101 Ways to Be Revolting

It was almost exactly fifty years ago--on May 24, 1968--that I directed my second play at the old Aurora Middle School (102 E. Garfield Rd.; Aurora, Ohio). It was a comedy (?) that I'd written with a group of students throughout the year, a comedy about the American Revolution, and we called it Our War for Independence; or, 101 Ways to Be Revolting. I was 23 years old.

It was long before the days of easy photography, and I don't think I have any pictures from the production--though perhaps others out there do (if so, I'd love to see them).

We had no theater or auditorium in the old middle school, so we mounted our productions on the gym floor. We had, in those infant years, no spotlights or other special effects. Just a record player (!) attached to a speaker system--a very primitive speaker system.

At the bottom of the page are scans of our program. So many 7th and 8th graders ...

I have a script in a file--but I'm afraid to look at it. I would much prefer to remember it as a dazzling comedy that dazzled the audience during our two dazzling performances: one, an afternoon assembly for all students; two, for the parents (and others) in the evening.

Okay, a couple of memories.

• We staged the old Paul Revere joke. Three women spaced out on the stage. He "rides" to the first: Is your husband at home? Yes! Tell him the British are coming! Woman 2: same thing. Woman 3: Is your husband at home? No! Whoa! (Pretty racy stuff for a middle school?)
• But the big surprise--and crowd reaction--came at the end when King George III (who, unaccountably, is in America), realizing the war is lost, converts. We had him come running out in full hippie attire with the music of "Georgie Girl" blasting over our sound system (link to that 1967 hit). The audience went nuts for our converted King, played by John Mlinek, 8th grade, who went on to do a lot of acting and directing and has long been a Facebook friend--and real one, too.

It terrifies me that those "kids" are now in their sixties--for that makes me ... never mind.

But this play convinced me that this--directing kids--was something I loved to do. And so I did it for another thirty years, loving it every second, except when I hated it, which wasn't all that often!

The image at the top of the page is a rock that one of those "kids"--Doug "Skip" French--painted for me and gave me. It's been on my desk since 1968. Skip, by the way, went on to become quite an actor himself--and quite a human being. Cover design by Dave Prittie--a great actor, later a professional artist in NYC.