Louisiana Alive!; Oltraband Theater & Missy Crews

This week Louisiana Alive goes down the mighty Mississippi with the Otrabanda Theater Company and meets Miss Louisiana for 1980, Missy Crews. [music] [music] [music] Old Man River. For centuries, its muddy waters have teemed with adventure. This edition of Louisiana Alive follows some contemporary river adventurers on their trip down the often treacherous and unpredictable Mississippi. The Otrabanda Theater Company begins its summer tour just south of St. Louis at Commerce, Missouri. Their destination: New Orleans. On the way down the river, they stop at small towns on the river's bank and offer an evening of theater under a big circus tent. Our crew met the company at a church in Morganza for a lively performance of "Pinky and the Poor Boys." [No sound]

After singing, dancing and acting their hearts out in Morganza, the company works late into the night striking the set and tent and packing up for the next part of their trip down river. Then after a night's rest in the church hall, it's up early loading supplies such as gasoline,

food, drink and bedding onto the raft and it's off to Baton Rouge for another performance. [background noise] The life on the river is, is uh, even after 10 years, it's still exciting. We, at this point we have a motor, which uh, is a very tiny motor. It's not like we go cruising down the river. It's 25 horsepower to run a raft that has 10 people on board. So you can imagine we only go six miles an hour tops, with the current. Against the current, uh, we can't move at all. So it's still a, a raft trip. It's not a motor boat trip, and we spend as much time as we can floating. We did the tour for three years with no power at all. We just pushed a big raft out in the river and

floated downstream. We had oars to keep -- to go in and out of the channel to get in into the place where the current was moving and away from the tow boats. But it was a float trip, and now we have a motor. So we motor out to where the current is and usually cut off and float. And the way the day goes is we, we uh, start off early, um, we motor out into the channel, cut off, float, everyone goes swimming, washes while the cook, Greg, gets a hot breakfast together. He has a, a kitchen right on board. It's a very small raft--12 feet by 20 feet. But Greg manages to have an oven on board. We have four coolers that hold a lot of beer, all the cold stuff that we need -- butter and milk and so on. And Greg will cook hot breads during the day. He bakes in his oven. We have a big barbecue that he, uh...that, it's the kind that seals up so it can work like an oven also. He roasts beef or turkeys, hens.

And so we have a big hot breakfast. Then we usually motor, try and get 20 miles in or so, then we cut off for lunch. And uh, we just take it easy. We go swimming. There's a canoe. We go canoeing. We try and have as good a time as we can. Drink a lot of beer. Relax. Then we, after lunch we usually motor a little bit more, put another 10, 20 miles, uh, cut off for dinner. And Greg makes a big dinner, like I say, roasted turkey or makes some kind of a big meal. And uh, we land at a sandbar to spend the night. And the sand bars are real, they're real beautiful. They're protected from the tow boats. They're totally deserted. There's deer out there, um, all kinds of turtles. Unfortunately snakes quite, quite often, but we set up a big fire there and uh, it's ours. It's an island. It's our island and we stay out there for the night and usually get up about

six o'clock and it starts over again. Push out into the water. Have breakfast and go on. Now after that, uh, the second day usually we'll arrive at the town we're heading for. The towns are pretty generally spaced out about 50 miles from each other. So we have like two days travel out on the river. Then we hit town and then that's where the paradise part of the tour stops, and it's total hard work. Because we don't have anyone to set up our equipment for us, to put up the circus tent. We do everything. We do the.. we lay out the props, we lay out the costumes, we set up the tent, we uh, put up the chairs. We go into towns and play music to make sure an audience comes. We hand out leaflets. [music]. We strike the show and put everything back in, load up the trailer and put everything in [music] all the masks in their little cases and put them in boxes, and roll up the tent. [music] And it's very hard, hard, hard work, but there's always that two hours of climactic uh, excitement when we are performing in front of the

totally wild and raucous crowd of people that are not uh, the normal type audience sitting in a dark room, [Music] but instead it's a raucous crowd, in a circus tent with babies crying, dogs yapping, and people laughing and having a good time. And it's exciting. Really, there's a demand on you to, to pull the audience's attention, you know, just to grab it and hold it. And if you lose it, unlike in other setting, like unlike being in the theater where they'll wait until the next thing happens, just uh, uh, not being used to any kind of theatrical conventions, they, for them it's like tv--if they don't like it they just start talking to each other, get up walk away or complain. And then when they do like it, they just, they're riveted and they, you know, you see children's mouths gape open, people smiling and start laughing. It's just an exciting, real active way to perform with instant feedback. Once at the site the work really begins as every member pitches in to get ready for curtain time, a

few hours away. In the midst of all this hectic activity, we talked to Director David Dawkins. ...of reasons--one of the most is your method of transportation. You come down the river on a raft, is that right? That's right. How did this come about? How did you decide to do it that way? I think it's ah--

the first year we um, just got a set of charts and looked where there'd be a town. We had no schedule and no uh, deadlines to meet and when we came to a town off the river we just went in and did a show. We'd put up a tent and the crowd would gather. We can't do it that way anymore.

Things have gotten too expensive, and um, we need to have things set up so that we do get paid for most of our shows. We still do some totally free shows, but uh, we do it in terms of um, the people that have responded the best. We've played almost every single town on the river and some have responded with support and others have said, "Well if you want to come back fine, but we can't help you." So those towns we don't go back to and the places that do support us, that's where we go. Although floating down the river on a raft is a great deal of fun, the members of Otrabanda take their acting seriously. They always make sure that there's enough time before each performance for their routine warm-up. Through a series of exercises they prepare themselves physically and mentally for the show. Surely one of the brightest spots in the entire performance of "Pinky and the Poor Boys" is the actress who plays Pinky with total abandon, Patience Pierce, who we managed to get aside for a few minutes before the show started. Patience, tell us about this year's Otrabanda play. Well, it's named "Pinky and the Poor Boys" and it's about a rock and roll band - I'm Pinky and the Poor Boys, you can see them down there.

It's about a rock and roll band and the lead singer is kidnapped by a wicked king of outer space, Pluton, and taken up to Pluto up in outer space, and he has a whole band of goons and things like that of his own. He has a whole army, and he wants me to marry him and also teach his goons how to play music. He calls them weapons with our saxophones and trumpets and stuff from our band. It's pretty...and then I'm saved. I don't know if I can tell you the end of the show. Happy ending, at least you can tell us that. Oh, yes it's a happy ending, definitely. Where did this show come from? Well, we made it from scratch this year. We all, most of us come from New York and we all went down to New Orleans. David hired all the musicians pretty fresh. They're not Otrabanda Company members per se. And uh, we just uh, made it in four weeks, it was a very--actually three weeks. Because we had an opening three weeks into rehearsal and after that we were so busy building the raft and getting the set together and everything that we just sort of stopped rehearsing. But it turned out really well and we rehearse almost before every show. We change things and

make things different, learn new songs. How about the music? Is it original? No, most of it is old '50s rock and roll, rhythm and blues and things like that. All the solos that the musicians do, obviously are original. And we have I think two songs written specifically for the show. And we've changed the words in one song for the show but we didn't write it. How is the show cast? Are there auditions every year or are the parts just set? Yes, we had auditions this year for the musicians.We didn't really audition actors because we had Pluton and Pinky and John Fleming was our mime and actor. We had our actors. David auditioned the musicians up in New York. One thing you do absolutely amazes me. You're about to go on stage tonight, but I've seen you out there pounding stakes into the ground to put the tent up. There, there are no special star dressing rooms for the lead in the play, are there? Everybody works, don't they? Every single person here is in the show except for the cook--chef, I should say. And Susan, our business manager, and they're working all the time, too. It is very hard work and we're getting a little old for it.

P-I-N-K-Y [Play] [Play]

[Play] [Play] The levee down there. We go right down the middle.

In Atlantic City, the state of Louisiana will be well represented at the annual

Miss America Pageant by Baton Rouge native Missy Crews. It's been a hectic summer for Missy, but we managed to catch up with her rehearsing the dance she hopes will help win her the coveted title of Miss America. We're here at Phoebe Brantley's dance studio in Baton Rouge with Miss Louisiana for 1980 Missy Crews. Missy, first congratulations for becoming Miss Louisiana - Thank you - and good luck in the Miss America pageant. Thank you so much. Do you feel confident, do you feel that you just might win? I feel like I have as good a chance as anybody else, you know. I think going up there, you have to feel like that. You never know what to really expect, but I met some of the other girls and I think I know what they're looking for so I do, I feel confident at this point. How did you come to enter the Miss Louisiana contest? Well, actually, I'm really new to the whole system. I didn't enter any type of Miss America preliminary pageant until about two years ago. And it was sort of a joke. My sorority sisters said oh, be

in the Miss Baton Rouge pageant and I entered and was first runner up and I won talent and swimsuit and I thought well this is easy enough. And I decided to enter again this year and I won and went on to Miss Louisiana. Do you really enjoy the competition? Well, it's a nice performing outlet for me since I'm not dancing with Miss Brantley's company anymore. I miss, you know, being able to perform. And it was a nice chance to get to dance, which is what I'm interested in and also the scholarship benefits were very appealing. Missy, very often girls make these pageants a career. They start very young and they enter over and over again. But it wasn't that way with you, was it? No, not at all. I think a lot of times girls enter as a chance to better themselves. And it's a sort of thing where they, in each pageant they're in, they feel like they do a little bit better. Fortunately, I've had other chances to do the same sort of thing through television work and chances to get out where I didn't have to use this as an outlet the whole

time. During the Miss Louisiana pageant, did you feel like you had a real good chance all the way through the competition? Well, like I was telling you earlier, there are preliminaries and I didn't win a preliminary. I didn't win talent and I didn't win swimsuit. But I knew that I was like second on the list or definitely a strong third. And because of that I knew that all around I was scoring high and some of the girls might have had a high score in swimsuit or one of the other preliminaries. But they really lacked someplace else and so I felt confident about the overall image that I was given. And how did it feel when they announced your name? It felt wonderful. I won the the Congeniality award with a, they split it with another girl and I. We won and I think that meant so much to me and I was so touched that really when they called Miss Louisiana, I was excited, but it was sort of, you know, almost anticlimactic after winning that.

I see the girls each year in the Miss America Pageant and when one of them wins the rest of them smile and clap and look so happy. Is it really like that? Is there a camaraderie and congeniality among the girls or is it more cutthroat than it looks? I was surprised to find that there really was not competitive air that I was expecting. There were a few girls that were returning that did have a little, you know, they were tense about the whole thing. But for the most part, everybody was really nice. And I think the reason that I got along well with everybody is that I made them laugh at themselves. I mean you're in such a vanity type situation. If you don't laugh at yourself and sort of make fun of the whole thing. You know, I could've gotten through it, I don't think. Did you have any trouble at all psyching yourself up to going out there in a bathing suit, in an evening gown parading around? Well, in evening gown competition, the main thing I think you want to remember is that if you like your gown, you feel pretty. What they're looking at is how you walk and just how you control yourself in front

of a large crowd. There's not that much to what you do. It's just a poise portion, I'd say, of the competition. As far as swimsuit goes, I imagine that is everyone's, you know. They do not like that one. It's the least favorite, but what they want to see is just that you're healthy and they're not looking for the big glamour girl figure or anything. And it's just part of the all around image that they're looking for. There's a lot emphasis in the Miss America Pageant that it is not actually a beauty contest. That talent is really the most important thing and personality. Did you find that that is true? That the emphasis is on talent or personality? Well, I like to think that it definitely stresses more than just looks. It is the highest-paying scholarship program for women in the United States and I know that the opportunity and chances that I've been given through it are really going to help my career, I think. I know it's already helped me in the people that I've

met and the opportunities that have been given to me. What type of career are you interested in pursuing? Well, I'd like to go back to New York and finish studying. I'm really interested in musical comedy. My ballet training has helped me put a lot of ham in me and, you know, there's just something about the musical stage that really I like, the throb of New York and the pace. I'd like to go back and study dance. Missy, tell us about your dance. I understand it's spectacular. I like it because I think it's different, and I really don't think that there's ever been anything like it. I know I never have seen anything on the Miss America Pageant. So it's just oriented, it's more of a contemporary ballet and jazz oriented. It's to [inaudible]'s jazz version of West Side Story, the Jets song, which is a revival on Broadway right now. I'm using a live orchestra in Atlantic City, and I think that that will definitely help my energy level and, you know, it'll just keep the tempo up.

Would you consider it a goal of yours to at least be able to do your dance on national television? I think definitely. A lot of girls feel like, you know, oh if I could just get in the top 10. I think everybody's just pleased that they've won their state title when they go up there, and some want the rest more than others. Some are just happy to be there. Some all they want is to get in top 10 and some are for a little more, but definitely I think everybody especially if they are really interested in a performing arts career wants the chance that their talent will be nationally seen. I understand that the interviews are very important to the competition. What are they about? Well, at this level, I would imagine that the interview is the most important and by the time they judge those last 10 girls, I would think it counted almost 95 percent because what Miss America does, basically, it's a PR job for the three big sponsors, which are Nestle's and Gillette and Kellogg. And she goes around and talks to, you know,

people in different organizations and she represents a lot of people and a lot of women. So your interview counts very much. Are you ready to give up a year of your life to travel around the country and be Miss America? I think that these early morning appearances wouldn't stop and that's probably good for me. I'm learning a whole new discipline just from what little I've done. And so I think it would be very good for me. I don't think it would really be like giving up a year, but gaining very much. Maybe not so much recently, but during the '70s, the Miss America Pageant and pageants like it suffered an awful lot of abuse at the hands of the feminists who felt that it was perhaps demeaning for a woman to participate in something like this. Have you heard any of those negative feelings? I think that what they question is the exploitation of the whole thing. You know, why do you want to put yourself in this position? What are you really trying to prove? And it's

the scholastic advantages and I wouldn't find this sort of monetary opportunity all at one time in any other position. You can't knock it, you know. And I'm not a big feminist. I do believe in a lot of the parts that a lot of things about ERA, but I don't feel that this is offensive. Thank you, Missy. Thank you. Good luck. Thank you.