From Kids to Nuns

We arrived in Schweinfurt in plenty of time to rest before our visit to the theatre here to see a production of School House Rock Live! If you have kids, you may be familiar with the School House Rock TV series. This live show, combines a bunch of songs from the series woven through this story about a teacher getting ready for his first day of class. His "alter-egos" come on the scene to boost his confidence, singing him songs about adjectives, adverbs, math, social studies and science. Each song is a "lesson" for the youngsters in the audience.

We were staying in another Army Housing facility on the Schweinfurt base. Our host was Garland Travis, who runs the program here. But he didn't direct the play; his colleague, who I had met a couple of years ago, directed the show. It was her virgin experience directing a musical. The show had lots of kids in it, as expected and only a couple of adults. Because so many of the soldiers stationed at Schweinfurt get deployed, there are rarely adult male actors available for the shows. The adults in this production were all women.

During WWII, Schweinfurt was a center for manufacture of ball bearings. As such, it was a target of 17 Allied bombing raids. In 1945, the US Army marched into Schweinfurt, and turned it over to the American Air Corps. In 1948, it was transferred to the US Army.

After the show, we retired to Annette's lavish suite to discuss the show. We are responsible for recommending nominations in dozens of categories, which ultimately will lead to us selecting winners in all of them. Awards are given out at a special ceremony in April in Heidelberg, called the Toppers. We will be gone by then, but it would be great to see the pride in the community when they win awards for their hard work.

Although the theaters are "amateur," some of them show a great deal of talent. The trick to our adjudication, as I am learning from Annette and Jim, who are masters, is to give encouragement and to teach, not to berate or criticize. It's inspiring to see so many kids in a production like School House Rock Live! who have never done a show before. They were clearly having a ball. (It's unfortunate that the material is not up to the level of the commitment of these kids; it's repetitive and has no particular dramatic structure, beyond providing a setting for the songs, which all sound alike.)

Next morning, on to Grafenwohr. (The "o" should have an umlaut, but I don't know how to type one.) It's less that two hours away and we had no traffic. The weather continues to be cloudy and rainy. We are getting fed up with the lack of sun. But we arrive nice and early, have lunch in a local Italian restaurant and find our way to the base.

"Graf" as they call it, is part of a large garrison which includes Villseck, another base nearby. In between are large fields that are used for manoevers. This is a key area, not only for US soldiers, but also for our NATO allies. What is now a 1,000 soldier garrison is expected to grow into an installation with 10,000 active duty soldiers and 15,000 family members; a billion dollar construction project is now underway.

But the theater program is stuggling. It had been dormant for many years and just re-opened in a new space with new personnel last September. The theater is a converted gymnasium (with basketball court markings still visible on the floor.) They are fortunate to have Joline Powell at the helm. She has tremendous energy and she has that ability to see what can be created in the future, not just the limitations of the present. She not only directed and designed the production, but she was also the stage manager and the key person responsible for creating a usable theater space in this cavernous building she was given.

The play was Agnes of God. It's been a staple of regional and amateur theaters for years. It played on Broadway originally with Geraldine Page and Amanda Plummer. Jane Fonda was in the movie. It calls for three extraordinary actresses to pull off the story of a young nun who is found with a dead baby in the waste basket in her room at the convent and the psychiatrist who tries to unravel the mystery of what happened, much to the chagrin of the Reverend Mother. It can be a compelling play. The set was simple -- black, with two chairs and a white platform upstage with steps and a ramp.

This production only suggests what Joline and her team can accomplish in the future. She has only been here for six months. (She and I had met when I was here adjudicating the one-act festival a year-and-a-half ago; ironically, she had won an acting award for portraying a spoof of Agnes of God in a Christopher Durang play.)

Jim and I drove back to Heidelberg today, while Annette and Eva remained to do a workshop this afternoon. Jim invited me to dinner with a couple of his friends in Mannheim this evening. He took us to a wonderful Greek restaurant, Akropolis, where we enjoyed a wonderful meal, good wine and nice friends.