Saturday, February 29, 2020, was the last time Stage Coach Players opened its doors to the public for a live show. The production, a trio of radio comedies, was struck after its single performance and the actors, techies, and audience left that evening not realizing that over a year later, Stage Coach Players would still have not produced another play.
Most of the membership think of Stage Coach Players collectively as extended family or group of close friends or Stage Coach Players’ theatre as a gathering place to play – literally – with those friends and extended family. During the yearlong pandemic, we have had to put many gatherings on hold, especially larger gatherings. We haven’t had the same opportunities to gather or talk with those we’ve known for years.
So we wonder, what has everyone been doing to fill the hours we’d normally be spending at the theatre or working on what is now a year’s worth of shows. We’ll spend several weeks catching up with some of our fellow Stage Coach Players. Learn a little bit of what they’ve been up to over the past year.
This week we’ll start with Andee Larson. Larson has been active with Stage Coach Players for more than 45 years and, like many of us, has worked both on and off stage and as part of the organization’s governing body, serving as president along with chairing many committees. She’s spent thousands of hours at the theatre over the years, and she is one of the many Stage Coach Players struck with disappointment at the loss of more than a year without live theatre at Stage Coach Players.
Larson’s last Stage Coach Players production was for the black box production of Visiting Mr. Green in February of 2020. She ran the light board, a task she has performed for many Stage Coach Players productions. Regarding the play, she offered, “one of my favorite moments was watching Bob Cain and Michael Mattingly absolutely crush their roles (in the comedy).”
But Larson was still helping as the pandemic forced the end of the 2020 season. In the weeks before Stage Coach Players finally postponed all of their plays last year, she was one of the many hands helping get costumes ready for the scheduled Spring musical, Big Fish. She helped by doing nearly everything from cutting to ironing costume pieces to helping organize, she said. “Everything but the actual sewing…”
According to Larson, she has spent her time away from her theatre family reading, knitting, repotting plants and spending time with Tango and Kit, her cat and dog respectively, along with her brother Bill. Like many in the group, Larson has spent some Saturday mornings during the pandemic helping at the theatre by sorting costume pieces, reorganizing jewelry, and deconstructing items to salvage the fabric, hooks, and zippers. She has also helped model costumes. “I try on costumes so the costume mavens can tell what an item looks like on a person instead of a hanger.” One of the things she says she looks forward to most when the theatre is able to reopen is hugs. For now, it’s mostly virtual hugs from her Stage Coach Players family. Hugs we all happily send her way.
