They should do a modern reboot of Buck Rogers.
I have fond memories of the '80s show.
I was working backstage on a production of
Jesus Christ Superstar in the spring of 1981, and it was the weekend of tech rehearsals. Cast and some of the tech crew had to be at the theatre all weekend; most of them didn't need props for a tech rehearsal, but some needed them to make sure certain lighting effects worked correctly. So I spent Saturday and Sunday there for a couple of 12-hour days.
It was a long and tedious time and the cast was told to bring lunch and something to do when they weren't needed on stage for lighting and sound checks. Somebody had brought a TV and set it up in one of the dressing rooms, and since I had downtime as well, I hung out in there for awhile...
And Buck Rogers was on. I remember clearly which episode it was - Mark Lenard was in it, and he played an alien man who was romancing Wilma Deering... who understandably freaked out a bit when she discovered that he could take his own head off and was not the least inconvenienced.
What I also remember that day was that the youngest actor to play one of the Apostles was constantly frustrated that afternoon - he wanted to watch the show, but kept getting called onstage for yet another lighting check. He was coming down the stairs from the stage and heard the rest of us exclaiming over a suddenly-headless Mark Lenard (for anyone who doesn't recognize that name, he played Spock's father, Sarek, in Star Trek). He ran into the dressing room, hunkered down in front of the TV, exclaiming, "I wanna see the headless guy!"...
Only to be confronted by yet another commercial break. That was about the third time he'd gotten back right in time for the commercials. This time he actually knelt on the floor and pounded his fists and said, "No! Not AGAIN!"
Poor guy. He was a nice kid - in high school at the time, and so enthusiastic about everything to do with the production. We got into a conversation that weekend about drama, and he asked me who my drama teacher had been in school. He and a few of the other younger cast were shocked to hear that I've never taken a formal drama class, ever. They had trouble understanding how I'd gotten involved in the theatre, then, and when was I going to audition for a part
onstage as opposed to
backstage.
I told them I have no talent for singing or dancing and I'd gotten into it for the chance to be creative with making stuff, and because of the music. During all my years of working in musical theatre I learned so many songs I wouldn't have learned otherwise. After 40 years, I can still listen to some of them - just hit a switch in my mind and replay them, complete with the voices of the actors who sang them and the orchestra that played them.
I don't have this level of recall for the production of JCS I worked on 19 years later. That one was different in so many ways - different producer, different director, only a handful of people still around from the first production (I had a conversation with the guy playing Jesus; he'd played one of the Apostles before, and I congratulated him on his 'promotion.'
). This second production came at a time when I was starting to have really noticeable mobility problems and an awful lack of energy, and realized I couldn't manage the level of activity that's needed for someone on the properties crew; there's a lot of rehearsals to attend, lots of fetch-and-carry, making stuff, moving stuff, gofering (you never know when you might get asked to fill in for absent stage crew or an absent actor during rehearsals; I played Marley's Ghost one night for about 10 minutes in one production when the actor didn't turn up for a blocking rehearsal).
So I ended up as a consultant for the properties and costume crews. The props mistress that time around didn't know much about first-century Roman/Judean artifacts, so we had a conversation about the sort of things she should be looking for to help with set dressing and to make the hand props look more authentic (some productions of JCS get very high-tech, but the ones I worked on took a more low-key approach and the most technical parts of it were the lighting and sound and other atmospheric effects). Then I got a call from someone on the costume crew; she had to make the loincloth and had no idea how, and wanted some advice. I remember thinking that was a bit odd, since she went to church regularly and I never go to church. She must have seen many more crucifixes than I have.
But I told her how, and that it would be best to get the actor in to get it fitted so there wouldn't be any risk of it coming apart at the worst possible time (costume accidents sometimes happen onstage). I told her I'd worked with the actor several times over the past 20 years and he was thoroughly professional - no fuss or issues with shyness would happen during fittings where not much is being worn. I also told her that he liked to really get into a part; he had a way of mentally immersing himself in the headspace of whatever character he played, so he might ask for costume detailing that wasn't actually in the script but that would help him get more into his role. He was like that with props as well, sometimes asking for little extra things.
Hard to believe where the decades have gone... I've run into some of the people from that 1981 production over the years and we all have very fond memories of it. I don't know how many remember trying to watch Buck Rogers in the dressing room, though. I hope that young actor eventually got to see that episode in reruns.
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