Suddenly Last Summer

Our thirty-ninth season

Was when Tennessee came home

To roost

The Board couldn’t resist the publicity

Even though some of us thought—

Well, we’d heard stories

About Beau

And Beth

Tennessee’s parents

And the Orpheus’ founders

And I guess we thought

If he’s the combination of those two

We could really be in deep shit

He turned out to not be so bad

Although he seemed to have trouble getting his bearings

That first season

We all were though

We were still reeling

From the economy going to hell

And the fact that our theater was starting over again

After the Board had Cara nearly run the place into the ground

We were all kind of getting our footing together

Then in 2003

Beau cast me in Suddenly Last Summer

And we started working on it

Small show, small cast

But fucked up

If you know the show

You know that

Ten was sitting in the theater one day

On a break

And he looked sort of…uneasy

I asked him if everything was okay

And he said that he was still getting used

To being in the theater

A lot of bad memories

So I asked him if I could try something

I took him up onstage

With the rest of our cast

And I had us sit in a circle

And hold hands

I know I don’t seem like the spiritual type

But when you’re dealing with a play

Where the final monologue

Is all about how the lost son

Gets eaten by small Mexican children

A little spiritualism can’t hurt

We didn’t chant or pray or anything

We just sat there

And I asked Ten to talk

He talked about his dad

Then I talked about my mom

How she used to make me write ‘I am not at all special’

Over and over again

On yellow lined paper

Until I thought—

Either I believe this

Or I don’t

And if I don’t

I gotta go

So I left

One of the other actresses in the cast

Talked about being raised by her grandmother

And being told that her mother and father left her

Because they were both junkie

And that she should pray they’re both dead

And burning in Hell

Story after story

On a stage that had seen

A million stories

Pretty soon little Mexican cannibals

Didn’t seem so bad

When we were done

We all stood up

And Ten called it a night

But before I left he stopped me and said—

‘Do you think we do theater because we’re damaged?’

And I said ‘No, Ten

But I do think we do theater

To heal’

And to this day

That’s what I believe

That we’re all put on this earth

To heal the wounds of others

When we can’t heal ourselves

So if any of you ever need to sit down in a circle with me

And let it all out

You just let me know

And I’ll sit right down with you

I really will