Jackson Hole, Wyoming

My first, and last, summer stock experience was in Jackson Hole Wyoming at the Pink Garter Theater. It was a really bad version of a really bad production of Wildcat which evidently bombed on Broadway. Anyway it was a shortened version followed by a musical review for the second act. I played the part of Hank the 2nd lead of the show, the side kick to a sort of John Wayne character, a Mexican. I had to wear a wig and put body makeup on every night. And this show played every night for 4 months straight. Needless to say, it was not fun. The show was bad, I was bad. The audience was predominately seniors they bussed in each night. Most of the cast got along fairly well, but the lead actor Steven from LA was a piece of work! Complete with a diamond embedded his front tooth. I guess it was so when he smiled it would sparkle. Every night his character would slap my character and we would rehearse over and over again a stage slap but he would purposely hit me for real to aggravate me. Finally having had it, I told him if he did this one more time I would slap him back. That night he seemed to put even extra force into his slap. Hank, in the show, would normally just raise his hand as if he was going to retaliate. So lucky for me, Steven was absolutely blindsided when I turned back around and walloped him one. Hank then makes an exit. Steven stumbled around on stage for what seemed like 5 minutes that evening. And boy did that feel good. Suddenly Steven knew how to deliver a "real" stage slap for the rest of the run. 

On another occasion the bouncer from the Million Dollar Cowboy Bar across the street came to the show with a buddy and their girlfriends totally smashed. They sat in the front row in the center of the audience and heckled us all through the the first half of the show. During intermission I told everyone that I would take care of him and sing Beauty School Dropout right in his face. I don't know why I thought that would shut him up. When I first approached him he proceeded to try to trip me and take my microphone away from me, so I just gave him a little pop on his head which he played along with. But then, having just noticed that he passed a full bottle of wine to his girlfriend I quickly swiped it out of her hands and on the last high note of the song I proceeded to pour the bottle of wine over his head. Not surprisingly he started to climb up onto the lip of the stage where I was standing but lucky for me several other audience members were able to grab and hold him off as I made a quick exit. Unfortunately, he did manage to throw a glass at me which hit me right between my shoulder blades and it really hurt. But it was worth it. He was a real creep and I and the cast and even most of the audience was happy to see him drenched head to toe. The rest of the summer I had to put on a disguise so that he wouldn't recognize me. I wore black hard rimmed nerd glasses and was constantly on the look out for him all day and of course after the show, but he never did show up. Perhaps he didn't even remember the incident, but I sure do.