Porter Rockwell

Back in January I auditioned for a musical our stake was putting on, Porter Rockwell. I was 8 months pregnant at the time and severely depressed. I hoped that by getting involved in something like that it would help me stop sitting around feeling sorry for myself. (Of course, there was always the possibility that it would stress me out even more but I decided to take the risk.)

My audition lasted all of the first 3 measures of "How Great Thou Art" when the director cut me off and declared I could sing. I figured that was a good sign. Then she took a good look at me and said, "Honey, when are you due?" I told her. "So he'll be four months old when we perform?" She seemed worried about the situation. "I thought you'd want a baby in the play," I said. "Oh, we'd LOVE a baby in the play!" she exclaimed. "I have a very supportive husband," I assured her. And boy, I do.

I wasn't informed of the first rehearsal, I was sick for the second, and my water broke the morning of the third. But I made it to the fifth, and every one thereafter. It was pretty stressful, but not for the reasons I'd expected. Everything was so . . . unorganized. Is it just because this was a community play? I haven't been in enough of them to know. I assume that people didn't bother to come to rehearsal (or write the choreography or learn their music) because it was a nebulous community production with no clear consequences for not doing your best. For example, if you belonged to a playhouse and did that kind of thing you'd be fired. But instead, those of us that did show up all got lectured about the importance of coming to rehearsal. Yeah, go figure. I guess it was hard to lecture the people that weren't there? The only things that kept me from quitting were a) my determination to be involved in community theater and b) the assurance of a music pal I respect that all of this director's productions eventually come together and are fabulous. (I was hanging onto that promise like a prayer.)

In the final month we started having two and three rehearsals a week. That's when it really came together--the set got built, the costumes were constructed, and people finally bothered to learn their lines. Oops, am I being too negative? It was very frustrating at the time, but in the end I was very pleased with the results. Vander was a natural, the star of the play of course ;)

He'd been coming to rehearsals his whole life, after all. This was a regular scene at both rehearsals and performances.Ah, his adoring fans.

I got a small role with 6 lines. The rest of the time I was just an extra. But I had a lot of fun with it. This is during the town scene. I don't have any lines right here, but I am scolding my "son" for carrying around a rifle.

My speaking part was Mary, the Old Timer's daughter. During the whole play he is being interviewed about Porter Rockwell's life. Only at the end do you find out he is actually Rockwell himself.

My job is to come onstage and scold him for forgetting about the theater production we are attending that night.

Six lines isn't much to go on, but I made up her whole personality in my head. She is a woman living in Salt Lake City, the cultural hub of the West. She's grown up under Porter Rockwell's reputation of toughness, roughness, and tries with all her might to leave it behind. She wants to be refined, gentile, sophisticated, so whenever she's around her father she can't help but scold. I added a fan and fluttered it whenever I was angry.

And frequently I would lose my temper, and then it was easy to see that underneath all the fancy clothes I was still my father's daughter.

When I was an extra I had Vander man with me. I didn't want to look like I had the same baby for 40 years, so he had costume changes after every scene. In this one we are camped at Green River on the way to the Salt Lake valley. I am shielding him from a silly character who doesn't know which end of a gun the bullets come out of.

One of the best songs in the play was called "Husbands." All the women sang about how life was so much easier, cleaner, etc. whenever their husbands were away.

Hilarious.

I had a small solo. "Perhaps I ought to speak up for his good points, this man who claims that he is so ambitious. He brags about how hard he works those hot and humid days and then he sleeps right through the dinner dishes!"

My real husband has a million good points and I am so lucky he was around! He put up with me being gone every Wednesday night for months. He would have to make dinner himself most times and put Annalee to be alone. In the beginning he was also watching Vander too! Several times he brought me food, or props I'd forgotten. He came to the play both nights and sat through the two-hour production with a very bored 3 year old. Then he bought me flowers!

He even got some ice for my ankle when I twisted it (and my toe) falling down the stage stairs in my hurry to get back to the other side for curtain call the last night.

Thanks, Hun, for letting me live my dream! When I left high school, I swore I would continue singing and performing. As life took me in different directions I kept saying, "someday, someday." This play was small, my role was small, but I did it. I showed myself I could.

During the last week of rehearsals I kept thinking of the plays I have written and never published, especially the one I wrote on my mission about sister missionaries. My new goal is to write it, tweak it up, and get it performed next year! I hope all my former roommates, companions, my friends, family, and adoring fans that have listened to my made-up songs forever will be sure to come!