KAEMPFER WINS AWARD FOR PLAY

Whether it is writing plays or building sets, David Kaempfer of Cape Girardeau feels more comfortable backstage than in the spotlight.

But Kaempfer was downstage center with all eyes upon him recently when the Missouri Association of Playwrights named him the 1998 recipient of the Playwright of the Year award.

The award, which was initiated last year by the association, is presented for the most outstanding play performed at MAP the previous season. Kaempfer received the award for his full-length play "Once Upon a Soap."

The play, a comedy set in the NBC radio studios of 1939, centers around a daytime radio soap opera called "Small Time Lady." Kaempfer, who has worked off and on in radio and television throughout his adult life, used his knowledge from behind the scenes to write the play.

A popular soap opera from the late '30s followed the life of a young woman from a small town who married an English nobleman. Kaempfer reversed the plot for his radio soap opera, making it about a woman of British peerage who marries a small-town American banker.

But the play is less about the soap opera heard on the radio than about the real-life soap opera and backstage intrigue that goes on in the studio. Writers, producers, directors, announcers and even a sound effects man play important roles in the show.

This is only the second full-length play Kaempfer has penned. His previous attempt came nearly 40 years ago when he collaborated with his ex-wife on a musical called "The Weatherman's Picnic." The two of them co-wrote the book and Kaempfer composed the music.

In the intervening time, Kaempfer has written a few shorter pieces but had not tried another full-length play.

Kaempfer, who was born and attended school in Cape Girardeau, returned to the city following a stint in the U.S. Army during World War II. He took a job with KFVS, which was a radio station at the time.

He left the city to work in television film production in Jackson, Miss. and Memphis, Tenn., and for an advertising agency in St. Louis.

In 1970, he came back to Cape Girardeau to work for KFVS, which had since become a television station. For three years he worked on the air as the host of "The Breakfast Show."

He never cared for work in front of the camera and left the station to work in public relations for Missouri Utilities, now AmerenUE.

For the past four years, Kaempfer has worked as a stage carpenter for the Rose Theatre, where he spends his afternoon building sets for university productions.

"I got my first paying job in theater two weeks short of my 69th birthday," he said.

"...I have a ball up there," he said of his work with the University Theater. "They're a nice bunch of kids and a lot of them are eager to learn."