Drama

Remember how it felt when you were in the first grade, and you were chosen to have a major part in a class performance? Or, perhaps like me, you remember how it felt not to be chosen.

In grade school and high school I did well in English, sports and music. After my sophomore year I won the lead part in several high school plays. The senior prom art students secretly painted portraits of a few graduating students who had been chosen by their teachers for this honor. I was very much surprised to see my own face on the wall representing the Anaheim Union High School drama department for nineteen forty six and seven.

I had poor grades in high school, so I had no intention of going on to higher education. My drama teacher helped me enter college in order to learn about becoming an actor. She arranged for me to attend her alma mater in Dillon, Montana. I did not become a professional actor. I decided I would not be able to tolerate the struggle. But, I learned to study and spent seven years getting educated in college. Now I am grateful to my high school drama teacher, Miss Phelps, for encouraging me when I expected to be a dropout.

After serving three years in the Navy during the Korean War, I returned to my studies and became a registered nurse, married Barbara Cohn, and later became a registered physical therapist. In 1961 I joined the Society for the Preservation and Encouragement of Barber Shop Quartet Singing in America. I learned to harmonize and performed with many choruses and quartets in most major cities of California.

In 1975 I organized a popular quartet called The Raisin' Caine who performed The Music Man with professional musicians and lead actors from San Diego. The show was a success, and the critics called the quartet worth the price of admission. The show ran about two weeks. That was long enough for me to decide I had made a good decision not to be a full time actor. I love to perform but hate sitting back stage waiting for my turn.

In 1983, I auditioned for and was chosen to play a lead role in a musical to be performed in a small town near San Diego. The play Best Little Whorehouse In Texas had been successful on Broadway. The movie was out, but I hadn't seen it. The movie stars included Burt Reynolds, Dolly Parton, Dom DeLuise, and the Oscar winner for that movie, Charles Durning. The Best Little Whorehouse in Texas was too long for our local needs. We shortened the play to a bare minimum. We performed the big production numbers, and we tied the story together using a narrator. We called our version of the play, A Night At Miss Mona's. Anyway, I was pleased to be given the part of Melvin P. Thorpe, played in the movie by Dom Deluise. I made a point of not seeing the movie, so I could develop my part and make it original.

I was featured with the orchestra and chorus backing me up on the song Texas Has A Whorehouse In It. The words and music by Carol Hall include, "I'll expose the facts although it fills me with disgust. Please excuse the filthy dark details, [pause] and carnal lust." And I love the words sung in fast rhythm with the music, "Mean-eyed, juiced up, brilliantined, honkytonk cowboys, mixin' with green eyed, thin-lipped, hard as nails peroxide blondes."

While learning my part, I asked my wife and children to help me develop the muck raking television show host character I was to portray. I tried acting like a pious stick in the mud preacher, and they didn't like it. I practiced doing the part like a sissy, and they scolded me. Finally I settled on acting mean and serious, loud and boisterous. I did silly dance steps and made faces to get the audience to laugh. It must have worked because six months after we did the play, I went into an Oceanside store to buy a radio while the owner was selling out front. He called to his manager who was in the back of the large store, "Come on up here, Mike and see who's here. It's the actor we saw in the play." Looking at me he said, "We've been laughing about your funny performance ever since we saw that play you were in."