1 (not so) angry actor

i have been cast in another play being produced by the proscenium players, which, like “a tuna christmas”, will be presented at carson city’s brewery arts center. “12 angry men” will be my first attempt at acting in a drama. in the past, i have only been in comedies – typecasting, i guess.

my character, simply identified as “juror 11”, is a european refugee. i’m working on an accent with which i will be comfortable; it doesn’t necessarily have to be accurate, but it does need to be consistent and convincing.

it will also be challenging in that all of the other actors, except for “the guard” – who makes a couple of brief appearances, are always on stage and we all interact with each other.

“12 angry men” takes place in the jury room immediately following a murder trial for a 19-year-old man accused of stabbing his father. upon an initial vote, 11 of the jurors believe the young man to be guilty; one is not so sure.

not only will this production be my first attempt at a dramatic role, it will also be the first time i will perform in the round.

i’m not certain of performance dates, but they will take place over two weekends in may and, at this time, it appears that the sunday matinees will run straight through all three acts without an intermission. don’t let that scare you: we believe the run time of the show to be about an hour. the script was adapted from the teleplay which was shown in one hour in 1954 with two commercial breaks between acts.

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i, for the first time last night, hosted family home evening for us empty nesters. instead of all of us reading paragraphs from various talks by the general authority, i chose to play the first two chapters of the audio book i read by max b. skousen: “how to pray and stay awake”, which seemed to be well received and inspired a bit of discussion while we munched on dessert of paula deen’s “original gooey butter cake”.

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the calendar indicates that this is the first day of spring, but here in northern nevada it looks and feels more like winter than winter did. this has been such a strange winter across the country. my ex-wife, carol, posted on my facebook wall that they are expecting three days in a row of 80+ degrees in portland, maine, culminating in a high of 85° on thursday. i’ll bet without the humidity of a typical maine summer it is just lovely there right now. when i lived in maine, we were lucky to get spring-like weather by may.

the house behind us has some flowering tree in bloom and yesterday i noticed a couple of other trees in bloom when i was running around town. mark tells me their apricot trees are in bloom in fallon, which means this will be another year without apricots as the frost is sure to kill the buds before the fruit sets. i’m also seeing a lot of leaf buds on many trees around town and the weeping willows stems and branches are greening-up nicely. having spent several days in emerging spring in jacumba during the glider clinic and a couple of days of full-on spring in the san diego area, i’m ready for it to return to nevada.

tales to tell: the crazy artist

one day, back when ron and i were working together at kptl in carson city, this crazy lady came into the radio station looking to paint or draw something for the radio station. i guess she thought we were television and not radio.

she was in tears before she ever left ron’s office. since my office was right outside of ron’s i was there for the whole scene and wishing i had a place where i could hide.

well, even though we knew she was a couple of enchiladas short of a #6 combo, we talked about how we could use this woman’s talent in order to help her out.

and talented she was.

she was as talented as she was crazy!

her portfolio was loaded with wonderful examples of her artwork, from oils to watercolors to charcoal.

she had a great oil of pope john paul ii that is, or was, hanging in the vatican, and a very realistic watercolor of the silver legacy casino in reno.

very talented!

extremely talented!

so, ron commissioned her to do renderings of the air staff.

knowing that tq, being the former mrs. nevada and all, would feel slighted if she didn’t get hers first, he had “the crazy artist” (everybody has a nickname in and around the “secret obelisk society” and that became janet’s) begin with her image.

about a week later she returned with the rendering of tq.

it was. . . well. . . it looked like tq. sort of! but, it did not hold up to her other examples.

so, needles to say, i was a little apprehensive about my turn.

she took a photo home that somebody else had recently shot of me on one day, came back a day later with her 35mm and shot a few more before heading back to her home.

the sad story is: her home was a van that she shared with a dog that we never saw.

about a week or two later: she showed up with a folder containing my portrait.

i didn’t even want to open it when she handed it to me; i didn’t know if i could look gracious under that kind for pressure; i just knew it was going to be. . . well. . . not great.

until, however, i actually saw the rendering!

i thought i was looking at myself in the mirror.

i mean that thing looks more like me than me!

my friend, jim fannin, says the image haunts him my eyes are so lifelike.

janet captured the real me: the smile in my eyes, the creases of my smile and around my eyes, my elvish ears, the part in my van dyke and all the little nuances that make me me.

i never hoped for it to be as good as it turned out!

let me remind you: she was living in her van and that is where she created my rendering in charcoal and pencil.

truly amazing!

every time i look at that thing i am blown away with it.

shortly after, she had to leave town (i assume in her van) and we never saw her again.

scott (of the famous “scott and monty show”) and jarvis never got their turns for immortality and the other artwork ron commissioned (a parade of rock and roll stars gathering under the reno arch, as the kptl crew, with ron behind the wheel of a 1963 corvette, passed).

all of these things were commissioned, not because we needed artwork for the radio station, but because ron was trying to help out the crazy artist.

today my friend, kathryn (i’ll have to tell the story of how she and i missed our connecting flight out of atlanta when we were coming home from myrtle beach bike week), suggested that i use that image as my picture on the blog.

since kathryn is so good for my ego, i decided that she knows best.

when things were not going so well for me, kathryn was the one person who helped me to believe in myself. well, fannin always tells me to remember that i am monty wolf and nobody else is. but, he’s not as attractive as kathryn. and a pretty woman is much easier to believe than some dude, even if he is one of my radio heroes.

thank you kathryn!

thank you fannin!

and thank you janet, the crazy artist!