Leavin' 'em in the dust

After I got my MFA in Theatre – Set Design in December, 1983, I was all set to find a permanent teaching job. But, it was the Reagan years & money for the arts was drying up. My future husband, Chuck, had his theatre teaching job at a small women’s college eliminated in 1988. I applied for many, many teaching jobs and finally got one at a small liberal arts college nestled into Amish country in Lancaster, PA. I can still remember my dad’s response when I called to tell him about my job: “Son of a bitch!” he growled. “My daughter’s going to be a college professor!”

My dad was proud of all his kids, no matter what. My sister’s law degree and my brother’s medical degree of course made him beam. He himself had always wanted to be a college history professor. However, he graduated high school in 1929 & immediately had to go to work to help support his 4 younger siblings. He helped each one of them with college tuition. He still dreamed of getting a college education when he retired – sadly, he died of cancer at age 74 when he was still working hard as a life insurance salesman.

In 1984, Mom and Dad followed me in their car as we drove to Lancaster for my new job, with most of my earthly possessions. Unfortunately, I was quickly disenchanted with the new job. Most students were pre-law or pre-med, & took theater courses for an “easy” arts elective to fulfill requirements. Their only question was, “What do I need to do to get an A?” Plus, they didn’t get my sense of humor.

There were only two other theater faculty members – men in their sixties. At an early faculty meeting they announced that, horror of horrors, the students wanted to put on a play of their choosing. And worse, it was that scandalous, tawdry work, and a MUSICAL to boot, “1776.” So, they outlined a plan to sabotage the students while appearing to support their endeavor. I was appalled.

The play the uptight faculty selected for the spring semester was “Fen,” a brand new play by Caryl Churchill. I thought it was horrible. It was about an inbred sect of women farm workers, who worked potato bogs (fens) on stilts, and carried on a legacy of abuse on to the next generation. Give me “1776” any day.

The director insisted that the stage floor be entirely covered in actual dirt, several inches deep, from which the women could dig actual potatoes. The seating in the theater sloped down towards the stage, which was elevated about three feet. He wanted the play to open in semi-darkness with heavy fog. He planned for the actresses to enter from the back of the audience on stilts, wearing long hooded robes, and walk down the sloped floor and up the steps onto the dirt field of the stage.

When I tried to point out that we should use something other than actual dirt, and not cover the whole stage, and that stilt-walking down the slope & up the stairs in a dark foggy theater might be dangerous, he said I was being negative and uncooperative. I was heartsick about the job, but felt trapped – I couldn’t leave without another job and disappoint my parents.

So, I tried to comply. Realizing that even though it was only October, the ground would begin freezing soon in Pennsylvania, and it would be best to get the dirt now for a February play, I approached a landscaping crew on campus. The foreman inspected the stage – which was in the basement – and estimated it would take about two cubic yards, or a dumptruck full of dirt, to cover the stage two inches deep. Hmmm. How to get all that dirt into the basement?

I always like a good problem to solve, so the students & I built two large boxes, each out of 4 sheets of 4 X 8 foot plywood, reinforced them with 2X4’s, & put casters on them. We pushed them out the side loading doors of the theater onto a concrete pad. There was a flight of steps leading up to ground level, but we weren’t going to hand carry all that dirt down by the bucket. I had the dump truck back up to the railing, & we dumped & shoveled the two cubic yards of dirt into the two handy wheeled boxes, then pushed them back inside onto the stage.

Luckily, about that time, a director I’d worked with in Wisconsin, who was then working in Lincoln, Nebraska, called & I asked if I’d be willing to come to work there as a set designer in January. It was an easy “yes.” At the end of the semester, I quickly hand-wrote a ten-page resignation letter (this was pre-computer days), and left it, my keys and nametag in the director’s mailbox, & hightailed it back to Memphis.

I never heard what happened, but I can imagine the campus HVAC people are still, 35 years later, trying to get the dust out of their vents and filters, and are either cursing me for the problems that leaving two cubic yards indoors caused, or thanking me for making them rich. I still would really like to know how the play turned out, & whether any of the actresses broke their legs on the stilts in the dirt with the fog. I hope not.

(In the next post: leaving Pennsylvania to drive to Nebraska in a January blizzard and totaling my car.)

Dad & me at my new job.

Mom & Dad on the trip. Dad could make friends with

anyone. Here he is getting ready

to sell life insurance to this statue.