Today we’d like to introduce you to Tom Mook.
How did you get from wherever to here, and where was wherever?
In college, in the early sixty’s, I met and married my wife. I was majoring in Speech and Drama (I may have had a slight ego then). I performed in a number of productions, both at the college and in local community theatre. After graduation, in the summer of “64, I apprenticed for three months with Kenley Players in Warren and Columbus, Ohio, which was run by John Kenley. (As a hermaphrodite, “Mother John” dressed as a man in the summer in Ohio and as a flaming redheaded woman in Las Vegas in the winter.) My wife and I wrote to each other two and three times a week and I called at least every other week. Long distance calls were expensive back then. At the end of the summer season, I returned to my home and wife in South Florida.
I was quickly cast in a local production of The Fantasticks as The Boy, and it played well for three weekends. My ego was bubbling over. My wife and I made the decision to follow up on this theatre thing and make the big move to New York to see if I could make it work. Very soon after arriving, I fell in with a great bunch of (also) aspiring actors, making the rounds of as many auditions as possible. Word came down the line that the New York production of The Fantasticks, at the Sullivan Street Playhouse, was frantically searching for someone to play The Boy, just for the upcoming weekend. I never did find out just why that actor was gone for the weekend, but, since I had just finished playing the role in South Florida, I made a call, was quickly accepted, made one rehearsal and played the weekend. No publicity other than a brief announcement at the beginning of each show – “The part of . . . ”
That was my introduction to New York Theatre. Unfortunately, no other parts of note came due after or because of that, but through contacts, I apprenticed to the general manager of Theatre de Lys on Christopher Street (Now The Lortel Theatre) for a couple of years,
I spent several weeks one summer participating with The O’Neill Theatre Foundation summer playwrights’ workshop in Connecticut as an actor, stage-reading new works by such up-and-comers as John Guare, Sam Shepherd and Lance Wilson. I worked my way into becoming New York Administrator for the Foundation for another couple of years.
When we found that we were going to become parents, we didn’t care for the idea of raising a child in Manhatten, yet couldn’t afford to move. My father was manager of a music and appliance store back in South Florida and asked us to move back down there. He reasoned that I could work for him and join the local fire department, thereby creating a very stable family foundation and income. With the fire department’s one day on duty and two days off schedule, I could work the store. Long story short, we took him up on it.
I worked for the fire department, fighting fires and saving lives for the next 28 years until I retired. Looking for our next purpose in our lives, my wife and I decided to move from South Florida to Central Florida where our older daughter was living, and beginning her own family. We “retired to the north” to help raise the grandkids.
The city of Lakeland, Florida is where we landed. I found out that it had a very good community theatre and I was motivated to get “back on the boards.” I tried out for a show, was cast, and through the past 18 years have performed in 28 different productions – dramas, comedies and musicals. (In the beginning of my theatrical endeavors, I was what was known as a “triple threat,” that is, an actor/singer/dancer. Now, at 82, I am an actor/singer who “moves well.”
When I was in New York, I did have some stage activity. An occasional small bit here and there, the longest was a year run with The American Savoyards off-Broadway performing Gilbert & Sullivan in repertory. I would do a show from 8 to 11, and then some of us would go and build sets for some other production. I learned stagecraft well. I found that I was asked to work on many sets because I brought my own tools. When we moved back to Florida, I worked the fire department and my dad’s store for several years until Dad died and the store closed. It was then that I traded working in the store for working for a local cabinet shop, utilizing my talents at construction and learning woodworking. I became a woodworker. When we moved to Lakeland, I had my own woodshop in the back of my place, met other woodworkers and was introduced to wood turning. Part of wood turning was making pens, which I found that I liked. I’ve been turning pens in wood, acrylic, pretty much anything and everything.
Still acting, I’ve been performing steadily for the past 13 months straight, moving from one show to the next, all at the same community theatre. I’m taking a break now.
Has it been a smooth road? Were there any bumps along the road?
Life is never a smooth road. How you progress forward is determined by how you handle the bumps and the changes of direction. I took life as it came to me, with not much planning along the way, mostly making sudden judgments and hoping for the best.
When we moved to New York, I had an address book with some great contacts that had been given to me to follow up. The first week in New York, I went into a phone booth in lower Manhatten to make a call, laid the book on the little shelf. I left it in the phone booth. When I went back to retrieve it, naturally it was gone, and so were my chances of making great contacts.
When we found we were pregnant, it was best for us to leave the inconsistency of theatre living and move south to establish consistancy for the sake of family. That was a good move. When my dad died and the business closed, I fell in to working for a cabinet shop and subsequently working for myself. A good decision was the move to Lakeland to help raise the grandbabies.
There were many other little bumps along the way, some subtle, some no so much.Right now, I’m retired and enjoying performing at my local community theatre. I am also in the middle of cleaning out my house and property in order to sell and move into a local community-care residence village. I’m 82 and when I begin to deteriorate, I don’t want to be a burden to my daughters. Cleaning out the house is difficult, as the real estate agent wants it to look as open and spacious as possible. This means that I have a 16-foot POD in the yard filled with furniture, I have a 10×10 warehouse half-filled with boxes and bookcases and “stuff,” but the real problem is my woodshop out back. I have been a woodworker for 40 years, 25 of them here. The woodshop has been accumulating more and more “stuff” and I have another 10×10 warehouse which is beginning to fill up with tools, materials and other related “stuff” that I’m hoping to put into a shed at the new house.
My sister-in-law gave me a great bit of advice. She said to walk into a room, select what I want to keep, and the rest of everything is just “Stuff.” You don’t care where it goes or who gets it or what it’s worth, you just get rid of it. Family, friends, thrift stores, the local dump . . . just get rid of it. But it’s just not that easy. You pick up something and you remember where it came from, why you got it, what it meant to you then, and you have to get rid of it. “T’aint easy, McGee.”
What am I known for? It depends on who you ask. To my church, I am the Number One Tenor, the one who has the most training, the one who can follow the director. To my theatre, I am a volunteer who can spend time equally on stage, back stage, parking cars or whatever is necessary for the sake of the show. To my wife, who passed away last year after 60 years of marriage, I was the breadwinner who was always able to pay the bills and still save something for emergencies and, yes, we loved each other and loved our Lord God.
God has always been so very good to us, providing for us, teaching us, leading us. Everything we did, everywhere we went, He was, and is, always with us. When my wife became ill with a terminal illness, He gave us five years together as she faded, which gave me the opportunity to make her the most important thing in my life, to see to her every need above everything else. When I was with the fire department, I became one of the firehouse cooks. (Part of God’s plan)
God used our five years to teach me not only to give my wife more love than I had ever given her, but also to learn to live alone. As she became more and more bedridden and infirm, I spent more time elsewhere – in other rooms, in other places, doing the cooking, the laundry, the household duties, in addition to keeping up the maintenance of the house and the four acres of our property. This is why I’m selling this large house and property and moving.
I don’t know if I am set apart from others. I tend to blend in with those whom I am around, whether it is at church, the theatre or a local woodworkers’ meeting.
What are you doing now, and how is it going? What sets you apart from others?
Right now, I’m retired and enjoying performing at my local community theatre. I am also in the middle of cleaning out my house and property in order to sell and move into a local community-care residence village. I’m 82 and when I begin to deteriorate, I don’t want to be a burden to my daughters. Cleaning out the house is difficult, as the real estate agent wants it to look as open and spacious as possible. This means that I have a 16-foot POD in the yard filled with furniture, I have a 10×10 warehouse half-filled with boxes and bookcases and “stuff,” but the real problem is my woodshop out back. I have been a woodworker for 40 years, 25 of them here. The woodshop has been accumulating more and more “stuff” and I have another 10×10 warehouse which is beginning to fill up with tools, materials and other related “stuff” that I’m hoping to put into a shed at the new house.
My sister-in-law gave me a great bit of advice. She said to walk into a room, select what I want to keep, and the rest of everything is just “Stuff.” You don’t care where it goes or who gets it or what it’s worth, you just get rid of it. Family, friends, thrift stores, the local dump . . . just get rid of it. But it’s just not that easy. You pick up something and you remember where it came from, why you got it, what it meant to you then, and you have to get rid of it. “T’aint easy, McGee.”
What am I known for? It depends on who you ask. To my church, I am the Number One Tenor, the one who has the most training, the one who can follow the director. To my theatre, I am a volunteer who can spend time equally on stage, back stage, parking cars or whatever is necessary for the sake of the show. To my wife, who passed away last year after 60 years of marriage, I was the breadwinner who was always able to pay the bills and still save something for emergencies and, yes, we loved each other and loved our Lord God.
God has always been so very good to us, providing for us, teaching us, leading us. Everything we did, everywhere we went, He was, and is, always with us. When my wife became ill with a terminal illness, He gave us five years together as she faded, which gave me the opportunity to make her the most important thing in my life, to see to her every need above everything else. When I was with the fire department, I became one of the firehouse cooks. (Part of God’s plan)
God used our five years to teach me not only to give my wife more love than I had ever given her, but also to learn to live alone. As she became more and more bedridden and infirm, I spent more time elsewhere – in other rooms, in other places, doing the cooking, the laundry, the household duties, in addition to keeping up the maintenance of the house and the four acres of our property. This is why I’m selling this large house and property and moving.
I don’t know if I am set apart from others. I tend to blend in with those whom I am around, whether it is at church, the theatre or a local woodworkers’ meeting.
Have you taken any risks and, if so, how has that worked for you?
We took a risk when we got married. We were in college and it was a very sudden thing. But it worked out. We took a risk picking up stakes and moving to New York for theatre. But it worked out. We took a risk moving back to South Florida to raise a family. But it worked out. We took a risk when I retired and we moved up to Central Florida to help raise the grandkids. But it has worked out. God has been with us every step of the way. It has been said that if you want to know whether God has been in your life, it’s just like reading Hebrew. Go backwards. Look backwards at the many times in your life, and you will see just how God put His hand on you and over you. That’s why you have to believe in Him, trust Him, and never doubt Him. Want to take a risk? Pray first for guidance.
Contact Info:
- Website: TomMook.com
