My Life With Comic Books: Part # 154

The current cast of characters:
Paul Howley: age 45
Mal Howley: my wife
Adam Howley: my son, age 20
Cassy Howley: my daughter, age 15

MY LIFE WITH COMIC BOOKS: THE HISTORY OF A COMIC SHOP-Part 154

The high school musical of “Oklahoma” was going to be performed one month before the middle school play of “You’re A Good Man, Charlie Brown.” We had sold almost all of the available tickets for both shows of “Oklahoma” and we had sold a lot of tickets for the middle school play, much to the surprise of many people who didn’t believe that there would be that much interest in it.

Very nice-- but conservative—people governed the school so Brenda was a bit concerned about some suggestive lyrics to the song, “Kansas City.” To keep everyone happy, Barry and Margaret Armitage cleverly changed them. This song was sung by John, Cassy’s boyfriend. There were also concerns about the kissing scenes in the play. In one scene, John would lift up Cassy and twirl her around and end up kissing her. In the big “dream sequence” the characters of “Curly,” played by Andrew Hare and “Laurey,” played by Nicole Behan were supposed to be madly in love with each other and the end of the scene called for a passionate kiss. It was decided that John would still kiss Cassy but Andrew’s kiss would be a delicate kiss on the forehead of Nichole. Dramatically, it worked perfectly and it pointed out the distinct difference between the “flirty” affection of John’s character and the true love and respect that Andrew’s character had for his girl.

When Brenda had chosen to produce this play many of the students complained, “Oh, this play is stupid! Can’t we do something else?” On the night of the last performance they were all sad that it was over and they were eager to participate in next year’s play! It was a fantastic show that was thoroughly enjoyed by everyone. Well, almost everyone. One man complained about a scene that he thought was “making fun” of the idea of suicide. About a week later the school board got a lengthy letter from someone who had broken down, scene by scene, the things they thought were offensive in the play. While the school board took these complaints seriously, they also understood that we couldn’t please everyone.

A month later, it was time for the production of the middle school play “You’re A Good Man, Charlie Brown.” Although I was the director, I was also the only person who knew the show thoroughly enough to run the spotlight because many of the scenes in this show are performed in a “black-out” technique. It was complicated but it worked. I wasn’t needed up front to help any of the students with their lines because they had all worked hard and were very sure of their parts. Stephanie Goddard, assisted by Caleb Parys on the drums, played the music perfectly.

The two performances were interestingly different because different actors played Snoopy and Lucy each night. Several people bought tickets to both performances to see the differences. Cassandra came to see both of the shows but my son, Adam, only came to one of the performances. The play was so much fun and the young actors all did a great job. Looking back, it still surprises me that we could have sold 350 tickets to a middle school play. I was hoping to do another play with the middle-school but my life drastically changed the next year and I just couldn’t do it.

Next chapter: The Prodigal Son

My Life With Comic Books: Part # 150

The current cast of characters:
Paul Howley: age 45
Mal Howley: my wife
Adam Howley: my son, age 20
Cassy Howley: my daughter, age 15
Brenda Carney: the director

MY LIFE WITH COMIC BOOKS: THE HISTORY OF A COMIC SHOP-Part 150

Late 1999 through early 2000 was a fun, but busy time for us. Adam was living back at home with us because he had decided not to go back to The Boston Conservatory for his second year of college. He was now working full-time to try to get out of debt. Cassy was in her sophomore year of high school at Laconia Christian School and she was involved in several sports and the drama program. Mal and I were also involved there. We had committed to organize fundraising activities to raise money for Cassy and her classmates senior class trip cruise.

In the past, a parent or sport coach would occasionally have some snacks available for sale during a sporting event but it was not done with any consistency. Most of the time there was no food sold there. Mal and I knew that if we committed to making full meals and snacks available at every game, we could build up a steady business. We asked the class members to bring crock-pots of food and we’d always provide hot dogs and beverages. We would usually end up selling out of everything by the end of the sporting event. Suddenly, after a few months of this, other classes and parents decided that they wanted to be able to sell food as a fundraising effort for their classes. We were told that we needed to allow the other interested groups to have equal time and ended up only being allowed to run the snack bar one week each month.

After our successful performances of “Annie” the previous year, the school had asked if we could possibly do two plays for this year. Brenda, our director from last year was interested in directing another play but really couldn’t commit to do two plays. I volunteered to direct a play with just the middle school students while Brenda would do “Oklahoma” with the high school students. Brenda was lucky to have very enthusiastic and talented volunteers including Jane Jepsen and Margaret and Barry Armitage to help with choreography and music. The problem was that once these people had committed to work on the high school play it left our middle school play of “You’re A Good Man, Charlie Brown” with no musical accompanist or choreographer. I certainly had no talent in these areas!

I approached Stephanie Goddard to see if she’d be willing to play the music for us. Stephanie played piano at her church where her husband was a pastor and Mal and I had gone there a few times so I knew she was very talented. She was reluctant to commit to such a large responsibility but she told me that she’d review the sheet music to see if she thought she could learn all it. I was confident that she could but Stephanie wasn’t so sure.

Auditions were held for the middle school play and I was surprised to have over thirty kids try out. The play consisted of only six characters but my desire for this production was to include everyone. To accomplish this, a large chorus was added to involve more of the students and two of the major characters, Lucy and Snoopy, were “double-cast” since there were four girls with outstanding talents. Each of these girls would play their part for one of the two performances.

While Stephanie was considering if she felt comfortable playing the music for our play, we began rehearsals even though we were many months away from our performance dates. I wanted this to be fun for the students so we planned a leisurely rehearsal schedule of only twice each week. For our practices, I had rented a prerecorded musical score from the company that rented the scripts. For some reason, the company didn’t allow this soundtrack to be used for the actual performances but it gave us plenty to work with. After a few weeks, the students asked if we could rehearse more often because they were having fun! I was pleased to see the dedication in these young actors.

At the same time that we were working on this play my daughter was invited to go to Holland on her winter vacation to visit Anika, a girl who had attended Laconia Christian School the previous year. Kendra and Lindsay, two senior girls, were invited also. Kendra was on the cheerleading squad with Cassy so we knew her quite well but we didn’t know Lindsay much. Both of these girls were over eighteen years old and we thought that Cassy was still a little bit too young to go without us. Even though the girls would be staying at Anika’s parents’ home, we were uncomfortable with this idea. We suggested that we would be willing to travel there with the girls and they could stay at Anika’s while we stayed nearby at a hotel. We just wanted to be nearby in case of an emergency. Kendra wanted no part of this arrangement. She was afraid that we would somehow ruin her fun over there but, after we explained that we would not allow Cassy to go without us, Kendra changed her mind. We were now “allowed” to go with them.

Adam finally couldn’t stand his clerk job at Providian anymore so he quit and began working the night shift at The J. Jill Company packing catalog clothing orders. He didn’t like this job either but he enjoyed working with his cousin, Jesse. This didn’t last too long though.

Next chapter: Our trip to Holland and Adam’s new job.