One for the road...

This entry was written Sunday, August 10 after a swishy night at the delightful "Club Dacus". All sappiness has been preserved. Enjoy!

No one who knows me would call me an overtly “emotional person”. I tend to enjoy momentous occasions in my life from a detached perspective. I expected my final performance of Guys and Dolls at the Barksdale to be a similar experience, regardless of the fact that it would be my last performance as a “Local-Richmond-Actor.” This was not to be.

During the final scene of the show when my character “Damon Runyon” officiates the wedding of Nathan and Adelaide the irascible Scott Wichmann threw me a curve ball. Normally he would stride up to the altar with his blushing bride (the lovely Rachel Abrams) with his usually charming grin, delaying Nathan’s participation the nuptials as long as is humanly possible. This time, Scotty approached me with a bittersweet half smile. He went through the usual routine of deflecting the first “I do” to Adelaide before taking a vow for the team. All was going as planned, although it felt a bit rushed. There seemed to be a few extra bars of music to fill.

After I had pronounced them husband and wife one last time, I started making my way stage-right for the final tableau, when Scott stopped me and grabbed my hand, giving it a firm shake before sending me on my way. Tears welled in my eyes as I proceeded to close the show.

Those who have seen Guys and Dolls will know that my role was somewhat of a cameo that helped move along transitions with some funny gags; but not to Scott didn’t let it end that way. All summer he regaled us in the dressing room with legendary stories of sports, theatre, popular culture, politics, etc, and each shared a common theme; community and teamwork. In that moment, all of the stories made sense. His simple gesture of a handshake was the perfect “good game” to the end of a great run for me. Not just in Guys and Dolls but in the city of Richmond.

I came to Richmond from the great state of Indiana not knowing what to expect. I had obtained a coveted place in Janet Rodgers’s Voice and Speech graduate program at VCU and for the first time I was living a full days drive from my dearest friends and family back home. At VCU I found a community of artists that shaped me in ways I could not have imagined. However my chosen course of study did not lend itself to the limelight. As a vocal coach, most of my work was done on a personal level forging individual relationships with actors during rehearsal rather than integrating fully into the community of a production.

Then in my second year I was drafted into a production of This is Our Youth at Richard Bland College. While the process was trying to say the least, the individual work I did with my acting partner was a revelation; I wanted back on the stage. That spring I attended the VCU cattle-call auditions and was cast in Clay Chapman’s volume of smoke. Clay and Isaac Butler’s process was truly phenomenal. I had worked with many guest artists at VCU and none had been able to facilitate the communal experience of creating theatre so effortlessly as these two men.

Their support gave me the balls to venture out into the greater Richmond theatre community. Volume of smoke led to Visiting Mr. Green, which led to The Little Dog Laughed, and Guys and Dolls. During each of these productions I encountered a directors, designers, actors, crew, and patrons who were kind, creative, professional, and most of all, just plain fun to be around. Sure each production had its moments of strain, but the eventual healing process always seemed to strengthen the work. “Why do we fall Master Bruce?”

Batman references aside, as I write this, I have less than ten hours left in my beloved Richmond. A city that I once thought of as scary, sweaty, and a bit rude, got under my skin. It became my home and carved its essence into my heart. The friends and colleagues I have made at VCU, the University of Richmond, the Richmond Triangle Players, and Barksdale/Theatre IV will always be a part of me, as I continue to develop my art and pedagogy at the University of Montana.

So thank you Richmond. You haven’t heard the last of me. Good game.