HOW IT CAME TO PASS

     Six years of Theatre Under the Stars, conjoined with three years in the Winnipeg Ballet,  condensed just like that, in one page! Those years were the defining years of my life. I grew up during that time, the innocent young man that I was changed. Innocence slipped away (snail paced), but naiveté, like gum stuck to the bottom of a desk, proved difficult to remove. I had the unfortunate attitude of believing that everyone was basically good. Yes, sad but true. Many heavyhearted tears were shed before I came to realize that deep down inside, where it really counts, some folk are rotten to the core. (I  imagine there are those who would agree). I paid for that foolish fancy, and the price was high. Now here's a simple phrase which takes a lot of living experience, and lot of good loving to believe: "The price of living is worth the cost." At one time I would have contested that phrase as being simplistic, yet now when I look back at the decades which have numbered and labeled me I am pleased to say, putting into perspective the underbrush of thorns that often covers our path, hiding the easier road, every bit of that living and loving molded and formed me into what I am. I would wish that it had not demanded so much. But, oh! I would pay it again for what it gave me. I do not refer to money, for of that I have little, or to fame, which has skillfully eluded me, and which in itself is of small value, but to the love of those whose future is in their making, whose promise is in their deeds, and whose completeness is in the nobility of their minds. My children. Had I lived another life and never known them, it would have been akin to living in a world in which only the dark side of the moon could be seen. A world without sunlight.

“Now herein let the tale unfold.”
     Summers of long ago, as we look back through the haze of time, and visualize them in our minds eye, seem to have had a special halo hovering over them,  Yet I'm certain that my remembrance of the weather during those long ago summers is correct. I will allow a give or take that on certain unfortunate nights a performance had to be canceled because of an unscheduled--and unkind—deluge. But summer nights then seemed to roll by, show after show, year after year, star filled, moonlit and exciting, devoid of a single obscuring or rain filled cloud. What a magic brush is memory, it can paint in, or paint over, many a could have happened, or unnecessary piece of the past.
   The collage of TUTS programs above gives a colorful illustration of 12 of the 30 shows I was in during my years with TUTS. Shows that were my training ground, and gave me the necessary confidence to tackle London’s West End, which, outside of new York, was the only place to go if the theater was to be my career. The hard work that was demanded from each of us in the Winnipeg Ballet, and TUTS was the reason, no question about it, that gained me access to almost eight uninterrupted years of  employment in theater, TV, and film while I was in England.
     Oh, yes, in case you’re wondering, centered in the surrounding programs are a few of the dancers, waiting to be called on stage during a run through rehearsal. There were many such moments while the stage sets where being placed, and props and such were being organized. I could find a few such photos taken during the evening dress rehearsals as well, which were begun as soon as the earlier show finished its last performance. That was when the lighting of the show was finalized and the costumes paraded and discussed, and last minute glitches fixed.We would arrive late, often very late, at  our various places of rest after those final (before opening night the next evening) rehearsals.
     I've written of the year I joined the Royal Winnipeg Ballet, September 1950, a couple of years before the Queen bestowed the gift of "Royal" to be added to it’s name, and in the process created acute consternation among hopeful British Ballet companies. They were in tutto, each and every one, mortified that a young, upstart Ballet company, in the middle of the boondocks, should receive that much longed for, and expected, appellation when old, established, and terribly English companies, were more deserving. Now it was lost to them forever. Much weeping and wringing of hands among the world of the English dance elite welcomed in the winter months of that year. There was another Canadian company that felt as the British, but they, like their English cousins had no recourse other than maintain a brave countenance, and curse fate in dark,  resin scented rooms.
      The 50s arrived and my career begins to extend my life away from home and family to other cities, and eventually countries. The days became months, months turned into years, and those overflowing years slid silently into decades. My home town family, those childhood places and familiar faces were seemed destined to become faded memories, yet my longing to be among them again, before I lost them forever, never left me; then, by a move decided for me by fate, and an honest mistake, I and my new family walked through

Image via Wikipedia

the Vancouver International Airport arrivals doors, on June 2, 1976,  to stand at the threshold of another life for them, and a nostalgic homecoming for me.