A day of deliveries, an evening of ushering

In addition to writing for This Week on Martha's Vineyard, my co-workers and I also get to deliver the paper each Thursday. We've been paired up to cover a particular area of the island and drop off copies to the businesses that distribute it. In my case, I work with Scott to blanket downtown Vineyard Haven, which, thankfully, is not that large. Basically, it's a main street and a few spots down by the dock where the ferries come in.

There was a certain amount of suspense Thursday because the sky kept darkening and the wind would swoop in, bringing with it the threat of rain; considering we make our deliveries by hand, that would literally put a damper on things. The barista at a coffeehouse I stopped in assured me that the forecast said the rain would hold off until evening and, thankfully, she was right. Even though the overcast skies never disappeared, there was no precipatation until long after we'd finished our chores. As you can see from the photo above, readers seemed to be eagerly awaiting the issue; personally, I think my extensive list of seasonal fundraisers was a big selling point.

Thursday evening was spent at the Vineyard Playhouse, where I had volunteered to usher for the final preview of "Fly," a play by Ricardo Khan and Trey Ellis. It's a superbly performed drama based on the experiences of the Tuskegee Airmen, the African-American fighter pilots who overturned a lot of misconceptions when they went into battle in Europe in World War II. The script addresses not only the racism they faced from their white instructors on a remote base in Alabama ("This ain't 'The Wizard of Oz,'" one officer snarls at an aspiring pilot. "There ain't never been and ain't never gonna be no flying monkey.") but also the tensions between the men themselves, who came from all over America and had their own stereotypical ideas to overcome about other regions and other lifestyles. A self-assured, strutting Chicagoan in a zoot suit dismisses one of his fellow candidates as "country" until he finds out the man is actually from Harlem and trained on an airfield on Long Island that Charles Lindbergh once frequented. A flyer who comes from the West Indies and speaks with a strong accent is nicknamed "Coconut." Eventually, of course, such differences and discriminatory attitudes had to be put aside as these men prepared to work together in combat.

The Playhouse is an intimate, 120-seat venue, but director Khan and choreographer Hope Clarke use the limited space to maximum advantage, making us feel the claustrophobia the men must have experienced in those stuffy living quarters and classrooms and in those cramped planes. One of the show's many inspired touches is the use of a tap-dancing griot (a West African poet/storyteller/historian) who occasionally serves as a chorus to voice the men's unspoken feelings and anxieties, but more often enhances the mood of the moment by using his fast-moving feet to simulate the sound of an airplane engine coming to life, a stopwatch ticking away, a train chugging down the tracks, a nervous heartbeat, etc. It's the opening show of the Playhouse's summer season and I suspect it will turn into a word-of-mouth hit.

Ushering was generally a breeze (I only had to "relocate" one slightly confused gentlemen who had settled into the wrong seat -- the seat reserved for me, actually -- and needed to be directed to the other side of the house) and the Playhouse staff could not have been more cordial and helpful. One of my duties was to make the coffee that was served prior to the performance and everyone seemed to like the way I made it, which was a relief since, as many of my friends and family can attest, that is not always the case.