Theater people!

As I mentioned, things are a bit hectic right now as we prepare for the play. The latest boondoggle has to do with the playwright/director, Hank Pharr. Hank is a former Kappa whose full moniker is Henry Newton Pharr, IV. He is an actor, of sorts, who goes by the name of Tag Nelson. His career, after a few recurring roles on lesser Disney television shows in the early years of the millennium, has consisted of turns on cruise ships and dinner theaters. He wrote the play we are producing as part of an MFA at Harvard. 

The play is two weeks away and rehearsals have just begun. It is a small cast and looked like it was going to be a simple project.

If you believe that, you have not dealt with dramatis personae.

Hank is actually fairly easy-going but he buys into every theatrical superstition out there, and there are plenty out there. Most don't matter, but he is now embroiled in an argument with the maintenance people at the library where the play will be staged. He insists that a light be left burning at all times in the small auditorium we are using. The relevant superstition is that there should always be a light burning in an empty theater to ward off ghosts.

Like many such superstitions, this one probably arose for practical reasons: to make sure people didn't trip over props, furniture and such things or fall off the stage wandering around in the dark looking for a light switch. Hank seems to believe it arose because, you know, ghosts.

For some reason, the library maintenance people are reluctant to leave a light burning, claiming there is the danger of it starting a fire. Hank gets red in the face and storms about, while the maintenance supervisor stands by and repeats that he believes it will violate the fire code.

I suspect the maintenance people will win this one, but Hank has begun to predict ghostly doom. And you have never heard ghostly doom predicted until you have heard it in the orotund tones of a dramatist whose will is thwarted.

Sigh.

Just a couple of more weeks until the play is over and then a month and I will be free of the Kappas.