When you’re 73, getting work as an actor can take you places. No, I don’t mean to the Academy Awards. And to be honest, I’d rather be close to home these days. Who would make dinner for my 80-something-year-old husband? Who would clean the hot tub?

So when the call went out for actors from the Catskill Public Theater, I answered. Besides, the call came from an able actor himself, Nick López, with whom I had shared stages in the past. He knew me, I knew him. Simpatico.

He sent some scripts, offered me an audition with the king. Not that king. The king of CPT, Marshall Shnider, himself a septuagenarian, but with many more credits under his resume than I. The audition space was a former church, desacramented or whatever you call it when God has left the building, in Jeffersonville, NY. I read the scripts I was given. Later, Nick offered me two roles. The opening was in about a month, with two weeks of rehearsal time. There was a monologue and a short scene between two actors. Asked to sign a contract, I demurred, saying I didn’t think I could commit to doing justice to two roles in such a short rehearsal period. Truth was, I was afraid I couldn’t memorize the two roles by the date of opening.

They must have been short of actors, because they said they would be fine with having me do the short scene and be part of the ensemble with limited speaking parts. But catering to an actor’s natural disposition, they appealed to my ego and made me feel essential to the success of the project. I signed on the dotted line.

The “project” was a trio of plays presented in repertory throughout the summer on a mobile stage within a 50-mile radius of home. The hot tub, if not my husband, would survive.

I arrived at the church for the first rehearsal in ninety-eleven degree heat to find two new air-conditioning units on the floor near the door, uninstalled and still in their boxes. We take portents seriously in the theater. Also, there had not been a second actor cast for my scene. But some were due for auditions that day. Shortly, a man in work clothes—outside work clothes, not a suit and tie—with shaggy hair, carrying a Sawzall in his outstretched hand and with big blue eyes, introduced himself cheerfully as Tim. 

The play we were to read was of two older attendees at the 1969 Woodstock Music and Arts Fair in Bethel, NY. We would be huddled together under a blanket, naked, for the duration of the play. Finally, at the next scheduled rehearsal, still in the throes of the heat wave that was June in the Catskills, Tim arrived with script in hand. 

Nick turned out to be a skilled director. In only four two-hour rehearsals, he shaped our scene together, played our strengths and helped us turn words on a page into vibrant life.

Soon, too soon, it was time for tech rehearsal at our first venue, the Catskill Brewery in Livingston Manor, NY. This was my first sight of the mobile stage contraption we would call home for the summer. I was grateful that it was sturdy. Backstage, however, was a grassy field with a dark tent for costume changes. The producers provided camp chairs and portable toilets and water, but we were cautioned to provide our own food lest we faint on stage. 

Tim and I were given our costume bags, consisting of nude panties and a bandeau bra for me and nude boxers for Tim. Also a blanket big enough for two. Tech would be our only onstage rehearsal before opening. At one point in the play, I stand up and shout, “I would like my bra back!”  Actor that I be, it just didn’t feel right to have a bra on at that moment. I appealed to Nick to let me wear pasties and he gave the go-ahead to the costume designer. But where to find pasties, not a staple in my wardrobe, between Livingston Manor and Narrowsburg? On the way to the stage on opening night I had an epiphany. I stopped at the Dollar General in Jeffersonville and bought a package of Moleskin from the footcare aisle. Backstage, I affixed two bunion-size pieces of moleskin over my nipples and offered the “pasties” to the costume designer, who approved them and praised my endowments in the process.

Later that week, I broke down and ordered genuine silicone pasties from Amazon that arrived in time for our second show. Much easier to remove. And the show goes on!