"I WAS THERE"
A Series of Selected Autobiographical Vignettes
By

Chester C. Travelstead

Volume 8
The Thespian Period

PREFACE

Every child takes part in plays of some sort. Many of them, such as "playing" mother, doctor, or nurse, are conceived and dramatized in private or with a few playmates. Others are more organized and usually directed by parents or teachers during elementary school years.

In high school, the number of boys and girls participating in plays seems to decrease sharply, for various reasons. Athletics draws some, as do clubs and other activities. And the relatively few who continue to take part in plays and musicals could perhaps be divided into two general groups: the "hams" -- those who thrive on being the center of attention; and the more serious students who are considering a career in drama or music.

As I reflect now on my student days at Bowling Green High School, I feel sure I was a part of both these groups. For I was certainly somewhat of a "ham," and yet at the same time I was also interested in drama and music as possible careers. In any case, I was in several plays, including Dickens' "Christmas Carol" (in which I fully enjoyed playing the role of Scrooge) and a condensed -- very condensed version of Vergil's "Aneid," the great classic epic which I read in my fourth-year Latin class under Miss Ruth Driskoll, a sweet, patient, and able teacher.

While in college at Western, I took part in a number of plays -- some of them in French (including Moliere's "Le Malade Imaginaire" and "Le Medicin Malgre Lui;" others in English (including Eugene O'Neill's, "Beyond the Horizon," in which I played the role of Andrew, and some currently-popular Broadway hits, such as "Tommy," a light comedy, and "Spooks," a gripping murder mystery. (A picture of its cast is on the next page.)

During this same period, I also played roles in several one-act plays produced by a community theatre group in Bowling Green and directed by Mrs. Phillip Binzel, a very talented woman. The play I remember best of this group was a beautiful fantasy, "The Maker of Dreams," written by Oliphant Down. In it I took the part of Pierrot, a traveling-show singer and dancer who was always dreaming of great things far away. Because of the simple lesson taught by this little play, I can still remember some of its key lines:

Pierrot -- I've been dreaming all my life, but they've always been dreams I made myself. I suppose I don't mix them properly.

Manufacturer (the fanciful maker of dreams) --You leave out the very essence of them. You must put in a little sorrow, just to take away the over-sweetness. I found that out very soon, so I took a little of the fresh dew that made pearls in the early morning, and I sprinkled my dreams with the gift of tears.

* * * * * * * * * *

Pierrot -- I'll start at once (to look afar for the girl of his dreams).

Manufacturer -- I shouldn't start out tonight.

Pierrot -- But I want to find her soon. Somebody else may find her before me.

Manufacturer -- Pierrot, there was once a man who wanted to gather mushrooms.

Pierrot -- Mushrooms!

Manufacturer -- Fearing people would be up before him, he started out overnight. Morning came, and he found none so he returned disconsolate to his house. As he came through the garden, he found a great mushroom had grown up in the night by his very doorstep. Take the advice of one who knows, and wait a bit.

* * * * * * * * * *

My rather extensive and direct involvement in theatricals while attending high school and college led me -- quite naturally, I suppose -- to New York City in the late spring of 1933, immediately after I had graduated from Western, with a major in French and minors in English and music.

For several years, I had dreamed -- perhaps not unlike Pierrot -- of going to New York to pursue a career on the stage; and had it not been for the wisdom and effective persuasion of my mother, I would have taken that step in the early summer of 1932, almost a year before my college graduation.

The stories in this volume are about the short but very exciting "thespian period" of my life. But let the reader once again beware. As I have said about other stories in the "I Was There" series, what is to follow is part fact, part fiction -- how much of each I do not know. In any case, it is what I remember happening to me almost fifty years ago.

Chester C. Travelstead
February 15, 1982

CONTENTS OF VOL. 8
[TABLE OF CONTENTS]
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