THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Sunday, June 25, 1995 TAG: 9506230219
SECTION: CAROLINA COAST PAGE: 06 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Cover Story
SOURCE: BY STEVE STONE, STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: MANTEO LENGTH: Long : 239 lines
WHEN MORE THAN 100 men and women set foot on Roanoke Island in 1587 to establish what they hoped would be North America's first permanent English settlement, they arrived with two things: dreams of a good future, and the children needed to guarantee that future.
Fate was not kind, however, and history - reprised today by the cast of ``The Lost Colony,'' America's premier outdoor drama - records that they vanished with barely a trace.
Among ``The Lost Colony's'' cast of more than 90, the actors most closely in touch with those they portray may be the youngest.
They are imaginative and inquisitive, silly and serious, self-reliant and self-assured. Many speak beyond their years, and all have accepted responsibilities far above the interest and, perhaps, ability of most of their peers.
While others their age debate whether to go surfing or skating on a given summer's day, these kids go to work. And all insist that they love it.
It's easy to imagine such traits having been prerequisite among the children of the first English settlers to try and make a go of it on Roanoke Island more than four centuries ago.
``While it's a lot of fun for them and they get to do things other kids can't do, it's also a lot harder,'' said Bob Kretz, 46, the production's house manager whose 6-year-old son, Robby, is among the nine cast members under age 15.
Being in ``The Lost Colony'' is tougher than most types of jobs kids traditionally get for the summer, Kretz said. ``The responsibility is enormous, and they have to act like adults.''
And ``act'' as adults they do, because their youth shines through in most everything they do and say. But it's filtered, usually, by their desire to live up to the goals they've accepted.
Who tends to them during the five or so hours they are on the set each night? ``Nobody,'' said Eric M. Hause, the production's spokesman. ``They are professional actors. It's part of their contract.''
Hause said the young actors and actresses generally keep their bargain. ``We've never really had any problems. They are so psyched about being with the big people.''
For many of the children and teens, ``The Lost Colony'' is a family affair, with parents also serving among the cast or crew.
Janelle Austin, 37, of Kill Devil Hills, is the backstage gatekeeper, making certain everyone arrives on time. She has a simple rule she applies each evening when she checks in her two teenage sons: ``Once we come through that gate, she says she's not our mother,'' said one of the boys, John Rutter, 15.
Austin nods and smiles. ``So, if they get in trouble, they have to deal with it.''
Austin, in her second stint with ``The Lost Colony,'' first was with the show in the late '70s. That's when she met her sons' father, who also was in the cast. This time around, she's in her second year. But that's half of what her sons have put in - the boys joined the cast four years ago.
``I took time off to raise my kids,'' she said.
Austin said she brought the boys into the show, believing the experience would be good for them. ``There are a lot of people that they've gotten to know'' far beyond the average teen's usual circle of peers.
John likes the work, he said, for the most pragmatic of reasons: ``A paycheck. What little we get, we get.'' Additionally, ``It's fun. It gives me a way to spend my nights.''
This year John has moved up from just being ``a colonist.'' He's now an actor technician apprentice, meaning that when he's not performing, he's working, moving set pieces. And there are many set changes made by the cast throughout the production.
``He gets mad when I call him a `grunt,' but that's what he is,'' Austin said. Other young cast members take up the refrain, ``Grunt! Grunt!'' But John takes it in good stride.
John said acting is not his first career choice. ``It'll be my second career,'' he said, behind electronics. He's worked as a sound technician in two other productions.
Learning his role has been no problem, John said. ``I get it right the first time,'' he said.
There's not a moment's hesitation when the brothers are asked which of them is the better actor. Twin pairs of arms shoot skyward in Rocky-esque claim to the title and another young member of the cast watching nearby rolls her eyes: ``That opened a can of worms,'' she declares.
``The Lost Colony'' is not the boys' only acting pursuit; they are also involved in community theater, as are some of the other youths.
Jami Rutter, 13, has a series of one-word answers and sometimes even briefer nods when asked about his motivations and interests. Friends tease that he's usually not so shy.
He said meeting people in the cast and crew is one of the fun benefits and, like his brother, he's started dabbling in some other aspects of the show's production.
Asked what they might like to do if they could be doing something else, the answer comes in one word from both boys: ``Sleep.'' On that point, there seems to be near unanimity among the youthful cast members. All concede the task is tiring.
Robert Midgette, 44, knows what it is like. In his 25th nonconsecutive season with ``The Lost Colony'' - his 16th in the role of Chief Manteo - he started as a child.
``It was a good escape,'' he recalls. But also a practical education.
``You learn to manage money a little bit,'' Midgette said, adding that when he was a child, the youth in the cast earned $7.50 a week. Big bucks back then when ``drinks were a nickel and chips were a dime.'' He saved up enough in five years to buy his first surfboard.
When he was a young cast member, ``They would stick us in a room with some magazines and comic books and dare us to come out anytime except when we were on stage,'' Midgette said. And they were bad boys, sometimes. ``We had pea shooters and we were chewing candy on stage,'' he recalled.
He's glad to see the young cast members treated more like the rest of the cast today, free to mingle with everyone but required to behave appropriately.
``I enjoy being around them,'' he said. ``They are a nice group of kids.''
Like the rest of the cast, the youngsters are on contract. They work six nights a week through a schedule of 68 performances. But the time committed is longer with pre-production rehearsal.
Most of the time their roles are natural - children being children. Some have a few sparse lines, and there's ample opportunity for laughter and screaming at appropriate moments. But where they may not always be heard individually, they are frequently seen.
Most of the children play colonists, although some also get ``painted up'' for roles as native children.
For Kretz, the house manager, ``The Lost Colony'' has become something of a way of life. Son Robby has taken to staging the show at home, from first light to the time he arrives on the set for his role as a colonist.
While Kretz, a teacher, joined the cast for some steady summer work, he hadn't really considered getting his son involved. A friend told him about openings for children, but on the day of the tryouts, he was watching a ball game on television, oblivious to the clock.
Robby came in insisting that it was time to go so he could try to make the cast. So they went.
``There were 25 people trying out for a few parts,'' Kretz recalled. He wasn't optimistic and didn't want his son to suffer sudden disappointment. ``I told him he probably wasn't going to get a part.''
Three days later, a contract arrived in the mail, needing only Robby's signature.
``It's fun!'' Robby said with a ready smile as he gnawed at a bottle of Gatorade backstage with other cast members. His favorite part is a scene where he gets tossed from one adult actor to another.
After just two weeks in the play, he's learned the whole story from beginning to end - and all the key parts.
Now, when he gets up in the morning, Robby paints himself up as Manteo and acts out the fight scenes for his dad's enjoyment. ``He performs continuously now,'' Kretz said, looking at his son with a smile. ``I'm ready for you to slow down.'' Unlikely. Robby already has his sights set on another part in the play.
``He wants Max Bridge's part as Wano (the Indian boy) when Max gets too big to play the part,'' Kretz said.
Kretz gives his son about a dollar a night to spend as he wants from the boy's weekly salary of $30. The rest is going into a college fund, an investment that has not yet won the boy's endorsement.
``I don't want to go to college,'' Robby said with an insistent smile. He's less certain about what he does want to do as he grows up.
``As long as he's happy, I don't care what he does,'' Kretz said. ``But he's going to go to college. Hopefully, being in `The Lost Colony' will help with college. It will at least look good on his resume.''
Robby only shrugs when asked if he knows what a resume is. But he has a ready answer when asked if he would have liked to have actually been among the colonists 400 years ago: ``It'd be OK,'' he says, ``but I'd be dead now.''
That just leads him to more acting. One of his favorite scenes is a death scene.
He jumps down from his seat to ham it up, feigning life's slippage with dramatic physical flair and one minor flaw: Most death scenes don't include ear-to-ear grins.
While ``The Lost Colony'' has many a familial link within the cast, none is probably as entrenched as that of the Bridge family, in transition from Durham, N.C., and presently setting up a permanent homestead in Manteo.
Don Bridge, who said he is ``42-ish,'' is in his fourth season with the production and plays Old Tom, a source of much of the play's comic relief. His wife, Lisa, has three years with the play and, when she arrives in August, will take up a role she has understudied for. She will play Queen Elizabeth I for the production's final month this year.
The Bridges are moving the family enterprise, The Little Big Theatre Company, to Manteo. The company stages productions for youth audiences and has been a success in Durham for eight years.
Their son, Max, 11, is the only youth actor to be listed among the principal players in ``The Lost Colony'' in his role as Wano, a young Indian. His big scene is played out with his dad in his role as Old Tom when Indian boy and white man come unexpectedly face-to-face in a humorous panic.
When not performing, Max's interests include his mountain bike, video games and playing the trumpet.
He's not sure what he will do when he grows up, but Max has a decidedly blunt and basic view of his acting work. ``We lie,'' he said as his dad winced. ``We lie about being other people.''
And he said he does it solely for the money. But what about art? ``Art schmarts.''
Lest his caustic truthfulness go too far, Max adds that he does like acting. He's been doing it for four years, two as a colonist and two as Wano. He enjoys seeing how special effects are staged and woven into the show.
That said, his 9-year-old sister Alice promptly accuses him of ``sucking up.''
In her fifth season with ``The Lost Colony,'' she too enjoys a steady paycheck which she spends ``on junk. Anything I can buy.'' The two verbally jostle, good naturedly, about who spends more between them.
Dad took it all in stride and said the experience has benefited the children. ``It carries over into their schoolwork because the teachers tell me they are quick to respond to what is asked of them.''
Most of the cast's youngsters shrug when asked what they think happened to the colonists of Roanoke Island. Some joke that they were eaten by mosquitoes.
Alice wrote a long paper for school offering up a more plausible, and rather gruesome, scenario in which some colonists were eaten by bears and the rest were killed by Indians.
Max, true to his off-the-wall sense of humor, suggests they formed a Shriners Club and vanished.
``I never said I was fully sane,'' he said gleefully. ``Whenever you see somebody goofing up and acting like an idiot, I'll be there.''
So is there a philosopher buried within this character? Asked what the meaning of life is, he twists the question into an answer. ``The meaning of life is to find out what the meaning of life is.''
Dad is left to smile. ``Our family is just a '90s theater family,'' he said with a sigh. ILLUSTRATION: Staff photos by DREW C. WILSON
[color cover photo:no cutline]
Actors, from left, John Rutter, Jami Rutter, Matthew Cahoon and
Brian Wescott greet an uncostumed Queen Elizabeth - actress Barbara
Hird - as she walks by.
Max Bridge, who portrays Wano, applies face paint.
Actor Jami Rudder, right, steps aside to get otu of the way of
another crew member carrying a large prop toward the stage.
Young actor Jami Rudder, right, steps aside to get out of the way of
another crew member carrying a large prop toward the stage.
Child actors Alice Bridge, left, Robby Kretz and Sara Moore chat
while waiting their turn to go on stage in the night's performance
of ``The Lost Colony.'' They will work six nights a week -
performing the play 68 times this summer. In addition, they have
spent a great deal of time in pre-production preparations and
rehearsals.
by CNB