by James T. Hosack, Jr.

By the Skin of My Teeth:
Or How I Upstaged My Old Friend & Teacher

Page 2 of 3

Not a Life of Luxury

Perhaps this love of the stage came from childhood. His father, John T. Cox, was a former drum major at Newport News High School who wrote their alma mater. His mother, Jaqueline Cox, was a dancer to whom he attributes most of his love of theater. “They didn’t push theater onto me; they simply made it available,” Don said at the rehearsal. He did not stay in Newport News, Virginia, for very long. He moved up to Annapolis with his family when his father moved for his job. This is where he came to know the stage. His first show was “H.M.S. Pinafore” when he took the lead as the Captain at seven years old. He continued to participate in theater all the way through college but, “It was in high school that I became aware that I liked directing over acting. I simply continued to direct because I could.”

Don is a product of his past. He’s a hodgepodge of different pieces of his life. He is extremely open to many different ideas, this stemming from his experimental college days when he attended Randolph Macon college. He said that there were so many outrageous nights there, but detailed only one. It included dancing in the main college fountain as he and his friends, naked, sang the Banana Splits theme song. “We didn’t have a stitch of clothing on!” He attended college in the 1960s where it was an alternative life style and “a lot of alcohol.”
Don has also traveled and experienced much in destinations all over the United States. He has directed in theater’s off-off Broadway in New York City. Following the deaths of both his parents spanning the brief time of two years, he made a big move: “I made the worst mistake of my life in 1996. I moved to California. I was trying to escape. When you lose both parents and you’re an only child, what the fuck do you do?” He absolutely hated California. “It’s a soulless creature. Value is placed on money, what you drive, and where you live.”

He has never really cared about any of the material things in life. He is a lifetime bachelor, trying to get by. Living in a basement, paying rent to the family living above him, Don has filled his small “apartment” with everything that he has acquired over the past 50 years. And his car is a purple Jeep with torn plastic windows covered with silver duct tape to prevent more damage, with a passenger seat full of books, trash, and scripts. There’s an ‘I Read Banned Books’ sticker on the rear bumper. Doesn’t equate to a life of luxury. He’s never had much money, either. “The reality of theater is that you won’t ever be able to pay the rent.”

Don knows that as long as he can transfer a message from script to stage and from stage to audience he has done what he set out to do. As the students rehearsed he smiled, laughed, and followed the laughter up with coughing. His hand instinctively rises to cover his mouth every time he coughs. The stroke caused his dominant right hand to be weak, leaving it semi-limp. But he compensates and gets through the rehearsal nicely, with students asking if they could restart the show every now and again. He chuckled and looked at his script only periodically. When he’s excited he stutters and mutters. Just as the rehearsal seemed to be getting underway it ended, just as randomly as it had begun.

To a lot of people Don is a rebellious teacher with different thoughts on how and what an education should be. And he is a man set in his beliefs and convictions as well, specifically for what theater can do for an audience. While sitting down with him in his classroom he tells me about his life before teaching at Peninsula Catholic high school, and his story directing a show in Kentucky.

“Have you ever heard of a play called Corpus Christi? It was by Terrance McNaley. It makes Jesus a gay high school student while Judas and the other disciples are friends of his. NYC picketed the play, but I loved it because it was confrontational. I was the first one to produce and direct it outside of NYC. Of course, I chose to direct this in Kentucky. The Baptists, Catholics, and the KKK picketed the show and there was a story on CNN. It was an amazing experience because every time I started my car I sincerely thought that it might blow up. The KKK actually spray-painted my windshield with the backwards swastika. It was scary as shit but WE SOLD OUT EVERY NIGHT!”

Two weeks to show-time

I received a text from Don saying that he had lost one of the male leads in the play. “His dad has taken him out of the show.” I arrived for the first rehearsal after this change. I pulled one of the student actors, Jim Sills, aside and asked him what was going on. Jim said that Pthe student had been taken out because of an honor code violation.

These are struggles that Don must deal with every now and again. He found an immediate replacement, Stuart Signor, who seemed excited but nervous. Don takes changes like these in stride, and he seemed to maintain composure. He does seem to be more worn out, though, and his cough was worse than before.

There were some students whom Don seemed to overlook during rehearsal who have taken the loss of the male lead a bit more acutely. Don can sometimes get so caught up in the action onstage that he cannot see the serious emotions offstage. Becky Ashworth seemed worn down and frustrated. She was taking the news about the loss of the lead a lot harder than everybody else. She was nervous about the show as well. “This doesn’t feel like the two-week mark; this feels like the beginning.”

Don has a tendency to get everything finished at the very end. It is astonishing how quickly he gets everything together. As I turn my attention back to Don during the rehearsal, he’s hollering for people to get their acts together. His face has turned the color of fury and he’s coughing harder than ever before.

Don has had this cough since he arrived at Peninsula Catholic. He had returned to Newport News from Richmond, coming back to nurture some family roots. “I thought it would be cool to come back because my father lived and grew up here in Newport News. This was around January 26, 2005.” In the five years that he has been back, he has had that nagging cough.

Three days to show-time

I walked into a classroom catty-corner to the cafetorium. There sat Mr. Tim Garrett, a religion teacher at Peninsula Catholic. He’s a teddy bear of a man in his knit sweater and khaki pants. He sat at his desk looking over some student work. Tim had been my “in” to some of Don’s real health problems. He told me that I had to make him go home, that he couldn’t stay and direct today. He can’t get any better without rest. Tim also mentioned to me that his cough was getting even worse than before.

I walked into the rehearsal hall worried, worried about Don’s cough. Don insisted that he was fine and that he was going to stay for the run. If there’s one thing that I’ve noticed about Don it’s that he’s one of the most stubborn people that I have ever known. The students had finally reached the “full run” phase of the rehearsal process. This included makeup, costumes, and hair. The show seemed to have new life. Throughout the run, Don’s cough was getting to the point where he could not breathe. By now I had started to worry about him even more than before. I handed him his water and a cough drop, which had become somewhat of a ritual over the past few weeks. I patted and rubbed his back as a mother does her infant child. As the rehearsal ended, the students’ faces started to show some concern for him. It’s as if they could see something coming.

The following day, Debbie Stone, a mother of a student in the show, and a long time “Drama Mama,” called me around six in the evening. The sun had just reached the point in which there was a warm glow across the night sky. “Don’s cough got worse,” she told me. She said that he was coughing all throughout the rehearsal and that the students were growing frightened for Don’s well being.

I had to stop listening to her describe the cough. This is where the story gets blurry, where the line of journalist and friend disappears.

Debbie continued. “He’s going to the hospital tomorrow in the morning and Billy is going to accompany him.” She asked me if I was going to be at rehearsal tomorrow. I was. The sun just dipped below the horizon and darkness seemed to fill the space around me. Would I take over direction, Debbie asked.

Could I?

“Don has been admitted to the hospital.”

That was the first thing I heard on the brisk morning of November 4, 2009, one day before the show opened. The only solace I got was from the kind voice of Debbie, who soon became my link to Don. “Don got worse by morning and was admitted to Riverside Hospital.” She asked me what I thought was going to happen to the show.

“It can’t stop. These kids are a day away from opening.”

Could I direct? I’m a reporter. But I was trained for the theater.
After the phone call I had understood that Don was in the hospital with what could be an advanced stage of pneumonia. The doctors weren’t entirely sure yet. They knew that his blood oxygen level dropped to 70%. An individual’s blood oxygen level should be between 95-100% with someone who is sick dropping no less than 85%. This led them to believe that Don may have had a mild heart attack and was still feeling the effects. What I knew was that I couldn’t visit him, yet.