Playhouse was my refuge

Ireceived an e-mail from my mother late last month: “Cate Van Wickler is in her last days.” Standing alone in my office, I felt like weeping. I had neither seen nor spoken to Cate in at least 10 years, and if I was aware of her battle with cancer, I had no idea her condition had become so critical. One week later she was gone.

From 1978 to 1991, Allenberry Resort Inn and Playhouse was my refuge. My mother and stepfather began acting at the theater in the late 1970s, and my stepfather later served as artistic director. Growing up in Manhattan, I loved spending a few weeks or months each year in Boiling Springs, far from the daily trials of teenage life in the city.

Each spring I took the train to Harrisburg, and after a 40-minute drive to “the property,” I went directly to the theater. I stopped backstage to see my mother and the other actors, and then I went down to the shop to see Cate. The theater shop was Cate’s domain, and tiny and unassuming though she was, she ruled it with a quiet authority that as much as any other factor kept the theater running smoothly year after year.

No matter what was happening in the shop when I arrived, Cate stopped what she was doing to give me a hug and ask me about my life during the previous year. I wish I could say I made the same effort with her, but I was a typically self-absorbed teenager and I’m sure I didn’t. Somehow I don’t think it bothered her though. Cate was the most selfless person I have ever known, and she seemed to care for people in her life without pre-condition.

Toward the end of high school, I spent a summer working for Cate in the shop. Each theater season, Cate became boss, mentor and den mother to 10 or so college-age kids who thought they wanted to act. Allenberry was an Equity theater in those days, and by working in the shop and performing small parts in the shows, aspiring actors could earn points toward membership in the union. I had no desire to act, but I liked building sets and hanging out with college kids, so I signed on for the summer.

Like the best teachers do, Cate taught me so many things that summer without me realizing it. She was a consummate professional, bending her charges to her will with enormous patience and grace. She defused countless squabbles, provided a shoulder for an endless river of tears, and still somehow managed to get nine plays and musicals up and running on time.

Late that summer I ran the lights for the musical Camelot as a last minute replacement for someone with actual experience. Jack Frost was the stage manager. He was also Cate’s husband, and if Cate was half the reason shows went up on time and without major glitches, Jack was the other half.

Jack and I got on well, but he was a perfectionist and I was new to running lights; I knew I was bound to cross him eventually. Sure enough, during the first preview, with critics in the audience, I went straight to black instead of fading out to end a romantic scene. Jack hit the roof. I didn’t blame him for being angry — running lights is not rocket science — but his harsh words through my headset hit like a slap to my 17-year-old face.

I sat there, momentarily stunned. And then I heard Cate’s calming voice coming through my headphones from the back of the theater, where she was following the show: “Jack,” she said. “Calm down.”

We heard a whoosh as Jack ripped the headset from his own head, and I imagined him stomping around silently just offstage, whispering a string of profanities. There was a brief pause as Cate and I registered what had happened. And then Cate calmly called the next cue, I brought the lights up, and the show continued.

“Don’t worry about it,” Cate whispered over the headset as the scene began. “You’ll get the hang of it.”

It was a brief, forgettable moment, but it was Cate all over. I was grateful for Cate’s calm and for her encouragement. The show must go on. Nobody understood those words better than Cate. The moment was never about her, it was about making sure the show, be it a play or be it life itself, went on. And she did that by giving all of herself to her family, to her friends and to the theater she called home for 25 years.

Cate and Jack had a baby girl just over 10 years ago. Cate had wanted a child for a long time; I have no doubt Lilly has been the center of Cate’s world for the past decade. I hope that in their time together, Lilly came to know and appreciate her mother the way scores of Equity Membership Candidates did over the years. I am sure Lilly is unbearably sad right now, but if Cate was half the mother to Lilly she was to us, she has given her daughter more than most children could ever dream of.

CHARLES LINEHAN writes from Manhattan, where he serves as an assistant district attorney.