Show must go on for AMXS civilian

  • Published
  • By Tech. Sgt. Jason Schaap
  • 931st ARG Public Affairs
If all goes well for Karen Levy, a wedding will go horribly wrong tonight. Deadly wrong.

Levy, an administrative assistant for the 931st Aircraft Maintenance Squadron, is director of "The Wedding Song," a murder mystery dinner theater scheduled to show at the Robert J. Dole Community Center here.

Levy is part of a base theater group called the McConnell Players. The group's last play, "Little Shop of Horrors," was a "very big success" that "received tons and tons of positive comments," Levy said.

Levy didn't direct Little Shop. Nor was she part of the cast. She was backstage, where her love for theater and her love for "the creative" come together. Painting. Designing. Giving life to a story's setting is her thing.

But when the Players couldn't find a director for Wedding Song, she took on the challenge. Because for Karen Levy, the show must go on. Community theater is part of who she is.

For 13 years, Levy sought out theater groups wherever her husband's Air Force career took her. Almost a year ago, she helped found the Players. Her decision to direct "The Wedding Song" was part of building something from nothing. The young group needed help and Levy needed the young group.

"I don't want (the Players) to go away," the Olmsted Falls, Ohio, native said.

Though she usually avoids the spotlight, Levy has stepped out front to direct twice before. It's the directing dirty work, the "hurting (of) feelings," that she could do without. "Sometimes you have to be mean," she said.

The directing rewards, on the other hand, are many. Levy enjoys watching the show progress, she said, knowing "no matter how many bad rehearsals you have it always comes together in the end."

She enjoys watching community theater first-timers like Anise Abdul-Hameed, who is also a computer network administrator for the 931st Air Refueling Group. "I like seeing people brand new getting into it and enjoying it," Levy said.

Levy's own journey began 13 years ago as a way to be involved in something her daughter, Claire, wanted to do. Mother and daughter have been castmates in their own community theater story ever since. "She's been involved the whole way through," Karen said of her now 19-year-old daughter.

In "The Wedding Song," Claire plays Bonnie, a love-hungry girl in search of any willing guy she can find, even if he's in the audience. But that doesn't matter in this play, because the audience is not off limits. They are part of the show. They literally are the wedding guests.

The Players chose the murder mystery's interactive setup as way of "trying something new," Levy said. Keeping things fresh and exciting is a way of keeping the young theater group alive. Like Levy, her fellow Players don't want community theater at McConnell to go away. She is part of a people with one common purpose: the show must go on.