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Well sir, tonight is opening night. After eight long weeks of rehearsal, the classic, award-winning comedy You Can't Take It With You opens onstage at the Burton Leavitt Theater in beautiful, downtown Willimantic, CT with me in the role of Grandpa (Mr. Martin Vanderhof.)
You'd think after twenty-five years of doing this, it would become "old hat" for me. It's definitely not. I'm excited. This show is wonderful. Grandpa is a plum role. And to be putting this thing on with all of my friends in the cast is just absolutely remarkable.
After tonight's opening show, we'll all probably end up at The Main Street Pub, which is just two blocks from the theater, and we'll probably close the place.
I am the oldest actor in the show, and all of these young sprouts treat me like "the wise old sage" of the theater. They come to me to get suggestions on how to do things on the stage. Even the director.
However, after the show, they treat me as if I was their own age, and we have SO MUCH FUN together! (I can't tell you how much that means to me! When I asked them why they treat me this way, one of them responded, "Because you don't act older, Jim! You age never crosses our minds. You're just one of us!" Unless, of course, they feel like teasing.)
Life is good.
When I woke up this morning, the lyrics of an old 1960's TV theme song was going through my mind. See if you can identify the show from which it comes:
"Overture! Curtain! Lights!
This is it - the night of nights!
No more rehearsing and nursing a part.
We know every part by heart!
Overture! Curtain! Lights!
This is it! We'll hit the heights!
And oh! What heights we'll hit!
On with the show! This is it!"
Wish me a couple of broken lower appendages!
