went to black and I took my place at the well – the singing Laurey exited into the wings. As the music started and the lights arose, I looked languidly out into the audience – to witness the whites of their eyes and their mouths gaped in utter horror to create a collective gasp. Before I could make the first move, I was consumed in a tsunami of fog that swallowed me and cascaded out into the auditorium, gobbling up one row at a time until the whole place was filled. Nobody on the stage or in a seat could see anything. Breathing became a challenge and the resulting hacking and coughing sounded like a the Gaffney Little Theater had transformed into a chicken coop.

Somehow, Curly found me at the well and we tried to continue with the performance, but I was laughing so hard, any attempt at a lift over his head or a pirouette proved impossible. The on-stage agony finally ended with Judd dragging me off the stage, my costume soaking wet from the rain-like affect of the saturated air. The director thankfully called for an impromptu intermission.

I'm sure if Shirley Jones' audition had gone the way of my dress rehearsal, she would be in retirement from her veterinary practice now. Her memoir would not be about an amazing career on stage and screen, but other things like.......... spaying cats and birthing horses.