The Fall of the West Tower

news in the dark

Intermission was just moments away. The townsfolk and the soldiers, the settlers and tradesmen, were all gathered around to shout in grand unison their unwavering support for Pedro and his city, St. Augustine.

Pedro’s last line in the first act of Cross and Sword is an oath before God that he will do what he has set out to do. He commits all of himself to the cause and by his cry challenges the rest of the settlement to join in support, and join in we do. With a thrust in the air of his sword, he shouts in a booming voice “We swear!” As if an immediate echo, but larger and with certain affirmation, all the people answer with a “We swear!”

The house goes dark, we all scurry off stage, and announcements are made over the house audio about the snack bar, the gift shop, the opportunities for group discounts and that the show will resume in fifteen minutes.

Those were the usual announcements. Tonight there was another. The announcer made a very solemn statement that at nine o’clock that evening, in an address televised to the nation, President Nixon announced his resignation effective the next day. Then he reminded everyone that the gift shop would be open after the show as well.

It was a Thursday night, slow because it was not the weekend, but okay because the summer had been good. There were probably 1,000 people in the house when the announcement was made, and no one cheered, groaned, applauded, shouted “oh no” or did anything. None of the cast, slipping around in the shadows, behind the sight lines, said any more than usual. It was hot and still. The Florida coastal jungle was silent and motionless for a moment.

What there may have been was a sigh, a great big collective sigh, an exhale so slow and so resigned that it slipped past lips without a sound, it escaped each person without notice. When the house lights came up some people stood up to stretch, others moved towards the aisles, speaking only in low, muted tones.

And in a few short minutes, the show continued for the forty-second performance that summer.

Extras should avoid notes

Rehearsals ran for two weeks, nearly 12 hours a day. As the opening night approached the details of the production filled out. After the blocking was in place, the music was added, the props appeared, and then with the cast in full costume and makeup there was a complete run-through.

After each rehearsal, the cast would sit in the house seats while the director, the choreographer, and the choral director would give notes...points on where to improve, corrections, some scolding, some encouragement...notes. As the rehearsals progressed, the notes became more specific, refinements on nuances, and there would also be notes from the stage manager, the property master, the technical director, and the costumer.

I don't remember ever having notes directed at me. As an extra, I was more of a prop: important, really essential, but not requiring a lot of direction as long as I was in the right place at the right time acting the right way.

The night before opening night, there was the full dress rehearsal just as if all 2,022 seats in the house were filled. But they weren’t; there were probably 20 people in the audience which included all the various directors, but there were also two people who had not seen any of the rehearsals, but to whom the cast played every line and movement.


One was the playwright, Paul Green. Father of the Outdoor Drama, he had built a huge reputation over the previous three decades as the creator of symphonic drama...a combination of choral pieces, dance numbers and dramatic action all with a very specific purpose: the depiction of a significant historical event performed on the site of the historical event. Most often the audience were tourists. Green had won a Pulitzer in 1927 for his Broadway play In Abraham’s Bosom. He had written the screenplay for the 1933 version of State Fair and worked with Richard Wright to adapt Native Son for the stage in a 1941 production directed by Orson Welles and produced by John Houseman.

The other person was Richard Boone, known at the time and forever as Paladin, the cool and kind hit man from the television western Have Gun, Will Travel, that ran on CBS from 1957 through 1963. He had been nominated for an Emmy five times, had done Broadway and film, but it was his role as Paladin for which he is remembered. After retiring to Hawaii, during which he declined the lead for the new show, Hawaii Five-O, but convinced show's creator that is should be shot on location, Boone had come to live in St. Augustine in the early 1970’s. He became associated with the Cross and Sword production, serving on the board of directors and as an advisor. By 1974, the production’s 10th year, he only appeared at the final dress rehearsal for notes.

At the time of that night's dress rehearsal, Green was 70 and Boone was 57. Both died in 1981.

I remember that both made a few comments, and although their notes were mostly for the leads, we all listened carefully. None of their notes were directed at me...a very, very good thing for an extra.

How I got so much stage time....

Double click the photograph to see an extra at work.

At the end of the meeting that first morning, the director announced that the cast would be divided into three groups: singers, dancers, and actors. Each group would spend each day during the first week of rehearsals working in separate locations to concentrate on the musical or dance numbers or the dramatic basis of each scene, and then each evening the entire cast would meet at the theatre for rehearsal. The dancers left for the dance studio at Flagler College, the singers left for the choir rehearsal hall of Memorial Presbyterian Church, and the actors stayed in the theatre, including me.

The night before had been a late night with most of the 80 members of the cast arriving during the day, those who did not live locally were assigned their rooms in one of the 20 apartments at The Coral Sands, and then spent the afternoon settling in. Into the evening after most had gone out for dinner, exploring the town for the first time, many gravitated to the apartment in which I was living, # 2 Mulvey Street, Apartment 2. There was a good bit of Mateus being consumed and a fair share of Budweiser and the gathering continued long after midnight.

The common greeting that initial getting-acquainted evening, after names were exchanged, was: “Are you an actor, singer or dancer?” My answer was equally consistent: "I’m an extra.”

This being the first time I had worked in theatre and only the second time I had ever been on stage, calling myself an “actor” seemed presumptuous, but then I was certainly not a singer or dancer. I was in the actor-third of the cast.

So when the three groups split up and the dancers and singers left, there were only the actors remaining consisting of about a dozen principles and one extra: me. All the other extras, people who just wanted to be a part of the production, willing to be in the background, were local residents. They were at their local daytime lives, but would attend the rehearsal that evening. Since I had no other life, having traveled to St. Augustine just to be in the production, I was the only extra attending daytime rehearsals.

The director called out the few principals appearing in the opening scenes and instructed the others to go to wardrobe to be fitted for costumes. Then he commenced blocking the show by having the principals come onto stage. He had barely started blocking the first scene when he said “Ok, we need a guard to stand here at the door when Menendez and Lopez talk,” and he looked around into the audience seating, saw that I was the only person there, and said, “You...stand here.”

Throughout that first day and all week long I continued to be placed in strategic locations because I was the only extra available. I went from being a prison guard to a member of the royal court to a settler to a soldier to a settler again and a soldier again...all in the first act. In the second act I mostly bounced between soldier and settler ending up as one of the few surviving soldiers after the big battle in the show’s penultimate scene. I had no lines except for crowd cheers or crowd moans or crowd mummers, but I was on stage in all the big scenes and many smaller ones. I had a dozen costume changes during the two hour show made possible only because of snaps instead of buttons, pre-positioned wardrobe parts in various locations backstage, and the ability to run and undress and get dressed at the same time.

With six shows a week, that amounted to 72 costume changes. So, even at my salary of $20 a week, I had as much, if not more stage time than nearly anyone else in the cast. All because I was available.

Or, as Woody Allen said, Eighty percent of success is showing up.