Hot Girl Summer

One of the requirements for my Bachelor’s degree was an internship at a professional theater. It was the summer between my Junior and Senior year. There were only a handful of us in the acting track at my small liberal arts college. We carpooled to one of those “cattle call” auditions where all the regional theaters find college kids for their summer productions.

I don’t remember much about the audition itself because I had terrible stage fright. When I audition, I get all the symptoms of a new drug commercial like dry mouth, flop sweat, brain fog, jelly legs, nervous bowels, the vapors, etc. I missed my musical queue and forgot half of my monologue. It was a spectacular failure of epic proportions.

I went home without a job, worried that I wouldn’t graduate. Then I got a call from a man with the thickest southern accent I’d ever heard. He introduced himself as the owner and proprietor of an outdoor theater. He wanted to offer me the “role” of house manager. A house manager (for any non-theater folk who may be reading this) handles ticket sales, ushering people to their seats, and managing the maintenance of the theater itself. His description of the job included a lot of caveats, briefly mentioned how I would have to do some “light cleaning” and also made it crystal clear that there would be zero acting involved.

Since I needed this internship credit to graduate, I assured myself that something was better than nothing and took the job. The company would provide housing plus a stipend of $150 a week.

When I got there, I was immediately struck by how rural it was. It was about an hour drive to the nearest grocery store. The theater itself was nestled behind a kitschy restaurant, ice cream parlor, and historical site. It was like a dusty old theme park without any rides.

There was a big house on a hill for the talent. The other staff lived in a row of old trailers. While I was being led to my trailer, the guy kept saying “it’s not much” and he was right.

The door was not really a door, but a hatch. It didn’t even have a lock, just a couple of bent nails that sort of jammed it closed (sometimes with me inside). They kept promising to fix it and never did. I guess I should have been more worried for my safety.

The decor was late 70’s and there was a Garfield poster hung prominently above the couch. The place had a pretty serious bug problem and smelled like mildew. My roommate was a very strange woman who was never around. I’m not even sure what she did for the company. Maybe I imagined her.

They gave me someone’s old colonial costume. It was mustard yellow. I wore this while giving guided tours of the historical site before the show, then taking tickets and showing people to their seats. I “managed” a staff of one.

When the show was over, I raked the popcorn out of the gravel under the wooden bleacher seats. Then I got busy cleaning the outdoor toilets with Pine Sol. After the first night I learned to change out of my costume before doing so, lest I soil my dainty ruffled sleeves. I’d change again after that, so I didn’t smell like toilets on the off chance that someone wanted to hang out with me (they didn’t). I “managed” not to cry.

I got pretty good at giving tours, but over time I began to stray from the script, adding little details that would get a laugh. Whenever someone asked a question, I just lied. Nobody had a smart phone back then to fact check what I was saying, so I gave them my own fascinating brand of historical fiction.

The owner was a big sturdy guy in his 60s with a white beard and long white hair pulled into a ponytail. He was very involved in the day to day workings of the place, always riding through the grounds on a golf cart checking things out, shouting creative expletives like Yosemite Sam if he noticed anything amiss. “Dadgummit!”

That’s not to say the man was fussy. One day while we were working together, he suddenly dropped what he was doing. He said he was having a diabetic attack. Then without another word he proceeded to chug molasses from a mason jar, then went right back to work.

He noticed that the historical artifacts were getting dusty. We had a sort of open diorama with period clothing, tools, etc. He wanted me to clean it. I imagined it would be some sort of white glove affair, careful not to disturb the history. This guy handed me a leaf blower and instructed me to “Just blow the shit out of it with this.”

“Really?” I said.

He looked at me like “what are you waiting for?'' So, I blasted every square inch of those handmade quilts and finery with a gas powered turbo gust. Some, but not all of the items were glued down. It had exactly the outcome you would expect, but the old man was pleased with the results and smiled at how clever he thought it was.

I was beginning to feel a bit of Stockholm syndrome, forgetting about my life outside this place. We got a few days off for the Fourth of July weekend. The one and only friend I had made there decided we should go down to the beach. I admit that once I got in the car I didn't want to go back, but I did. In fact, I got a speeding ticket rushing to get back before the show.

We returned with time to spare, but the old man was waiting for us. He said he was so worried he’d almost called our parents and the cops because nobody knew where we were. I think that incident cured me of my Stockholm syndrome. From that point on I was just counting the days until the season was over. There were actual red exes on my calendar.

When I got back to school, I dreaded anyone asking me about my Summer. I’d say it was fine and refuse to elaborate, but after a few drinks I’d give them all the gory details.