Columns

Island seniors: My life onstage

COURTESY PHOTO | A 1964 production of Shakespeare’s ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream.’ Our columnist, as Titania, the queen of the fairies, is on the far right.
COURTESY PHOTO |
A 1964 production of Shakespeare’s ‘A Midsummer Night’s Dream.’ Our columnist, as Titania, the queen of the fairies, is on the far right.

In 1964, my son was just two. Helen Lamont was putting on Shakespeare’s “A Midsummer Night’s Dream.”  I had hoped to play Puck. Instead I was Titania, the queen of the fairies.

Helen Lamont was a Shakespearian scholar, experienced in the art of play production. My greatest lines were at the very end of the play, “Trip away, make no stay. Meet me all at break of day.” Titania and her fairies were the real hit of the show.

I will be 85 this month. I made my stage debut at the age of five with my dance teacher. We were wearing black satin tuxedos and each wore a top hat and carried a cane. Our routine required us to dance and sing.

And we did!

Remember this song from 80 years ago? “Just me and my shadow/ All alone and feelin’ blue/ And when it’s 3 o’clock, we climb the stairs/ We never knock ‘cause nobody’s there/ Just me and my shadow/ all alone and feelin’ blue.”

Did I have the moves at the age of five!

I had the moves some 70 years later when I played a stripper in Dorothy Bloom’s first play, “Some Lively Ladies Put on a Show.”

I’m still onstage, mainly at the Center post office. Just the other day, I was dancing in the lobby, doing my current dance because it works for me now.