The show was called Pzazz '70. It ran for 14 months and we did 2 shows a night (1 1/2 hours long), six nights a week.
There were five separate production numbers in the show. We had everything imaginable happening on that stage. At one point, a flock of doves would be released from the light-booth, fly over the audience to their root box backstage in the wings. We even had dogs in the show.....two standard poodles, dyed BLUE, to match the color scheme of the San Francisco number. Everyone on stage was dressed in blue.
Sometimes I had to make a skin-out change behind a set in about 60 seconds, then run back out on stage! We had women who were our "dressers", who helped us change and took care of our costumes. I made $356.00 a week, and they took out taxes. My rent was $145.00 a months for the apartment I was in (before I bought my first mobil home).
It was the only show I was ever in that qualified me for Unemployment benefits, which I collected for 18 months after the show closed.....$89.00 a week. I had saved $5000.00 from the show, which I used to buy my first mobil home, which was 12' x 60', with 2 bedrooms and one bath, living room and kitchen. It was really cute. Someday I'll show you the pictures. I even built my own furniture from scrap wood that they were throwing away from building the sets for Pzazz '70. (They were raising my rent, so I told them I would rent the apartment unfurnished to keep the cost down.) I built an entertainment center, a couch that converted to a bed, two end tables, two backless side-seats, and a coffee table. This was no mean feat, since the only "tools" I had were a rusty old hand-saw, a hammer, a screw-driver and a 12" ruler! I painted the furniture high-gloss white. I had a friend who worked at the Nevada Test Site, and he found me some big hunks of foam rubber that they used to wrap bomb parts with. I made cushions for the couch with it, which I covered by sewing together varying blocks of fabric in turquoise, royal blue and hot pink! Yikes! (My girlfriend's daughters used to tease me by wearing their sunglasses in the house when they came to visit.)
I bought a kitchen set from a second-hand store and painted the vinyl seats bright yellow. I made a bright yellow tablecloth, and edged it with red pom-pom ball trim. I even made curtains for the kitchen window. The valances were flat, with a "Greek Key" hem, which I also edged with pom-poms to match the tablecloth. It was very "60's".
I used to say my decor was "Early Orange-Crate". hee hee
Oh by the way....interesting story about the doves that flew over the audience. The production number was a campy spoof on "Hollywood". We were all dressed up like angels. I had on a long, flowing, Greek-style gown, carried a scepter,and wore a BLOND WIG (if you can picture that!). The wig was lacquered in place (like cement!) so that the hairdresser wouldn't have to re-do the thing every night. Attached to the wig, which was glued down on a sort of helmet-like form, was a halo. (A wire came out of the top of the "helmet/wig", and a circular, rhinestone "halo" was attached to it, and the damn thing would always bounce around when you walked.)
When it came to the part where the doves would fly over us, we would be standing very still, posing like statues, and I would always be RIGHT in their flight path! Yep! You guessed it! They would SHIT on me EVERY SHOW! Horrible green, slimy stuff would sometimes go right down the front of my gown, into my cleavage, and worse!, into my "wig/helmet"!
Now I could wash off the shit from my chest, but it could NOT be washed out of that helmet/wig! After it dried, they would try to brush it out....most of it would not come out. After 14 months (after even ONE month), that helmet/wig smelled like YEAH, SHIT!
But that's not the worst of it: every night, as I stood there, expecting the worst, I would involuntarily start trembling, gritting my teeth, and clamping my eyes shut. As I trembled violently, my "halo" would start vibrating so hard on it's wire support, it would actually be dancing around over my head. People in the audience who were sitting up close would actually start giggling. It must have been a very funny sight!
Naturally, I got in trouble over shaking my halo. After every performance, the company manager would be waiting for me in the wings when I got off stage, to admonish me for it. She had the power to hire and fire people, so I was naturally intimidated by her. I would just slink away while she kept yelling.
Finally, one night, I lost it. She started ragging my ass about the shaking halo, and I blew up and yelled "YOU KNOW.....IF YOU HAD TO STAND THERE EVERY NIGHT, WATCHING THOSE 60 WHITE, FEATHERED ASSES COMING AT YOU TO RAIN SHIT ON YOUR HEAD, YOUR HALO WOULD TREMBLE TOO!"
She never bothered me again after that.
