The Drama Club: Oliver!

 

In the Fall, 1973, I appeared in my one and only stage production, while in my freshman year at East Jefferson High School.

I was sitting in the front of my first period Louisiana Civics class, taught by one of my favorite teachers named Hugh Smith, a wonderful teacher and friend of many students because of his open distrust for the Jefferson Parish School System and the East Jefferson High School administration, when Principal Harry T. Garland announced over the loud speaker that there would be tryouts for the upcoming school play. No one in class appeared to be very excited about it until Mr. Garland added that there would be girls from both Riverdale and Grace King High School auditioning as well. 

I decided to tryout, raised my hand to get Mr. Smith’s permission to leave class and headed over to the auditorium.  I had never acted before, but I had been in the choir at Christian Brothers in 5th grade. 

The play was a musical called Oliver! and I quickly realized I was competing against a few other boys who actually had acting experience, and one boy especially stood out. His name was Steve and I remember him because he deliberately walked right up to me during the audition and said, “My family is from England and I deserve the part of Oliver!” 

While I did indeed admire his effort to get into my head, I quickly realized he was actually afraid of losing the role to me, of all people, so I did the very best audition I could possibly do, mostly just to take it so he couldn’t have it. I ended up landing the lead role of Oliver Twist.

What I didn’t fully realize at the time was that, as the lead in the play, I had to memorize many, many lines and numerous songs. But to make matters even worse, I was required to actually attend daily rehearsals. This became somewhat of a predicament because I was already a week into tryouts for a point guard position on the Freshman basketball team. I suddenly had to be at two places at once.

Because, at the age of 14 years, I only weighed about 95 pounds and stood at about 5’3”, my physical abilities simply weren’t enough for me to compete against my taller basketball friends like Kevin Stouder, Marty Wetzel and Micah Blunt. I decided to go to Coach Nick Revon and explain the situation. He was sitting in his office talking with Coach Lenny Betzer. I said “Coach, I landed the lead role in the school play, and the rehearsals are during the same time as practice, and I can’t be at two places at once.” 

Coach Revon stood up and said, “Son, do you want to play basketball or do you want to wear leotards?” I replied, “But, Coach, the Riverdale and Grace King girls are in the play.” Coach Betzer said, “Well, Coach, he’s got a good point.”

Truth be told, I was never really sure Coach Revon actually knew my name because he always called me, and everyone else, “son” when he was trying to be serious. While I was probably not going to make the basketball team anyway, I decided to do the play.

The theater crowd was a whole new world to me. I became good friends with another “actor” named Jim Bergeron, who played the role of The Artful Dodger. Everyone seemed to take their roles very seriously, including the director, a fussy little man.

The director was a weird bird indeed, one minute smiling liked he was pleased with my progress, yet in the next moment he would throw his papers up in the air when I would flub a line or two, which was fairly often. But then he would calm down, put his arm around me and pinch my side, and then tell me to try harder. At first I thought it was curious that he was spending what appeared to be a lot of extra time trying to motivate me. One day, I hit my marks perfectly, because of the coaching support from my friend, Jim. The director came over and slapped my rear, while saying “Good job, Jeffrey!”

On one hand I was appreciative that the director noticed my progress, but I also felt a little weirded out by the “reward”, so to speak.

Over the next few rehearsals, the attention started becoming more than familiar. I decided to tell my Dad that I wasn’t really comfortable with acting and that I wanted to quit the play. I shared that I thought the director was weird and I didn’t really feel comfortable with him grabbing at me.

My Dad got very upset and said, “No way! If you quit now then you’ll think it’s okay to quit everything else just when it starts getting tough for you! And I’m not raising a quitter!” 

I said, “Fine!” and I returned to rehearsals the very next day. The director started becoming more and more familiar, and I was becoming more and more uncomfortable. 

I decided to go around my Dad and go straight to my Mom. I told her that I just wasn’t comfortable with the director grabbing at me and I wanted to quit the play. I also told her that my Dad said I couldn’t quit because he didn’t want to raise a quitter. Mom said, “Let’s go talk to your Dad.” Mom did all the talking. Even though my Dad was furious that I went behind his back, we all decided that if the director continued to be overly friendly that I could eventually quit.

The very next day, the director came up behind me and grabbed my center rear. I instinctively turned around and punched him as hard as I could right in his chest. I mean, I tried to knock him on his ass. I was so flustered, yet shocked that I had just punched a school teacher in the chest, that my eyes began welling with tears. What was so strange was that I think the director was even more shocked that I actually hit him.  He let out a shrieking kind of sound, almost girlish, and then turned and stormed off. 

At that moment, I thought for sure that I was going to be thrown out of the play and probably suspended or expelled from school. But the truth is, absolutely nothing happened and I never heard another word about it. And the director never touched me again. I finished the play and never thought about acting after the uncomfortable experience.

And then, one day, fifteen years later, while I was living in New York City and working for U.S. News & World Report, I received an envelope in the mail from my Mom. Inside was a letter, along with some clippings from the local newspaper. One of the clippings was an article about a theater man who had been arrested in Colorado for allegedly molesting young boys. It was him, the director.

My Mom used a pencil and wrote in the sidebar, “Was this your play director? Did you know he was like this?”

As tears rolled down my cheeks, I immediately realized that I had indeed tried to raise my hand and call attention to what this teacher was trying to do, but no one heard me. While I realized that something inside made me, at the age of 14 years old, made me emotionally strong enough to haul off and knock the crap out of him, it seemed that some other boys, down the road, may not have been so lucky.

While I never made it on another basketball team, I did run cross country track that following Spring. And I never, ever put on a pair of leotards.

Many years later, I came across a mausoleum draw at Lakelawn Memorial with the director’s name on it. I do believe that there’s a special place for the souls of people that prey on young, unsuspecting children, but I’ll let God be the judge of that...

© 2022 Jeffrey Pipes Guice

My Wonder Years: A Book