My First Stage Experience

“The Pick and the shovel are all that I know…” are the first words I ever sang on a stage. The first play I remember being in was a play for my hometown of Platteville, Wisconsin, and the celebration of their mining heritage.

Platteville, during its earliest days, was a lead mining community. They dug deep into the looking for veins of lead; the entire area is littered with old mines, some that go right underneath the downtown area. At the east of the downtown area is the Mining Museum. It actually has the Bevans Lead Mine, an old lead mine as part of the attraction. Dug out in 1845, it is abandoned and forgotten until 1972.

For the celebration of the opening of the Mining Museum, a family friend Margot King wrote and directed a play called ‘The Tommyknockers.’ Based on the Cornish legendary faerie folk who inhabit the mines, it centers around a disbeliever Tom Tovorrow who is eventually killed in a cave-in.

In the first edition of the play, I got to be a miner named George. I didn’t have a mining helmet; I chose to wear a Pith helmet, which I just happened to own, so I called myself Jungle George. It was also here that I met one of long-time friends, Karland Kilian. I am very thankful I did. Karland has been a great friend through thick and thin.

My costume for that role was just a flannel shirt, blue jeans, and boots. It wasn’t much of a costume because, given a choice, that’s what I wanted to wear anyways. I think I even wore my Chewbacca t-shirt underneath it…

The Tommyknockers, who in the original play had no lines, just songs, were in gray shirts and pants with raggedy gray streamers coming off of them. I remember being thankful that I was too big to wear one of those; my brother Mark, however, looked really cute in them. It was a vast improvement…(poking fun at brother…what fun...)

Over the years, we did the play many times. Margot was continually updating and changing it. She added lines for the Tommyknockers, changed lyrics and song melodies (although I still only have the music for the original still in my mind) for many years. Eventually, I did get to be Tom Tovorrow, and I died very effectively on stage.

I still have fond memories of The Tommyknockers.