Cutting The Ribbon

There was a low-key ribbon-cutting ceremony today (Cut A Yellow Ribbon For D-M-T-C), featuring several representatives of the Davis Chamber of Commerce, and also The Davis Enterprise (including editor Debbie Davis, reporter Beth Curda, and reviewer Bev Sykes). The big scissors were a treat, and we wanted to keep them as a prop, but we all remembered what our mothers told us about running with scissors.

Is it a 30's-era microphone with a fancy grill, or is it the 'Millenium Falcon' from Star Wars sporting a parasail? No! It's a light fixture on the warm-colored walls (saffron in this picture) of the Hoblit Performing Arts Center.

Prior to rehearsal, "Into the Wood's" 'Milky White' was in the backstage women's restroom. That reminded me of an event in my childhood.

One hot late-summer's afternoon when I was a kid (about 1963), my mother left the French Doors to the living room wide open, in order to get some circulation. At the time, Corrales, NM was quickly morphing from a rural community with real farmers and actual animals, into a pretentious, expensive suburb where everyone felt they had to raise horses on postage-stamp pieces of land just in order to keep up appearances. Still, real animals sometimes escaped from their pens and pastures, and this particular summer day, I entered the living room to find a bull standing quietly there.

The kids on the school bus had said that if you made faces at a bull, it would charge, so I made faces at it, but nothing happened: the animal was not provoked. I eventually tired of the game and alerted my mother to the presence of the bull, and she chased it out of the house with a broom. My mother blamed the summer heat for making the bull want to escape the sun, if only for awhile.

'Milky White' in the restroom reminded me of that long-ago day, but instead of a real, overheated 20th-Century bull, she is a cool, sleek 21st-Century styrofoam bovine. I made faces at her, but same as 42 years ago, nothing happened.

Jason Hammond found a key to the Giant's Castle. Jason asked, "now, where is that hen?"

The Stepsisters (Stacia Truesdale and Dannette Bell-Vassar) are presented with the glass slipper, as the Stepmother (Monique McKisson) tries to help out. Jason Hammond looks on, and Cinderella's Prince (Bob Olson) waits.











People are coming out to help and convey support: Rich Kulmann, Michael Elfant, Andee Thorpe, two-and-a-half-month-old Brian Richard Sullivan, etc.

Young YPT veteran Rachel Pinto was running light board tonight. She said she hadn't entered the theater at all until two days ago, but already, she looked completely in charge up there in the light booth. Like everyone else, she's just amazed at the place.