Past Forward: My Life On Stage

I used to attend a memoir writing group called "Past Forward" sponsored by our County Arts Council.  It was fun to write and share with the group.  Some of the other members of the group would write about their lives during WWII and before.  I enjoyed listening to their stories.  For the past year or so I've had a conflict which keeps me from attending the monthly meetings, but I ran into Janet, the director of Past Forward, at the post office several weeks ago.  She informed me that the little theater group here in town had scheduled 3 weekend shows of "Past-Forward:  Memoirs of Local Residents, a staged reading."  She asked if I wanted to participate so I told her she was welcome to choose one of my pieces to submit if she'd like.  The local paper wrote up a story about the event and there were even a couple of people in town who stopped me and told me they thought it was exciting that I was a part of this.  I had to submit a short "bio" and a photo of me.  I was feeling like quite the celebrity!  Okay, not really, but I was curious.

I attended the opening last night.  The theater is small, only a few rows of seating, but they filled it up.  The pieces were diverse, from war stories to pet stories to life in general.  The piece Janet selected for me was "Cars," written a couple of years ago about the cars I drove - or, in the case of the car pictured above, wouldn't drive - growing up.  Phyllis was the reader of my piece.  She has a dynamic voice, sort of a cross between a Chicago and New York accent.  It went over well, even got a few laughs.  I'm glad I had a small part in it.  It's probably the closest I'll ever get to seeing my life on stage.