A Candlestick: Ye Olde Soapbox...

My sister and I were talking about her VT coming over and somehow or other they got on the subject of us having been raised in Anchorage and she told them about the 4th Avenue Theater. The most beautiful movie theater I've ever seen. Early Alaska, at least in Anchorage, had some refined moneyed people, that brought a certain amount of uptown class, to this city with unpaved roads and many primitive features. The gorgeous 4th Avenue Theater was certainly one of those real gold nuggets.

We were awestruck and swept away by it's grandeur. I'm sure you can get online and find all sorts of history about it. These few pics don't really showcase it at all. it was carpeted and had a grand staircase upstairs to the rest rooms and balcony. There was the Big Dipper and North Star on the ceiling. All sorts of marvelous decor! Artwork that was gigantic!

When the City bus started to come to Spenard, we rode that bus every single Sunday, into Anchorage, to see the latest Hollywood musical to hit the silver screen. (remember we were Baptists! we'd already been to Church, eaten our Mothers wonderful Sunday dinner and then it was showtime!)

I loved every single aspect of those movies! We'd ride home and I'd be dreaming about how to stage the show, in our dirt lot, behind out house. I was the older sister and more in love with the entire drama scene than my sister. I also granted myself bossing rights. So I was always the star and director and producer and forcing my good-hearted sister to take any role I gave her, that was always lesser than the star power lead, that I seemed to feel was my just due!

Somehow or other I would remember the story and key lines and the hook in songs and pretend to dance (even though I had no lessons or training in anything) and sing also (again no training at all but I could belt it out like Ethel Merman!

My sister would finally start to beg off and was often so relieved when Mother called us in and the theater of my mind closed the curtains. I could never get enough!!!

I danced and sang and jumped on a pretend couch and rode the back to the ground in Singing in the Rain and played both Gene Kelly and Debbie Reynolds. Now that is quite the ability isn't it??? It was a magical wonderful time then and the memory of those many, many movies stays with me today.

Dixie and I talked about the two times that our parents went to the 4th Ave. with us. One was 5 years after the opening and they had a world premiere come to Anchorage. With Gregory Peck and Ann Blyth!! We remembered her gorgeous red satin gown and how he was so handsome and she so beautiful. My Dad dressed for the occasion as most of the men in the print below. Our Mother was a beautiful woman and she always looked gorgeous when all dolled up. It was so exciting to us and the theater was packed. Probably close to 1000 fans.

The 1st time we went with them was when Cheaper by the Dozen was showing and a local Catholic family that had 12 children lined up, single file across the stage, in front of that heavy gorgeous curtain before it opened to show the movie. We'd never seen that many children in a family. One of the boys was our school mate and for some reason we felt embarrassed for him. Maybe because he was shy and uncomfortable.

Those were marvelous days! and Movies were wonderful as it was the Era of Musicals and fan clubs and movie magazines and from our view of life it was just fantastic!

Surely I was born loving theatrical things and probably I should have been more involved in the reality of things by jumping in and really participate. You know I follow, and support Community Theater, and especially high school drama. I don't watch the Academy Awards show anymore, as it seems so vulgar and usually I have not seen one single nominated film. I no longer know the names of all the stars like I used to.

The Tony's are so wonderful as you get to see real people working their hearts out doing their craft. Because it's on Sunday I opt to not watch it but to DVR it and then I can escape all the ads and if someone gets the naughty stuff going, I fast forward. (Is that a pebble in your hand and you are aiming at me??)

I knew several of the shows this year from seeing the movies in that 4th Avenue Theater. Revivals! I knew the songs! I loved seeing them. In my mind I saw those movies and knew who had played what parts.

And then suddenly there was a waif of a stick-figured young girl. Can this be? Is she singing about her gay feelings?? Surely I hear wrong??? Nope. She was indeed singing about her gay feelings and that little play won the coveted Best Musical of the Year!!! What??!! Really??? Yes! Read for yourself!!!....hot off the press!!.....

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“Fun Home,” which began with an Off Broadway run at the Public Theater, had initially seemed like a risky proposition for Broadway, where the most financially successful ventures tend to be big musicals with flashy production numbers, often adapted from hit movies. “Fun Home” has little of that: It was adapted from a memoir by Alison Bechdel and movingly describes how, as a middle-aged cartoonist, she set about trying to better understand her own coming-of-age as a lesbian in a family in which her father, the local funeral home operator, was secretly gay and then killed himself.

AND

But several producers and presenters said the show might benefit from its subject matter, which feels current at a time when societal attitudes toward homosexuality are changing rapidly, and same-sex marriage is a subject of considerable attention throughout popular culture.

“There’s an audience that’s hungry for edgy, provocative works,” said William L. Hayes, producing artistic director of Palm Beach Dramaworks, in Florida.

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I was trying to figure out the title Fun Home. Then I saw a quick clip of children jumping on caskets and thought..oh, it's maybe short for Funeral Home.

I thought of the talk that Terry and I had just listened to. One of our Morning General Conference talks and it has to be one of the most blunt, straight talking, mince no words talk ever! It fit right in with the happenings going on now. The year was 1971 and the times they were a changin'. The infamous 1969 Woodstock had changed the youth and there were all sorts of going-ons that were beckoning the youth and this talk is very straight forward. I was fascinated to hear it and think about then and think about now. When you take a break today... watch this talk by Ezra Taft Benson (Apostle and then Prophet)... Satans Thrust- Youth here

when you read this clip about Woodstock, it lasted 3 days!, you can imagine why President Benson spoke so frankly! The aftermath of Woodstock impacted so many youth.

We were ready to rock out and we waited and waited and finally it was our turn ... there were a half million people asleep. These people were out. It was sort of like a painting of a Dante scene, just bodies from hell, all intertwined and asleep, covered with mud.

And this is the moment I will never forget as long as I live: A quarter mile away in the darkness, on the other edge of this bowl, there was some guy flicking his Bic, and in the night I hear, 'Don't worry about it, John. We're with you.' I played the rest of the show for that guy.

—John Fogerty recalling Creedence Clearwater Revival's 3:30 am start time at Woodstock^[9]

I have gone on so very long!!! Oh, wow!! Me on my old Soapbox (again!) and didn't even realize it.