The beginning of the ride

In the spring of 1999, I played a young boy in Tennessee Williams’s Confessional (I think the character’s name was actually YOUNG BOY, or maybe just BOY) who was on the last legs of a bike ride from Iowa to Mexico. I wore ridiculously short shorts and a T-shirt that said, in big block letters on a brown background, IOWA TO MEXICO. I had a short scene late in the play where I got picked up by a young man (YOUNG MAN, as I recall) played by Steven Fedoruk.

That was the beginning of the 1999 Tennessee Williams season, and it was really the beginning (or maybe re-beginning) of Eclipse Theatre Company; seven members of that cast became ensemble members that year – myself included – and we dove into Williams with a passion that would set the tone for the next nine years.

It seems natural to start this ride the same way that one began – by exploring a little-known, rarely-seen play by one of the best and most prolific writers in American history.

We’re just over two weeks away from the first rehearsal for Candles to the Sun (directed by YOUNG MAN Steven Fedoruk), which hasn’t been produced professionally since its 1937 debut in St. Louis. The design team has been bouncing around ideas for a few months now, the cast is ready to run, and we’ll have a lot to share as we go along.