by Sue Freet

Ed Cardwell is one of our very quiet volunteers.  Now in his second season with ACT I, he has proven to be a very valuable addition to our group.  He is very knowlegable in his ability to carry out those specialized technical tasks that a majority of us lack the expertise to accomplish.  As Ed has built the sets for our last two Main Stage productions, (Annie and Lost in Yonkers) we felt that it was time to formally introduce him to our members as our Member of the Month for October, 2003.  

Ed retired from Monsanto, where he had been an Electrical and Instrumentation Specialist.  Not being one to enjoy boredom, Ed and his wife Nancy moved to Newhall to be closer to their grandchildren and Ed was hired as a Facilities Mechanic III at the Iowa Braille School .  

A good example of Ed's ingenuity was to be seen in our recent production of Annie.  Making a major
musical fit on the stage of the Palace Theatre can be a trick, since backstage storage space for moavable
set pieces is limited.  Ed cleverly made the beds from the orphanage scene do double duty.  Upended,
they became the structure for the Hooverville scene, as shown below.

For ten of their years while living in Wapello, Ed and Nancy owned “CC’s Place” which started as a teen center.  As his children grew up, CC’s Place was converted to a restaurant.  Ed and Nancy were owners/operators.  Soon, their restaurant began doing dinner theaters, highlighting local community talent.   Nancy would cook the meals and Ed would do everything from sets to sound to lights to shift to seating arrangements.  Many of the shows done by this community theater were musicals written by a local writer.  Each spring would feature two short comedies.  Some of the more popular shows done by the group were Scrooge, HMS Pinafore and Greater Tuna.  Ed also enjoyed an Irish cabaret performed there.

Although Ed says he'll never to appear on stage, in our production of Kiss Me, Kate he served
 as Property Master -- and for that show the crew was occasionally sucked on stage due to the
"in rehearsal" nature of the play.  You can catch Ed in the picture above, moving between the
 band and the actors as he organizes props for the bumbling actors in the show.

Ed’s ACT I experience includes building the sets for Annie and Lost in Yonkers; set/shift crew and Stage Manager for Lost in Younkers; and Property Master, set and shift crew for Kiss Me Kate, which Ed notes was also his onstage debut.

Ed Cardwell created the set for our May production of Lost in Yonkers, a deceptively
simple arrangement of five working freestanding doors and a working freestanding
window, to portray the Kurnitz family's apartment.

Ed has been assisted in his ACT I projects by his son Eddie and his wife Nancy.  We thank the Cardwells for their contributions to us thus far and hope they will be available to assist us for some time to come!

UPDATE:  Since this article was first printed, Ed has since built the set for our 2004 production of The Sound of Music, and will do the same for our 2005 production of The Music Man.  He was also recently appointed to fill a vacancy on our board of directors.

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