Brother David was a clown as far back as March 1962. This looks like kindergarten or first grade at Trinity Lutheran School. He’s in green, fourth from the left in the front row. Click on the photos to make them larger.
I know what part I’d get
I don’t have access to a playbill, so I don’t know anyone except David. I’m pretty sure I’d have been cast as the south end of the horse the little girl is climbing on.
Fred Lynch’s blog has a shot of me as an angel in the third grade. Then, there was the time John Mueller, Rick Meinz and I were forced to don priestly collars. I think we would have done better as horse hind-ends.
Trauma of school plays
I don’t have many pleasant memories of school plays.
I TOLD my kindergarten teacher that I REALLY had to go to the bathroom before I went on stage, but she said I’d have to wait. Well, there are some things that won’t wait, even if you are going on stage. It was lucky I was wearing dark blue pants.
Friend CT, who who was an editorial writer for an east coast paper messaged me not long ago, “It was you, wasn’t it, who told me 40 years ago that writing editorials is like wetting yourself in a blue serge suit: it gives you a nice warm feeling and nobody seems to notice?”
I swiped that line from someone else, but I’m sure my traumatic moment on stage seared that old saying in my mind.
High school plays
By the time you got to high school, being accepted by acting clubs like Red Dagger or Silver Spear raised the odds that the actors would have a modicum of talent as opposed to elementary school performances where everybody had to play a part. Here are some high school and college plays.
- Red Dagger’s My Sister Eileeen and Our Hearts Were Young and Gay
- SEMO’s production of This Happy Breed
- 1967 Central High School’s Bye, Bye Birdie
Photo gallery of school play
I don’t have any more information about the play, so it is up to you to ID the players. Click on any photo to make it larger, then click on the left or right side of the image to move through the gallery.
