I was a cast member in the 2000 season of Summer Circle Theatre. I was cast in an original one-act play entitled By Association. In the play, two couples go on vacation together as they have every year since they met. My character is having a love affair with the other wife in the group of friends. What the audience soon finds out is that my wife is also having a love affair with the other husband. As the play unfolds, we all discover our hidden secrets and……well…. all’s well that ends well.

Shaun Meoak (left) and Mike McKeough Winterset by Maxwell Anderson Summer 2000

This show went up the opening weekend of the Summer Circle Theatre seasonand, needless to say, it was hot. At one point in the show, I seduce my lover with a piece of celery that we had brought with us as groceries. She sits at the kitchen table and to ease a tense moment we were having, I slowly run the celery down her cheek and around her neck and then finally I take a large bite of it.

This was usually a very humorous moment and the audience applauded with laughter everynight. However, one evening, the props person had stored the celery in the freezer in the auditorium over night.

The weather the next evening was very hot. As the scene came where I would do the celery bit, I prepared for the gag. The moment had come and I reached into the grocery bag and pulled out a limp piece of celery that had since melted away due to being frozen and then put into the hot weather. I now had a brown piece of vegetable that was nothing less than a wet spaghetti noodle. I also had a problem. There was no way for me to run this celery down her cheek as it would not even stand on end…..so I did the only thing I could think of…..I hit her across the face with it. (Seductively, however….if that is possible). Needless to say, this came as a surprise to her as well.

Not wanting to be outdone, she quickly grabbed up the celery stick and, instead of my taking a bite of it, she pushed the whole thing into my mouth. Now we had an actress on stage with water dripping from her face where the celery had hit her, and me, not able to say my next line because I had a whole limp celery stick jammed into my mouth.

The audience was nearly rolling down the lawn with laughter, but, the show must go on. That it did, but for the rest of the performance neither the other actor nor I could look each other in the eye without a little smirk.

One of the great strengths of SCT is its ability to reinvent itself. From the early days in Demo Hall to Kresge Courtyard to the riverbank, it has always adapted to its surroundings and chose work that entailed risks. From Welcome to the Monkey House, to Fortinbras,
to the production of A Midsummer Night’s Dream that moved from the courtyard

Andrea Rutledge

to the river bank and back again, to Winterset, SCT has tried new ideas and interesting texts. As we enter our 43rd year together, I look forward to facing more challenges and exploring new opportunities.

Theatre today must be more than fanciful sets and catchy lyrics. It must challenge the community to think deeply in The New York Times on June 4, 2000, Ben Brantley wrote, "Imagining yourself into another existence and then giving physical life to those imaginings, is at the primal heart of drama……and it is a large part of what keeps us hooked on live theater….Theater, taking place in the flesh of real time, is the most public and the least lonely of the narrative arts." SCT is an important element in the fabric of our community; it gives each of us, who otherwise might not have one, the opportunity to give physical life to our imaginings. And as Summer Circle approaches its maturity, it continues to be vital, creative, artful and full of potential.