From the Rutland (Vermont) Herald
Party like it's 1969
July 28, 2008
By Brent Curtis Herald Staff
BENNINGTON — The Elks Lodge on Washington Street was a hip place to be on Sunday.
Tie-dyed T-shirts, moon beads and hair — long, flowing, untamed-freak-flag manes of hair — filled the otherwise square and well-kempt dining hall at the lodge where the
casting call for Academy Award-winning director Ang Lee's new movie, "Taking Woodstock," was held.
Hippies and those willing to play the part stood in line, posed for Polaroid shots and interviewed with casting directors, who asked them questions about their availability during the August shoot in New Lebanon, N.Y., queried them about their musical and acting talents and
inquired about their willingness to participate in nude scenes written into the film. A casting call took place in Brattleboro Saturday.
Nude or not, the dozens of people who came to audition were ready to get their groove on.
"It's all about the outfits," 50-year-old Valerie Toenes said, in her colored skirts and a hair wrap that complemented her daughter's peace sign and guitar nicely. "We figured if we got in, great. If not we at least had fun finding the outfits."
Toenes, who hinted at hippie-style leanings in her past and her 14-year-old daughter Jillon McGreal, who said she went through a hippie phase way back in middle school, drove up from Chatham, N.Y., to try their luck.
None of the participants learned on Sunday whether they were in or out, but Toenes and McGreal said the directors seemed interested in the mother's free-flowing hair and tarot card reading and the daughter's guitar playing.
Toenes, who most days inhabits a professional office suite where she works as an architect, said she expected those talents to attract interest.
What they didn't expect was the directors' interest in the family dog.
"They said they might be interested in recruiting our dog," Toenes said of the family's black Labrador-Rottweiler. "That was a surprise."
Toenes and McGreal said they planned to shop for a tie-dyed dog collar or a neckerchief to get their pooch ready for the part.
Mother and daughter were like many people at the audition in one key respect — they weren't real hippies.
Stephanie Hedges of Lenox, Mass., for example, never experimented with the counterculture lifestyle. But as an actress with a resume ranging from locally produced plays to extra roles in movies such as "National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation" and television shows such as "Walker, Texas Ranger," Hedges said she's up to taking on an unfamiliar role.
Unfortunately, her wardrobe wasn't.
But after digging through her closet, the 39-year-old said she hit upon a transparent paisley blouse — actually two large bandanas sewn together — which had a quasi-hippie appeal to it.
As a payday, the extra role would pay Hedges and the other extras $100 to $130 a day with some meals thrown in.
But Hedges said auditioning for extra roles can be worth the trip because non-speaking roles can transform into speaking roles if directors see talent.
"Ideally, a speaking role is what I'm hoping for," she said.
Nine-year-old Skylar Burditt of Rutland looked like a hippie with his face half-hidden behind long blonde locks of hair.
But Burditt said he doesn't know what a hippie is and he certainly isn't into the music of the '60s — he likes his hair long, according to his dad, so he can head-bang to the English heavy-metal band Iron Maiden.
"I know it was a concert with about 5,000 people," Burditt said when asked what he knew about Woodstock.
What Burditt does know is he wants to be an actor some day and a small role in a movie is just the stepping stone that the Rutland youngster, who has acted in two plays, said he is looking for.
Ironically, longtime hippies Janet Gordon and David Cook have something in common with the 9-year-old — their experience with Woodstock is limited to what they've heard.
Both Gordon, 62, and Cook, 58, were immersed in the counterculture when the iconic music and arts festival rolled onto Max Yasgur's 600-acre farm for three days of love and music.
But Gordon, who was living in a commune, was pregnant at the time and Cook, who was living in Massachusetts, said he couldn't hitch a ride.
Now Gordon, who works as a nurse, and Cook, who live together in Pownal, have a chance to relive history.
And Gordon, who said she was inspired to audition in part because of her successful bout with breast cancer last year, said she has every intention of playing the extra role like it's 1969 again.
"They asked me if I would do a nude shot and I said, 'Oh yeah,'" she said.
Contact Brent Curtis at
[email protected].
http://www.rutlandherald.com/apps/pbcs.dll/article?AID=/20080728/NEWS04/807280358/1003/NEWS02