me kissing Martine

Here's another theater person from my weekend with the Landing Theatre Company. This is Dr. Martine Kei Green-Rogers. She's a dramaturg and teacher and she moderated all the talk-backs after the play readings.

Dang, she was fun. Lively and smart with a format for talk-backs that I'm totally stealing if/when I conduct one. I've already told her this. It's brilliant in it's simplicity.

As you might guess from that smile, she pretty well embodies the very idea of joie de vivre. I'd say how I hope to cross paths with her again, but she's leaving Houston soon to pursue a post-doc opportunity up in Utah. But the conversation at the bar stimulated some thought and clarified some aims as I make my way back into performing and performance-making and she vowed to return to Houston now and then. I hope this wasn't my one and only chance to visit with her. I need more smart, joyful people in my life.

me kissing Jennifer

This past weekend, I participated as a production assistant in the the Landing Theatre Company's first New American Voices Play Reading Series. This evening, after the fourth and final fabulous play reading (really, all four plays in the series were quite good), several of us went out to celebrate the series and just sit and visit with each other. You know, see, be seen, talk about whoever wasn't present. Theater stuff.

One of the Landing's partners in this venture was Mildred's Umbrella Theater Company. Perhaps you've read about them in American Theater Magazine. (Well, I have.) Anyway, Jennifer Decker, Artistic Director of the company, was there.

And as you can see, I kissed her.

I've known of Jennifer for some time and I have friends who have worked with her, but this is the first time I've actually met her. I found her to be smart, quick-witted and in general a pretty cool person to hang out with in a bar. I look forward to crossing paths with her again. 

me kissing Nicci

This is the last of the SWTSU theater kisses. I'm so very delighted to have this one.

So the organizers of the reunion are on the stage at Cheatham Street Warehouse, making announcements and one of them said, "And over here we are excited to have with us Nicci Harrison." This made me sit up and take notice. Nicci Harrison is here? Squee!

Nicci was the department secretary my freshman year at SWTSU. That doesn't even begin to tell you who she was. Telling you that we all referred to her as "Mama Nicci" maybe tells you more. She took care of us. She nurtured us. She loved us. I don't think I can stress that enough. Goodness, to be den mother to a bunch of theater majors . . . well, just think about that a moment.

What's more, I got to know her my senior year of high school. When I arranged a visit to the SWTSU campus my senior year, to see a show in the theater and generally hang out in that round, moat-encircled building for a day, Nicci hosted not only me, but another prospective student in her home. I can't imagine anyone doing that nowadays, and really, I'm not sure many people would have done it in 1982. Nicci did. She welcomed two high school boys into her home, gave us a place to lay our head at night, gave us breakfast in the morning. That was our Mama Nicci.

At the end of my freshman year, the department chair changed and Nicci felt that was a good time for her to make a change, too. She left the department but never our hearts. 

So now I have to tell you the mortifying part of my evening in San Marcos. When I went over to say hi and tell her who I was how I remembered her housing me for a night . . . I knocked over a glass of tea on her table. She had two binders full of what I gather were memorabilia from her years as our Mama Nicci and I spilled tea. Luckily, it wasn't a full glass and I think only the edges of some pages got wet, but wow. Do I know how to re-enter someone's life? I put my hand over my name tag and said, "Well, now I don't want to tell you my name." And as I'm helping wipe up tea and apologizing and basically feeling about 3 inches tall, she's saying, "oh, that's all right, don't worry about it." Because that's what Nicci would say.

And after all that? She still let me give her a kiss. Because, you know, she's Mama Nicci.

me kissing Sheila

Still at the SWTSU Theater Department reunion . . .

This is Sheila Hargett. She was my teacher for costume design and make-up classes. I still have the make-up text book that has photos of her modeling a make-up procedure. We all thought that was cool and fun to have a text book with our teacher's picture in it.

I had only those two classes with Sheila, and I wasn't a costume major, so our interactions were relatively limited. I recall she had some amount of patience with people who had never sewn before (I had some experience---Mama taught me some things on the farm). I also remember the costume majors worshiping at her altar. She was much beloved by the students with whom she worked closest.

Probably "is." "Is much beloved," as she continues teaching at the renamed Texas State University. Even as an acting major, I remembered her fondly enough to kiss her.

me kissing Melanie

So Mary Margaret wasn't the only one to break my peck on the cheek rule. Meet Melanie Pleasure. I said it's just a sweet little peck on the cheek. She said, "You see these lips? They were made for kissing."

Theater people. Rule breakers. And kissers.

I definitely remember Melanie from college days. She always had a high energy and irrepressible joie de vivre. It surprised me not at all to hear that she's now a fitness instructor, specializing in hula hoop fitness.

It's a little hard to tell from this picture, but Melanie had some sort of sparkly rhinestone-ish decorations adhered to her face and back. This is apt. Melanie is nothing if not sparkly.

me kissing Cheryl

Ugh. I don't know what happened here. Didn't have the flash set on my camera? So this is darker than your average kiss.

But this is Cheryl Brown. We also worked together off campus at the Bastrop Opera House (like Mary Margaret). Again with memory lapses. but I believe sh did costumes. Maybe? Gah. I need to undergo memory regenerative hypnosis. If that exists. Something.

Anyway, she now lives "across the pond" and has a fiance who is quick with a camera and talks with an accent (although perhaps he thinks I'm the one with an accent). Cheryl obviously remembered many more people---and was remembered by many more people---than I. I saw her running from group to group, giving many hugs. It was in those moments I had the clearest flashes of memory. Her energy has not diminished.

Sorry for the dark kiss, Cheryl. Glad you made it back to the States for the reunion.

me kissing Paula

You know, time is a funny thing. You spend years in college and you think it's all an indelible mark on your heart mind and soul.

And then you grow old. You make a couple or three moves. You accumulate more and more circles of friends and acquaintances. Suddenly you're at a school reunion and trying to piece together history that you once thought was carved in granite.

I remember Paula Rodriguez, but some details are blurry. I know we didn't do any shows together. I'm pretty sure she did one or two of the children's shows. Backyard Story maybe?

Well, the feelings I get from remembering her name are positive, so that's something, right? That makes me slightly less of a forgetful old man, yes?

At any rate, here she is at the SWTSU Theater Department reunion. And she let me kiss her.