Nebraska Highway 1 runs west through rural Cass County before dipping southward past the Lofte Community Theatre. Its landmarks grow familiar:
The castle-like house. Conestoga Junior/Senior High. A herd of Angus on the right. Cass County Fairground. The Weeping Water turnoff. And, whenever you reach a ridgetop, thousands of acres of corn and soybean fields that stretch forever. The sky is as big as Montana’s.
The Lofte, reached by a dusty gravel road, has cornfields on three sides. It’s provided southeast Nebraska with quality theater for 50 years. In May, I narrated its production of “Our Town” by Thornton Wilder. Five times weekly for six weeks, I drove the 75-mile round trip.
Kevin Colbert, its longtime director, assembled a talented, welcoming cast. But like our seven performances, theater is ephemeral. After the last standing ovation, we disbanded.
The sense of loss is overwhelming. Peers you worked with disappear. The next production starts rehearsals without you. The pleasure of teamwork, of mutual investment, ends.
And your actor’s ego shrinks to its “near normal” size.
And you wallow, alone, in post-production blues.
