All our LIFE is a STAGE!

I grew up with a mother who wanted to be a movie star. She went to Hollywood at 19 to be discovered. My father followed her out there and proposed. My mother was not discovered as Schwab’s Drugstore or any other place in Hollywood. They eventually moved back home, this was in the 1950’s when Marilyn Monroe reigned. All my life I heard, the stories and therefore the stars in my mother’s eyes were burning bright in my little sisters and me. We loved Hollywood, the Oscars, and lived for the movies. I remember at a very young age seeing my very first musical and it was magical.

When I got in high school, we had a new drama teacher, Mr. Peacock. I swear that was his name. He was semi-famous as he was Broadway star Sandy Duncan’s first dance partner. If you have ever seen the film “Waiting for Guffman”, directed and starring Christopher Guest, he was that character. Played by Christopher Guest, he was this Broadway director who now has moved to small town Blaine, Missouri. This film could have been my hometown of Eureka, Kansas, or my new home town of Jefferson, Texas. You have to see that film, as it was the first thing I did when I got off the plane in NYC on my first day as a book publisher’s representative in the city for sales conference. I saw it in a little theater over by The Plaza Hotel and I have never laughed so hard and so loud in my life. I love and adore Christopher Guest and all of hilarious mockumentaries.

Now I cannot actually say the same thing about Mr. Peacock. He was more than a bit over the top and as my dad would say, a bit light in the loafers. It was more of a love/hate relationship. He flunked me one six weeks for Speech class, (which is a whole another story), but at the same time, I could not wait to sign up for The Thespians Club and try out for one of the plays.

I never had the gumption to try out for the big parts in the plays or musicals. I always was cast as the dancer, the sexy nurse, the dancer; you get the picture, the bit parts. I loved it and threw my whole self in productions of “Little Abner”, “Bye Bye Birdie” and various plays. After I married and had my two girls, I read in the paper that there was going to be try-outs for the musical “Meet me in St. Louis”. There were many children’s’ roles in production so I thought as a family project we would all go and try-out. My daughter’s Laine, Madeleine, and I were all cast. I was thrilled, how fun was this going to be. I was more than a bit concerned as to play, if you remember the movie starring Judy Garland, Judy’s older sister who was 19. The young man who was to play my love interest was in high school. Now I was in my 40’s at the time and considered this quite a stretch. I also felt more than a tad uncomfortable batting my eyes and flirting with this young man at play practice.

After the first practice, the next morning I drove to the bank; where his mother worked, and made her give me verbal permission that it was okay for me to play this role with her 16- year-old son. I had read enough stories about older women hitting on high school boys. They went to prison. We had a good laugh about it.

Laine had one of the lead children’s roles in that musical and went on that year to win Best Child Actor in our local WYNOY Awards given out by the Opera House Theater Players. WYNOT is TONY spelled backwards, how clever. She was bitten by the theater bug. Madeleine had a walk on role with one line and we all really just had a blastie blast doing this musical. We were hooked. What fun, what joy!

We went on to all being in another Opera House Player Production “I Remember Mama”. Then I was cast, with two of my other best friends and fellow Pulpwood Queens, Beverly Bradley and Carol Lancaster Lucky, in the hysterical play “Laundry and Bourbon”. Then we all went on to all play in the Excelsior Players “A Christmas Carol”. Some of my happiest days were going to the practices with the girls.

As I got busy running my Beauty and the Book and my Pulpwood Queens Book Clubs and all the other things that I do, I stepped reluctantly off the stage. Actually, I was probably yanked, as I continued to encourage my girls to get involved with their drama departments at their school. Madeleine did her first U.I.L. play this year and got a starring role as the villain in a melodrama, Bertrand Oleander. She was a hoot, looking a like a cross between Charlie Chaplin and Snidely Whiplash, in her too big black suit, her twirly black mustache, cape, cane, and top hat. I laughed my fool head off. She won All-Star Cast at their very first U.I.L school competition, “Egad, What a Cad”.

Lainie just got back last night from her U.I.L competition and won Best Actress of all the schools for their high school play, “Gammer Gurton’s Needle”, and now they going to district U.I.L. this Saturday. An amazing feat because she too played a leading role as a boy, Diccon, in that production with all the cast talking in a cockney accent.

Why I decided to write about our theater experiences is because I have seen before my very eyes what happens when you get involved in the arts. The greatest thing a parent can do is teach your children how to fly and then give them wings to go there own way in the world. My girls have gained a confidence that I am not sure they would have had if it had not been for the theater experience. Now as I watch my little birds fly off in the world, I can enjoy the drama that unfolds.


All my life I have been an avid reader. I happen to think playwrights and theater is just another aspect of the reading experience. To read a play or musical and see it come to life before your eyes is a treat for all. When I was a child these, big musical productions would come to the high school. From kindergarten to junior high students would be bused to the high school to join their students to watch “Peter and the Wolf” , “Hans Brinker and the Golden Skates”, and “Toby Tyler”. We each paid 10 cents to see those shows. I will never forget the costumes, the music, and those storybook characters all brought to life.

April 24th, I have one the premier actors of Broadway stage, television, and film coming to my Beauty and the Book, the delightful and vivacious Rue McClanahan to talk about her new book “My First Five Husbands…and The Ones That Got Away”. Rue has asked me to put on a skit just for her, my fellow Pulpwood Queens, and those in attendance. Carol Lancaster Lucky, Pam McGregor, Timber Guy Nelson Collier, and I will be doing just that for all that attend. We call our skit “The Pulpwood Gals” where three middle age sisters come to live with their Meemaw (played by Nelson) in a doublewide trailer on Caddo Lake. It is kind of our East Texas version of “The Golden Girls” as a tribute to Rue McClanahan who starred in that television show as the infamous Blanche.

Tickets are $30.00 and include refreshments and the book for you to have signed personally by Rue. Come support the arts and I can guarantee you will get some good laughs and meet one of most outstanding American actress to walk the stage in theater and grace our film and television screens today! Call 903-665-7520, email me at Kathy@beautyandthebook.com, or stop by Beauty and the Book to get your tickets.

All our life is a stage and I encourage all of you to support your local arts and theater programs. There is nothing more thrilling than to have the lights go down, the audiences grow quiet, and the velvet curtain lift to unveil a story about to unfold.

Tiara wearing, Book and Theater Sharing,
Kathy L. Patrick
Founder of the Pulpwood Queens Book Clubs