Even during the summer, I used to come to school occasionally, work on stuff in the room (particularly when I was teaching drama), sometimes see people on campus.
In mid-summer ‘93, I had made one of the excursions on to campus to talk to Frankie about the upcoming year’s productions. For the Fall Production, I had planned Jerry Sterner’s Other People’s Money (if I could only find a good Garfinkle--I thought I already had a good Kate...WRONG); early winter would be the student-produced and directed One-Acts; late winter--if I could get the senior directors off their asses--could be a full-length student-directed production; and Spring would bring my first musical. I had narrowed my choices. One was a musical burlesque of Hamlet. But that was only a back-up. What I really wanted to do was The Rocky Horror Show. I knew this was going to be a tough sell. But I gave Frankie a fifteen-minute pitch, extolling the name recognition of the play (bigger box office in addition to a larger audition turn-out) and the fun of the play (I knew that she had seen the play and the film and was a fan... she had never had any problem with some of the risqué, risky, bawdy stuff I’d done on stage before... so I was pushing the envelope). She gave me a qualified green-light. I had to make it past GoD at the d.o..
This would not be easy. However, she gave me some hints as to how to sell it. Come prepared with the script. But FIRST cover the positive aspects of the play (up-tempo, good music, funny, instant recognition). Then address the controversial aspects (transexualism, transvestitism, promiscuity), but then come back to the fact that the play was about to celebrate its twenty-fifth anniversary... sell, sell, sell.
I had a preliminary meeting with GoD a few weeks later, where he basically brushed me off and took the script to peruse. I headed back across town to drop off a copy with Frankie and to tell her how it went.
When I arrived, the office was in a state of upheaval. It was bad enough that Lily Roosevelt had been yanked as our assistant principal a week earlier, but now we had learned that Frankie’s cancer had taken a turn for the worse. The District had named an "interim co-principal." The only problem was that it wasn’t Jack Knight, who was next in command, and rightfully the logical choice (since he was a long-term Chumash man, had been with the block schedule since before its inception, and knew the running of the site). The "interim co-principal" was Joan Grey.
I had known Joan Grey since my first year in the district, when she had recently received her administrative credential and was at the d.o., heading up Staff Development. She was good. She also had just about universal respect for her abilities in the English classroom, where she had been awarded district "Teacher of the Year" a year after Frankie had won it (Frankie had been awarded the honor the year of my graduation, the Year of Our Whatever 1981). Later, Grey went on to M.O. to be the assistant principal there, then a few years ago she became the principal at Gateway (the continuation school out at the airport being a kind of minor-league farm system for trying out new district administrators for the five major sites--the Show).
Now she had been named the "interim co-principal" with Frankie. Supposedly the two had been friends, as if this would make her instatement on the Chumash throne more logical. It certainly didn’t make it any more palatable for many of the staff. She was an outsider. She had no personal tie to the schedule. The DISTRICT had put her here. More importantly to the Chumash people, one of their own had been overlooked and snubbed.
Most rallied behind Jack, and many wanted to confront the d.o. concerning this slap in the face. Cooler heads prevailed. My only concern was if this choice was sanctioned by Frankie. If she was ill, and she wanted to work with Joan, then that was okay by me. If it was an imposition by the d.o. then I wanted no part of it. The district said it was Frankie’s call, but no one talked to Frankie again in person.
The school year began with Joan in charge as "interim co-principal." It ended with her as principal. In the meantime, Frankie died, Joan forced cuts in OPM and both she and GoD vetoed Rocky.
There was a new sheriff in town.
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