One of the blessings of having been around the arts of a small city for a long, long time is the surplus of memories that every moment evokes.

One of the curses of having been around the arts of a small city for a long, long time is the surplus of memories…

One night before the start of AthensWest’s production The Christians, during a period of “quality green room time” (thank you, Paul Thomas for that concept) in the men’s dressing room, a few old Lexington theatre stories were spinning. Marilyn Moosnick was mentioned.

I’ve written before of Marilyn and the affectionate place she fills in my mind and heart (see “I Killed Peter Pan” in this blog).

In college at UK, I acted with her sons in two plays; Summertree and The Night Thoreau Spent in Jail. She and her husband Franklin would pick the boys up after rehearsals and we would occasionally chat a bit. I perceived the pride she felt in her boys and the high standards to which they were held. They were standards for creativity…way more than standards for behavior. She expected her boys to respond with imagination, respect their elders, and respond with imagination…in that order. Oh…and learn their lines.

Marilyn had the gift of total attention.

When she turned to listen to you, the world was depopulated except for you. What you had to say might possibly change the world…or her opinion on the matter at hand, which was pretty much the same thing to me. It was daunting. It made you think…and think again before you blurted. Talking to Marilyn was playing with live ammunition.

That said, Marilyn was fey.

The stories of impetuousness are telling.

Her son Greg tells of a night at Studio Players. Marilyn and Franklin had been dating, but there as yet were no commitments. Marilyn was in the show and Franklin attended…with a date. As Franklin and his escort were exiting the performance, an errant jar of cold cream sailed from the second floor window of the theatre and shattered on the walkway, rendering the walkway hazardous and Franklin’s interest in his friend even more so.

Decades later, Marilyn and I served on a committee to raise funds to refurbish the Guignol Theatre. Marilyn volunteered to solicit Harry Dean Stanton – they had dated (once) when both were Theatre Department undergraduates in the fifties. She later related to the committee her phone conversation with Stanton. Harry reportedly said; “Marilyn, honey, you sound like a real firecracker, and I’m sure we had a real good time…but I’m broke.”

She encouraged me. She scolded me. She encouraged me. She listened to me. She encouraged me.

She did the same for Lexington…in that order.

She was a firecracker.

I miss her.