What do a non-traditional comedy, an impressionistic musical, and a sophisticated interpretation of one of America’s most popular writers, have in common?
They are all components that made up the fourth season of The Tyrone Community Players.
The fourth season introduced not only various styles of theater, but brought backstage technicians into the limelight as front stage performers.
The first show of this season, a comedy entitled The Seven Year Itch, transferred an intrepid sound man out of his booth filled with cords, microphones and electronic gadgets, and into the hearts of Tyrone theatergoers. There are certain personalities that can transcend the footlights, and Gib Lucas is one of them.
The play centered around a man’s fantasies about the woman downstairs, and not only brought Gib together with the TCP audience, but introduced him to his co-star and future wife, Sharon Bickle. Just a little more TCP magic.
The Fantastiks, a theater classic and the longest running show on Broadway at that time, was the first musical TCP produced in the theater in the YMCA. Its uncomplicated sets and situations belied the complexity of the story, and the humanity it portrayed.
Dennis Smith, a seasoned director, made his TCP debut with this whimsical musical. The dynamic duo, as Denny and his wife Kate came to be known, cast the show beautifully, bringing professional magician Dennie Huber into the fold as the lead, El Guilo. Dennie’s imposing height, along with the deep, rich resonance of his voice brought life to the show which also introduced Debbie Huff, Randy Emenhiser, Ron Hildebrand, Rick McNelis and Jim Beatty to the TCP audience.
At the time, doing The Fantastiks was a bit controversial. It contained a musical number in which the word rape was used, albeit as a substitute for the term abduction, but our Tyrone audience accepted and understood the intent of that particular production number, and the entirety of the play.
It seems so innocent by today’s standards, but was a giant risk for the young and inexperienced theater company to gamble on.
The final show of this fourth season was, once again, played outside the theater in the Y, as TCP’s first dinner theater. Twain By the Tail was a delightful compilation of stories by the famous author, told by the author himself, and merged into vignettes with other performers. A pretty complicated script with a fabulous payoff.
Randy Emenhiser shone as the writer, Mark Twain. The mentorship between the Yeaton family and TCP continued when Ruth Yeaton designed make-up that was so realistic even Randy couldn’t tell that he wasn’t Mark Twain. Chasers Restaurant was home to this endeavor, and offered its own brand of challenges to TCP.
There was very little, if any, backstage area for crew people to keep their props and decor pieces, and absolutely no place for them to keep themselves. In true, creative, simple-is-sometimes-best fashion, Carolyn Patton, prop mistress for this show, stayed under a table on the stage, which she covered with a long tablecloth, and crawled out to change the props and decor as needed when the vignettes changed, then crawled back under. Talk about a backstage/frontstage experience!
This season went a little smoother for TCP than the previous one. They were doing much better on scheduling their shows, had learned from some very inventive set builders how to maximize impact in their space, membership was growing, and they were attracting the attention of some very creative designers in the costume area.
Things were going smoothly- so why not throw a little surprise into the mix? That is just what they did in season five. And not just any surprise, a monster surprise!
