A REAL HUMDINGER—The Hyland Spring Play 2019

This is the story of a history professor named Nigil whose renewed relationship with his grandfather leads to a scandal involving communism, the circus, and a train robbery that may or may have not happened—or eventually will happen.

Here’s how the story happened:

Every summer (or at the latest, every fall), I’m foraging for any flicker of an idea for the spring play. Sometimes the idea has been sitting in the back of my mind for a while. Sometimes there’s nothing there but a few crumbs.

At the end of last summer, when I was chatting with Evan Vance (a senior at Hyland), he half-jokingly said, “We should rob a train.”

That concept stuck in my brain.

The first thing that came to mind of course, was the cliché of bandits on horseback. One big problem. When you’re doing a stage play, horses are a major complication.

I needed to come up with something other than large mammals so I went with bicycles. Now I had people on bicycles robbing a train.

Next problem—Why would people be on bicycles robbing a train?

My wife Sarah and I started brainstorming. The first basic idea was about a guy trying to recreate key events in his grandfather’s life. The key events would be recorded in his grandfather’s diary in another language. It would only be after the hero committed to the challenge that he would realize he had to rob a train.

That was the basic idea going into Christmas break.

A big turning point came when it was time to come up with the WHAT. Exactly WHAT was on the train and why would this be worth robbing? Since the story wasn’t taking place in the Old West on horses, it couldn’t be a delivery of gold. I figured it would be good to have a “damsel” on the train. But there had to be a good reason why she was there.

WHAT was the train transporting?

So I Googled the problem. "Types of cargo transported on trains." The search kicked up things like…

COAL

ENGINE PARTS

CIRCUS ANIMALS

Circus animals…

The train car would have lions on it. And the girl would be trapped with the lions. I liked that idea.

Since this was an adventure story, I needed a protagonist who did not want an adventure. Nigil wasn’t originally a history professor. He was a quality assurance expert—the guy who goes around and enforces nitpicky bureaucratic rules. The annoying guy everyone hates. His name was going to be something like Nigil Nihil (hinting nil and nihilistic—a true zero of a man).

A history professor was easier. (Lots of history professors are cool, I just thought it would be an interesting character.)

Then it was a matter of explaining why a history professor would have any dealings with the circus.

Once in a while I’ve heard how young celebrities have their own special tutors when they’re on tour. So I made up an organization that arranged for circus performers to take college classes while they were on tour.

To make the train rescue more ridiculous, I wanted someone trying to film it. That led to the film students. And the bigger the camera, the better—so it had to be a huge video monster from the 80s. Which placed the story eventually in 1987. That’s also a nice decade because you don’t have to worry about cell phone complicating the story.

The title took a while. These are some of the ones I considered:

THE GRANDPA CHRONICLES

CAHOOTS

DOG SOUP (slang for water)

HOT BEAN WATER (slang for coffee)

COOL BEANS

NO DUH

HOT DIGGITY

NOT EVEN
YOU DON’T SAY

SAYS YOU

AS IF

TERRIFICAL  

THE ART OF FANTASTICALNESS

AWESOME SAUCE

Evan Vance and Sierra Martinez were the seniors . Evan would be Nigil, the history professor. Sierra would be Ethel, his teaching assistant who knew everything about everything. Aidan Svensk joined us for Beatnik Blues the year before and he was fortunately able to join us this year. He would be Grandpa. 

The wheelchair used by Grandpa in the play belonged to my dad. 

He would have gotten a kick out of that.

The cast not only had to act, they had to build the set.

Gwen would be falling inside a box that would end up on the train. Specific dimensions were necessary to make it easy enough for her to fall into it.

Sierra Martinez (Ethel) was in charge of props. She always masters the challenge. This year we needed binoculars, starting pistols, a whip, and many other things. She even had to make a pair of lion claws from scratch.

There were some major things that kind of went wrong during rehearsals. But these were the very things that led to some stuff that made the play work in its own way.

Almost all of the complications were because of the train scene. We needed a small door on one end of the car. After Evan and his dad worked for days trying to set up a working removable door, we ended up ditching the door and just implying it with sound effects and acting. And that worked great!

The scene with the train had to involve probably the most elaborate removable set we’ve ever done on the Hyland stage. Which led to a big problem. Scene changes should take only three or four minutes, or you end up killing the pace of the play. Taking almost ten minutes to set up the climactic scene might end up killing the pace at the worst possible time.

So we decided to use Grandpa. In order to buy us some time, I wrote some monologues for Aidan Svensk (which he memorized in about five minutes). He would come out in the middle of the scene change to amuse the audience while we frantically built a train. Instead of trying to hide the problem, we drew attention to it and used it. To make this interruption somewhat expected, we had Grandpa interrupt occasionally earlier in the play too. 

We used twelve tables covered with plywood to build the raised platform of the train car's interior.

The climactic train scene required two bicycles that could move in any direction. Larry Grampp, Brian Vance, and Virg West came to the rescue with their engineering and carpentry expertise.

Three computers were needed in the booth to supply music and sound effects. Evan set it all up. His sister Abbie ran the whole scene by herself--music, lights, train sound, lion sounds--all needing to happen at the perfect moment.

The cast made sure that they had their lines down.

They came up with all the costumes and makeup.

And then it was time for the curtains to open...

Jenna White played the role of the lion tamer Vera. It was Jenna’s idea to try different accents and she settled on southern. This highly influenced the final rewrite of the climactic scene—finished about a week before the performance.  

Innovation: the boom mike Oggie used was actually a broomstick with paint rollers on one end, painted black.

This time, my whole family got a cameo.

I like stories where there are levels of meaning. This story deals with how Grandpa felt obsolete. So all the characters have names that are currently on the verge of extinction. Some of the names actually are extinct. For example, Ethel’s last name—Portendorfer. Although this was once a family name, there are no Portendorfer’s left. The name Berrywhistle Circus came from Birdwhistle, another extinct surname. All the first names (Nigil, Ethel, etc.) are endangered.  

Sarah and I have been watching the TV show Frasier and on this show there is a character named Maris, who is often referred to, but never, never seen. Dewey was a Maris.

The train scene went perfectly. It involved absolutely everyone. Someone swaying the lamp, someone providing the sound effects, many others making sure the lighting was right and several people dressed like ninjas moving the bicycle around.

The original plan was to have the damsel (Gwen—Aubrey Reitmair) open the giant, sliding door and for the audience to see nighttime landscape drifting by in the “distance.” After trying several things, it just didn’t work. Plus, when the second bicycle entered the scene, you couldn’t see the people on it.

Trying to solve that problem, we solved both. We put a light behind the set, so we could see the people on the second bicycle. Then Evan suggested we hang another light inside the car and sway it back and forth to simulate the movement of the train (patiently provided by Cambrey Reitmair). It was a great idea that made all the difference.

Gail (Dailey Reitmair) not only did a great job as Gail. She stood hidden, dressed in black for a whole scene, just so we could have a box fall on a character at a specific moment.

Here are some of my favorite moments for each character:

Nigel (Evan Vance)

            He appears on a bicycle and screams, “Gwen!” Evan made that key moment believable.

Ethel (Sierra Martinez)

            The elegant way she flew through saying “the I.N.F.T.A.O.C.A.I.T.P.A.” So great.  

Gwen (Aubrey Reitmair)

            When she was scratched by the lion during the train scene. It looked legitimate.

Grandpa (Aidan Svensk)

            “You went out and lived a real humdinger.” Very important line delivered perfectly.

Gail (Dailey Reitmair)

            Her unwavering determination to stay in character and light that candle!

Myrtle (Iliana Martinez)

            “You know what—YOU don’t even exist!” Strong and funny.

Clive (Luke Troyer)

            Perched on the bicycle hand in the air—epic.

Vera (Jenna White)

            Singing “Happy Birthday” in Russian in a southern accent. Who else has ever done this?

Blanche (Abbie Vance)

            The very casual rattling off of incredibly difficult words without cracking up.

Rhonda (Tiffany Bennett)

            “We’ve decided to add the bop.” A ridiculous line delivered straight-faced.

Sally (Katarina Taylor)

            “We laughed and we laughed.” Said with just the right amount of romantic flair.

Phyllis (Sophie Troyer)

            Giving Grandpa the painting. Her acting in this moment made her character lovable.

Dianne (Cambrey Reitmair)

            The extreme range of her character. “Just kidding—but lay off!” Very funny.

Vicki (Olivia Gutierrez)

            The blind fall in the dark. Brave and hilarious.

Oggie (Brody White)

            His intense attempt to rescue Gwen. Just the right amount of madman.

Wilma (Hannah Gutierrez)

            “Nom-nom-nom!” Like an activist. This made her such an interesting character.

Carole (Makenna Mora)

            “Oh stop. I was just doing my job.” Got big laughs. So fun.

The cast did amazing! It would have never come close to the story it became without their creative talents. I loved pretending with them. I want to thank them for coming outside to play😊