In the production of life, we all have a role to play

The biggest difference between having a role in a stage play and being a player for an athletic team is pretty obvious.

In the former, you know how it all ends.

In the latter, you don’t.

Both take practice, wearing a costume and performing in public, but that’s about the end of the list of similarities, unless you count the nervousness quotient that, if left unchecked, can be crippling.

And so it came to pass in the spring of my 15th year, after a summer playing for a juggernaut that lost only twice on its way to the city Pony League title, I found myself cast as Mr. Witherspoon in the ninth grade production of “Arsenic and Old Lace.”

In between those milestone bookends, however, there was the chapter of being the last guy cut from the freshman basketball team, something that scarred me for a bit, not being used to abject failure.

It’s true what they say, though. There’s always a next bus coming.

In my case it came in the form of an unexpected invitation offered by my English teacher, a saintly woman who, knowing I was new to the public school system after eight years spent in the Catholic cocoon, sensed I possessed more ability than bravado.

So when I met with the faculty adviser/play director during my “audition” for “Arsenic and Old Lace,” it was as if she knew:

A.) I’d memorized the Mass in Latin — 45 responses.

B.) I could recite "The Gettysburg Address" — 271 words.

C.) I’d committed “Casey at the Bat” (42 lines) to memory.

Mr. Witherspoon had just 25 lines — the smallest role in the play.

Still, I felt pretty good about being cast in a production that included way more talented performers, not to mention a stage crew that handled lighting, props, wardrobe and makeup. The latter was my favorite aspect because it involved the liberal application of baby powder to my hair in a convincing attempt to “age” me.

My character appeared only in the final scene of the third act, which meant I spent most of the after-school rehearsals either doing homework while seated in the auditorium or exploring the catwalks that crisscrossed the upper reaches of the rafters.

What I remember most vividly is the excellence of the main characters, the way they’d listen to instruction, the skill with which they handled new direction and the way they meshed so well as an ensemble. They possessed a dedication to their craft I envied.

I was mostly along for the ride, growing more confident through a gradual process of daily osmosis, adding and discarding bits and pieces of collective intuition as opening night drew ever nearer.

Ninth grade was perhaps the most pivotal year in my entire educational career, opening new doors even as it reminded me I had a whole lot more to learn about the social skills involved in matriculating into an entirely alien bloodstream, one with unwritten rules even more convoluted than the student handbook.

There were up-and-down staircases, homerooms and locker mates, and intense phys-ed classes that involved pull-ups and rope climbing. You could dress pretty much any way you wanted, kids smoked in the restrooms and bomb-scare evacuations weren’t that uncommon.

Grades were handed out every six weeks. There were pep rallies and dances. The library was a great escape from study hall. And the cafeteria ladies offered up pizza that some called “rhinoceros scabs.”

You made friends cautiously. You noticed how short a miniskirt could actually be. You started using deodorant and began to shave.

Most of all, you appreciated the vast difference between the relatively small enrollment of parochial school and the immensity of those roaming the halls at the junior high, where seventh-, eighth- and ninth-graders teemed in what felt like thousands.

Last summer my graduating class held a communal “Turning 70” birthday party, and at one point, I got into a conversation with someone I hadn’t seen since junior high. One thing led to another, and I couldn’t resist asking a question I’d often pondered.

“What did you guys think,” I inquired, “about us Catholic kids?”

She didn’t hesitate, responding, “That you were all so smart.”

I could have hugged her. Instead, I gave her a grateful thank you.

Opening night for “Arsenic and Old Lace” was held on a Friday, with two performances Saturday before the show closed on Sunday.

Waiting in the wings for my third-act appearance, I thought not about failing to remember a line but about how far I’d come in the last year. Twelve months earlier I’d graduated with an eighth grade diploma, a fully vested altar boy and vice president of the Saint Dominic Savio Club, an erstwhile Catholic student council.

As Mr. Witherspoon, I’d been accepted into a world I didn’t even know existed, a place and a time I remember ever so fondly.

True, I’d been cut from the basketball team, but that Friday I realized the stage where I’d soon be performing was the same floor where I’d come up short, but this time, I’d be almost a star.

Mike Dewey can be reached at Carolinamiked@aol.com or 1317 Troy Road, Ashland, OH 44805. He invites you to join him on his Facebook page for the roar of the greasepaint, the smell of the crowd.