Community Theatre of Emporia

Letters from Longmont

Posted on May 12th, 2008 by Playwright.
Categories: Asides.

Editors note:

Mid Summer Fair, Community Theatre of Emporia’s annual summer theatre event in Peter Pan Park will be a bit different this year. Scott Rochat, who has been single handedly responsible for penning the adaptations of Shakespeare plays as well as some other classics done by our children’s group, has returned to his roots in Longmont, Colorado.

We miss his wit and skill with words, now more than ever.

With that said, here is a post that he wrote for us shortly after his departure in October of 2007.

Jerry Garcia had it right — what a long, strange trip it’s been ….
For those of you who missed it, I am no longer an Emporian or even a Kansan. About a week and a half ago, I moved to my old hometown of Longmont, Colo. to take a job at the newspaper there. Dan Boyce, the CTE’s fearless leader, asked me to send periodic dispatches from the CTE’s Rocky Mountain Bureau,so here we are. He may even live to regret the request.

Mark Twain had it right: “Two moves equal one fire.” Moving was, as expected, a royal pain in the patookas. We spent all of Saturday (Sept. 22) and part of Sunday (Sept. 23) loading the truck, aided by family and at times by fearless friends from the church and the CTE (Thanks to Dad, Jamie, Jaimee, Tom, Theresa, Trevor, Gayle, Adam, Jake and Pastor Chad for all their hard work and help). We didn’t actually arrive until nearly midnight on Sunday by which time we were pretty well zonked.

The new house in Longmont is a nice one, in a quiet neighborhood just a block away from a nice city park with a huge lake. It’s within spitting distance of the hospital (no small advantage, given Heather’s various conditions). It’s also currently drowning in a sea of cardboard as we try to make our way through box after box, realizing all the while that we’re a little shy of shelf space for all the books we brought out. Not too bad … four or five more bookcases should do it.

We had a little unintentional excitement early on when Heather smelled gas in the house. The gas company diagnosed the hot water heater, which the landlord quickly fixed and it seemed the problem was solved … until that evening, when we smelled gas AGAIN. It took seven, count them, SEVEN hours to get a gas company man out. Supposedly, there were problems all over the Denver area, but the man who came to check our leak out at 3 a.m. said he lived in town and had been called just a half hour before. Naturally, by the time he got there, the scent had disappated. Grrr…

For now, things are settling down well. Unfortunatly, it will be a while before I can begin theater out here — a noon to 8:30 p.m. work schedule isn’t terribly conducive to rehearsals or performances. So for now, I’ll have to be satisfied with reports of the melodrama in Americus. Keep me posted on all the insanity, will you?

Heather and I will never forget all the wonderful friends we made in CTE. It didn’t really hit home until the night of the goodbye party, when several of our stalwarts presented me with a plaque, a memory book and a cake emblazoned with almost every production I had ever been part of. I’ll admit it — I started misting over. You never realize what a good thing you have until you leave it, don’t you?

I’m still glad to be here in the high country. Now I just wish I could take about 40 or 50 friends with me …..

All the best,

Scott Rochat
Transplanted Playwright

Afterword:

Scott,

If you will write more for us, I promise to be a more attentive and caring editor. I won’t let your words lie fallow in the drafts queue for 7 months ever again.

I promise.

Repentantly Yours,

Dan

0 comments.