Becca has known for years how her mother and I met on stage while involved in theatre at college. Now that she is attending the same university and gracing the same boards in the same theatre that we did three decades ago, she is curious about specifics, to compare and contrast, perhaps.

So…

How I Met Your Mother
(or Mid-80’s Life and Love in the Bradley University Theatre)

 

We met on stage. We fell in love. We lived happily ever after.

That’s the abridged version. Obviously, there was much more.

When we were freshmen at Bradley, I noticed your Mother fairly soon on campus. As you know, the campus isn’t that big. And she’s cute. I was a dorky dorm boy who hung out with other dorky dorm boys. I remember noticing her right away, I’m certain it took her longer to notice me. Much longer.

One of the first vivid memories I have of your Mother was of her playing Frisbee in the quad in front of Williams Hall. It was like watching a montage scene from a romantic comedy, complete with jamming rock tunes blaring from a nearby boom box (that’s what we called iPods back in the day). There was your Mother, cute freshman, rockin’ big, permed 80’s hair, short-shorts and perfectly tanned legs. She was flinging the classic plastic disc with these shirtless, long-haired guys apparently at school on a modeling scholarship. I never played Frisbee. I always kept my shirt on. These guys looked like: what else would they be doing? The scene played out in slow motion. Wind in their hair, sun on their bare chests, pretty girls laughing. I wasn’t just intimidated, I was way out of my league.

Later in the year, ACBU hosted a talent contest for the young ladies on campus. Sort of a “Miss Bradley U.” Your Mother was a contestant. She wore pretty dresses and during the talent competition did a musical number in a sailor’s suit, ”Gonna Wash That Man Right Outta My Hair,” I think. She was good. And cute. I attended the event with my dorky dorm boy gang. It was free food and entertainment on a Friday night.

Your Mother was a theatre major, so she was involved in several shows our freshman year, including a great character role, Ms. Prism, in “The Importance of Being Earnest.” Uncle Dave had one of the leads and was dating your Mother’s roommate.

I was a computer science major, but took acting classes. I got to know the directors and they encouraged me to audition for main stage shows. We did six shows per year back then. I was cast in the fall play, “The Rainmaker.” It was a small cast, mostly speech team guys, so I didn’t get to know the theatre people.

Your Mother was cast in the ensemble of the children’s show that year, “Androcles and the Lion.” Your Mother’s roommate was Androcles and Uncle Dave was the Lion. I had to see the show and write a review as part of my theatre class assignment. I wrote that I loved Uncle Dave’s portrayal, but found the musical interlude involving a ballet of peacocks a waste of time. Your Mother was one of the dancing birds.

Our sophomore year, your Mother was in “The Music Man,” Greg Lhamon as the lead. Uncle Dave was the mayor and your Mother was his daughter. I didn’t audition because of the need to be early back to school in August. Grandpa wanted me home working, making money. That would have been a fun show to be in, the ensemble was huge.

For the fall play, “Tobacco Road,” the set designer dumped three tons of dirt on stage to create a depression era farm. Your Mother played a girl who rolled in that dirt and ate a raw turnip like she loved it. Acting!

 We were both cast in the children’s show in December. It was a modern take on Aesop’s fables. Your Mother was the City Mouse. Uncle Dave was the hare bested by the tortoise. I was a mute clown, an ensemble utility player. It was a big cast, and I just hung out with the other clowns…mostly speech team guys again. Your Mother hung out with the theatre people…they were busy founding Alpha Psi Omega.

In the spring, we auditioned for “Romeo and Juliet.” At the time, your Mother was dating a talented actor named Steve. They auditioned together and were amazing. Memorized. Full of feeling. Brought Shakespeare to life in the audition! But the director went in a different…direction. Steve was cast as Benvolio, your Mother’s roommate got Juliet, and your Mother got “ensemble.” Alas, casting life in the theatre: sometimes comedy, sometimes tragedy.

I was cast as Mercutio, so Steve and I became friends, on stage and off. I officially met your Mother backstage during that show, but we didn’t interact much. Mostly because I was still intimidated by her. I had gotten to know Sheryl, one of your Mother’s good friends. She was stage manager for R & J and had been part of the clown cadre in the recent children’s show. Since my character was dead for the second half of the show, I hung out out backstage with Sheryl while she called the show.

The fall musical of our junior year was “A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum.” I auditioned and got the lead! I had to explain to Grandpa that it was worth going back early for, even if it meant leaving three weeks of summer job pay on the table. He didn’t agree, thought it was a waste of time, but let me go.

I was still living in the dorms, and they didn’t open early, so I needed a place to stay for the three summer weeks. Sheryl, Dave, your Mother and some other theatre folks had rented a house on Main Street. Sheryl had told me after the cast list went up in May that I could stay on their couch. In August, when Grandma and Grandpa asked if I had a place to stay, I said yes, without providing much other detail. I barely knew Sheryl and didn’t know any of the others well and didn’t know if they were okay with me sleeping on their couch for three weeks.

This was the mid-1980’s; pre-cellphones, pre-email. I just jumped in my car in August and hoped I’d have a place to stay. I walked into the theatre and stood in the house, looking at the empty stage. People were filing in and hugging and hello-ing like theatre folk do. Catching up on one another’s summer activities and adventures. I thought how much I wanted to be part of their world, part of their inner circle. I felt alone and distant…how ironic, I thought, that I was the lead in the show, yet barely an ensemble player in real life.

Then suddenly, your Mother, who had just been hugging and swung around by Greg Lhamon on stage, saw me and came running out to greet me. She gave me a big hug and said “I understand you’re staying with us!”

She was so excited and welcoming. My fear of living out of my car and status as an outsider both melted in her embrace. By the end of that week, I had bonded with people who would be my friends for the next thirty years.

The others in the house didn’t mind me crashing on the couch either. Most of them were involved in the show too, and since it was close to campus, the house became the venue for many post-rehearsal, um, gatherings and was dubbed “the theatre house.”

The set for Forum consisted of three houses, each two levels. The musical was very energetic with actors running in and out of the houses, on and off stage, even leaping from balcony to balcony. But there was no way to get backstage from inside the center house. If you went in there, you had to wait, quietly for your next entrance.

Your Mother, who was the romantic lead, and I were stranded in the center house for a scene and a song. No big deal in rehearsal, but during the run, there we were. For five minutes every show. We had to be quiet. There was no place to sit. So we danced. While the song was sung, I looked into her big blue eyes and we danced.

It was lovely.

We sorta dated on and off that year, more off than on. I was in all six main stage productions, and she was involved with most of them. The children’s show that December was about three Polish kids with a szopka (puppet theater)! Your Mother was a shoe-in as one of the kids. I played a blustery watchman with shoes that were too small and a fake moustache that was too big.

I changed my major to communications and we found ourselves in a lot of the same classes. We spent a lot of time together just as friends, hanging out, studying, dating other people, but nothing too serious.

Dave had graduated, but had a job on campus. Even after I moved off his couch, we spent many nights over that following year watching HBO and sharing a bottle. So I was still at the theatre house a lot, and often “fell asleep” on my couch. It was there, with your Mother and a few other Alpha Psi members that we came up with the Mock Anthony Awards, to celebrate the memories of the past year on stage, salute the graduating seniors, and provide a reason for everyone to gather one more time on the stage. We got all dressed up, ate Happy Meals, and presented one another penguin shaped, Styrofoam mock-awards. The presentation podium was in the center of the audience, so you had to step off stage, into the audience to accept your recognition.

The next year, Sheryl and some of the other people graduated and they and Dave moved out of the theatre house. Your Mother and the others who remained asked if I would move in. They liked having a boy around to do boy things, like kill spiders and trap mice. We were all just friends. And the idea of living with a bunch of girls was a college boy’s fantasy. So I moved in.

I did not take into account that I would be sharing one bathroom with all these women. The fantasy soured quickly.

Your Mother and Sheryl had gone in on food together, as it’s cheaper and more fun to buy and cook for two. So your Mother asked if I wanted to do that too. I did. What I found was that neither your Mother nor Sheryl could cook and both had horrible diet plans! I changed all that. I got your Mother eating good food and balanced meals.

We were both in the fall musical our senior year, but seeing other people. Living together and watching each other date other, lesser people became a challenge for us both. We were like living out a real life, sexual tension ridden rom-com like “Friends” or “New Girl.” We would both get jealous, but not want to admit it.

The October play was “The Passion of Dracula.” Your Mother was, again, the romantic lead. I was Prof. Van Helsing, Dracula’s nemesis. I played an old man, the uncle to your Mother’s character. At some point during the run of that show, we realized that we were stupid for dating other people. We were best friends, why not admit that we liked each other! But we didn’t want any of our friends to know that we finally figured out what everyone already knew. Again, living out a real life rom-com.

At one of the performances, a former girlfriend of mine from high school showed up. She met me after the show. I was surprised to see her. She said, “So, you’re dating that girl in the show” (meaning your Mother).  I asked how she knew. She said, “I could tell by the way you looked into her eyes on stage, and how she looked back. I know that look.”

Apparently, we weren’t fooling anyone.

That was the last show we were in together at Bradley. We each did one more main stage show. Your Mother’s final bow was as Alice in Wonderland. Mine was in “Two by Two” as Ham. Seemed fitting. I directed your Mother as the “Felix” character in a black box production of a female version of “The Odd Couple,” the same part you played in high school forensics.

What I’m not going into are the fights. What couple doesn’t fight? We had some masterful moments, also rom-com worthy. Often in the theatre. Often in front of others. One of our directors said even at their worst moments, he’d never fought with his ex-wife with the ferocity that we fought. We are both dramatic, after all.

But in the end, happiness. Togetherness. The true friendship was born, tested, and blossomed on stage, there in the Hartmann Center.

And we have lived happily ever after.