It is now the rainy season in Costa Rica and I am learning that the Ticos have lots of different names for rain. My favorite is pelo de gato (Spanish for “cat’s hair”) and it is a very fine misty rain. The first time I heard the phrase was one afternoon when a Tico friend/helper was here and asked me if I could see the very fine rain that was coming down. I couldn’t at first, but I could feel the gentle mist on my arms. He playfully began “dancing” in the rain. Smiling, I enjoyed the moment and then I began to remember a “rain dance” that I had been a part of years ago.
In 1959, Pittsburgh was celebrating the bicentennial of its incorporation. Among the different activities planned was a musical play, which would run for about 10 weeks during the summer, telling Pittsburgh’s history. In February I saw an audition notice for dancers and went. Much to my surprise I was called back for a second round of auditions and was selected to be one of the twelve dancers (6 women and 6 men). Rehearsals began June 1 and since I was just sixteen and would be missing most of the last 3 weeks of school, I needed a work permit and permission from the Pittsburgh Board of Education. My parents were supportive, so it was no problem to get the permit and permission. Since I was a fairly good student, teachers were flexible and I managed to attend enough classes to finish the semester. In my scrapbook are the letter and contract I had to sign. They asked for my Social Security number and I filled in that I was applying for it!! I received $30 each week for the 3 rehearsal weeks and $60 each week for the 10 weeks of performances.
The choreographer was Bill Hooks. I remember three major dance sections. The first was a dance representing Native Americans, and this was the dance we began to nickname our “rain dance.” The pageant-like performance was done in a large amphitheater built for the summer at the confluence of the Allegheny and Monongahela Rivers. Known as The Point, it is the beginning of the Ohio River. The city had erected 3 floating stages on barges, with our dressing rooms underneath.
After the performance the 2500-seat amphitheater was taken apart, and now there is a beautiful fountain in its place. Since “The Golden Crucible” was running all summer long, there simply wasn’t enough interest to fill those 2500 seats regularly. Often we were performing for several hundred people with just the first few rows filled. If it drizzled the performance continued but if there was a good solid rain the show would be cancelled at whatever point we were at. So as the summer wore on, we would jokingly call this opening dance the “rain dance,” hoping it would be an early evening.
I think the low audience turnout and the fact we thought of this opening dance as a rain dance gives you an idea that the quality of “The Golden Crucible” left something to be desired. For me it was a great experience with a few sour moments and I am glad I was a part of a cast of 70. While there were several young children in the show, I was the youngest actual cast member and found myself socially very young compared with the other dancers who were in their 20’s. While there were a few college-aged members of the cast and crew, most of the chorus and actors were adults with many theatre credits to their name. Several actors were also recruited from New York. Everyone played multiple roles in the piece.
Following our Native American opening dance, our next big scene was a Polish polka. I don’t remember the context of the dance – it might have been a wedding scene – but it was to honor the large Polish population of Pittsburgh. Our final dance was in a party scene and had a kind of Charleston feel. It required partnering, something I had never done. I was glad that my partner was Walter Raines, a very kind and caring person who went on to become an important part of Dance Theatre of Harlem. Not only was Walter a charter member of Dance Theatre of Harlem, he went on to be the director of their school. A native of Pittsburgh, he was most likely a student of Carnegie-Mellon University during the time of “The Golden Crucible.” I felt safe and comfortable with Walter, something I didn’t feel with many of the other dancers and chorus members.
What a fun headdress I had to wear.
Often, as we made our way to the dressing room in the lower level of the barge, we had to walk across a backstage crossing, where chorus members and actors hung out. We women dancers were targets for not-so-nice remarks and pinches and “wandering hands.” Some of the other dancers thought this was fun and flirted. I didn’t like it and just wanted to get to the dressing room as quickly as I could. That summer was my first taste of dancers being thought of as “easy women.” A publicity shot in the newspaper (showing the dancers hanging onto a train) printed our names, and then I had rather obnoxious phone calls at our house. Some of the comments that were made to me on the phone were sexual references I didn’t understand and my mother had to explain what they meant and how inappropriate they were for a 16-year-old. Calls soon were screened for me, which I appreciated.
Another memory I have from that summer is of a high school friend coming to see the performance on his day off from his job as a summer counselor at a nearby sleepaway camp. He was so sweet and expressed how fond he was of me and how he loved seeing me dance. Then he wanted me to take his high school ring and be his girlfriend. I think I was totally surprised and shocked and hopefully told him in as nice a way as I could that while I liked him I was not ready to be anyone’s girlfriend. I am not sure he understood, and he had a hard time looking at me after that.
I also got cast as an understudy to one of the actresses, which meant I had to do a short love scene with a mature actor. I learned how to do a theatre kiss where we really didn’t kiss. We would rehearse understudy scenes one night a week. I never got to perform it but it was another experience to add to the summer of seeing dance and theatre in a new professional light. This wasn’t exactly summer stock but it did give me the experience of performing six nights a week and working with seasoned professionals. I liked it and continued to feel very devoted to developing my dance career. And what a surprise to have these memories come flooding back to me after acknowledging a gentle rain, “pelo de gato,” here in Costa Rica.
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