Reincarnation

When I was just a callow youth of 16 & in the throes of my deeply demented Musical Theatre obsession, I collected the original cast albums for every musical released on vinyl. In my collection was the Broadway cast of Lerner & Lane's 1965 musical- On A Clear Day You Can See Forever. I was simply hypnotized by the delicious, dreamy, delightful score. That year, 1970, I was over-the-moon for the movie version with Barbra Streisand & Yves Montand, directed Vincente Minnelli. I held this brilliant idea that I could make quite a splash with a star turn in the role of ditsy Daisy Gamble, if the role was simply switched to a guy. Easy, there would only be a change of the name & a few pronouns, & in a year's time, I would be collecting my Tony Award.

John Cullum & Barbara Harris in the original in 1965

In the original 1965 On A Clear Day You Can See Forever, the very talented Barbara Harris* played the irrepressible Daisy Gamble, who discovers with the help of the psychiatrist Dr. Mark Bruckner that she was, in a past life, Melinda Wells, a woman who lived in 18th-century Britain. I assured myself that I could add a dimension to the role & demonstrate my considerable sing skills & comic chops. The Broadway World would be mine!

Fast forward 41 years, I am shocked, stunned, stymied to find that my Seattle acting acquaintance-Tom Hulce has the same idea & is producing a new version of the musical on Broadway this fall... without me in a role I was born to play. Yes, I am conscious of the reality of my being just a bit long in the tooth to pull this one off.

In this new production directed &re-conceived by Michael Mayer, the director of Spring Awakening & American Idiot, the story now has David Gamble, a florist’s assistant who turns to a psychiatrist to help him quit smoking so he can move in with his boyfriend, Warren. When Dr. Bruckner puts him under hypnosis, he learns that David might have been Melinda Wells, a 1940s jazz singer, with whom the doctor promptly falls in love.

Harry Connick Jr, the 3 time Tony nominated, Grammy winning musician will play Dr. Bruckner in the new Clear Day (I love the way "theatre people" shorten the names of musicals). This production features a new book by Hulce's buddy Peter Parnell & will include many songs from the original 1965 score & songs created for the 1970 film: Love With All the Trimmings & Go to Sleep, as well as numbers that Mr. Lerner & Mr. Lane composed for Stanley Donen’s musical film Royal Wedding: Ev’ry Night at 7, You’re All the World To Me, Open Your Eyes & Too Late Now.

You think Spider-Man: Turn Off the Dark is expensive? When On a Clear Day You Can See Forever made its Broadway debut in 1965, it cost theatergoers a then record $11.90, the most for a Broadway ticket at that time, to see that season’s costliest production at $600,000.

our hero at 16 year old & hurrying to his audition

This gender-bending "revisal" will apparently go up with out me in the lead  role. This gives me a sad face, as I had rehearsed this role for over a year in my bedroom, when I was 16 years old.

* Footnote: Today is Barbara Harris's 76th birthday. She is retired from acting. If you are not familiar with her work, check out my favorite of her performances in Nashville. She was deservedly Oscar nominated for this, one of my favorite films. Harris on giving up show biz: "Well, if someone handed me something fantastic for 10 million dollars, I'd work again. But I haven't worked in a long time as an actor. I don't miss it. I think the only thing that drew me to acting in the first place was the group of people I was working with: Ed Asner, Paul Sills, Mike Nichols, Elaine May. & all I really wanted to do back then was rehearsal. I was in it for the process, and I really resented having to go out and do a performance for an audience, because the process stopped; it had to freeze and be the same every night. It wasn't as interesting."

Born On This Day- July 1st... Farley Granger

He had a career on stage & screen from the early 1940s through the early aughts. Farley Granger is known best for starring in a pair of Alfred Hitchcock Films with legendary homosexual subtexts: Rope & Strangers on a Train.

His first starring role in They Live by Night, directed by bi-sexual Nicholas Ray, is considered to be one of his finest film performances. Granger’s sensitive portrayal of the bank robber Bowie caught the attention of Alfred Hitchcock. While preparing to shoot Rope a movie inspired by the notorious Leopold & Loeb murder case, Granger & co-star John Dall (whose homosexuality was also well known in the Hollywood community) were cast as a pair affluent young men, who set out to commit a " Prefect Murder".The men’s sexuality is never made explicit in the film, but the relationship between Granger’s & Dall’s characters has a strong homoerotic subtext, skillfully sewn together by Hitchcock & his actors. The film became notorious for it’s continuous, uninterrupted 10-minute takes, the amount of time a reel of Technicolor film lasted. It was a difficult feat as Hitchcock ran into numerous technical problems which frequently brought the action to a halt throughout the 21 day shoot.

 

3 years after starring in Rope, Granger again worked with Hitchcock in the classic thriller Strangers on a Train, based on the first novel by acclaimed lesbian writer Patricia Highsmith, who authored The Talented Mr. Ripley & a series of Ripley books. Although Hitchcock himself was dissatisfied with the end result, Strangers On A Train was a box office hit & the first major success of Granger’s career & is one of my favorite Hitchcock’s films.

Granger remained secretive about his private life, but his homosexuality has been widely known in the Hollywood & Broadway acting communities. Among his many lovers was Arthur Laurents who wrote the screenplay for Rope. Laurents speaks kindly of him in Laurents memoir- Original Story By. Granger had shorter affairs with Leonard Bernstein & Robert Walker, he remained friends with both of them until each of their deaths. In 1995 he was one of many on-screen actors interviewed for Rob Epstein & Jeffrey Friedman’s ground-breaking documentary The Celluloid Closet, discussing the depiction of homosexuality in film, in particular Rope and Strangers on a Train.

Granger was a profoundly good looking actor of considerable range & style: Broadway, films, musicals, light comedies & noir. I found him to be the epitome of how to age with class. He was in a long domestic partnership with stage manager-  Robert Calhoun, who passed away on 2008. Together they had written Granger's dishy memoir, deliciously titled- Count Me Out. Granger died in the same week as Elizabeth Taylor this spring.

You've Got To Have Friends... Walter Kennedy Turns Somewhere Between 40 & Death Today- June 15th

The University that I attended in L.A. had a junior year at the Royal Academy of Dramatic Arts in London, the only school in the USA to have such a program. The faculty could choose as little or as many students to send to England, as they saw fit.. Another day & another blog post will tell the tale of my NOT going to RADA.

On the 1st day of the autumn term, the Theatre Department held auditions for the fall plays. I was sitting in a large class room with 50+ other theatre majors, waiting for my chance to do my prepared pieces & my song in hopes of being cast in Godspell & not Racine’s Phaedra. Sitting close to me were 2 adorable freshmen, just barely 18 years old (I was a few months shy of my 21st birthday). I watched them watching the “theatre people”. The students from the previous year’s sojourn to RADA were newly returned to campus complete with British accents & a whole new attitude. I had never witnessed so much air kissing & scarf tossing & shrieks of- “I have not seen you since we were in Our Town together", followed by more hugging.

I turned to the newest members of the department- WCK3 & his high school buddy- Little Stevie B & with a dry drop of disgust at the histrionics & mentioned to them- “my, have you ever seen so much drama from a Drama Department?”

I had already started on my life’s journey of loving to perform, but disliking the artifice of "Theatre People". WCK3 & Little Stevie B & I were all cast in Godspell, with WCK3 landing the role of Jesus (on his 1st day of University!). I was given the song- All Good Gifts, which was perfect for me, because I like to show off. WCK3 & I became fast friends & eventually boyfriends. WCK3 was not interested in going steady. He was quite young & wanted to play the field & I was unwilling to give up my adventures as a slut. But we stuck together. I introduced him to cocktails & nasty sex. I was a bit of a mentor in the hedonistic arts. He already had years of dance training by the time we met & I was very impressed with his flexibility. WCK3 is much more conservative then I… & I can still shock him all these decades later.



WCK3 & I transitioned from lovers to friends. We have been very close for more than 35 years. We lived together several times, including a run in the mid- 1970s in NYC when WCK3 studied at Julliard & I was at HB Studios. I was always made to feel at home with his parents & siblings. WCK3 is a handsome & remarkably talented man. He can be just a tiny bit opinionated, his recollections can be a bit long-winded, but I would always want him to be in my life.

WCK3 would go on to a life as a professional dancer. At one point he had to choose between an offer from Michael Bennett to tour in A Chorus Line or to join a famed Modern Dance Company- The Lewitzky Dance Company where he was a principal dancer for 20+ years. WCK3 has traveled all over the world with Bella Lewitzky’s dancers. He was trained by Bella Lewitzky to be a master teacher of technique, improvisation, & composition, & was appointed the company's rehearsal director from 1990 until the company's farewell performance in 1997. He has also worked as a dancer for choreographers: Lar Lubovitch, Laura Dean, Joe Goode & Anna Sokolow. His choreography has been honored at several American College Dance Festivals, & at such venues as Highways Performance Space & the Dance Kaleidoscope Festival in Los Angeles. In the summer of 1998 he was invited as guest choreographer to The Yard, an artist's colony on Martha's Vineyard, & at the University of Arizona. WCK3 has an MFA from University of Illinois where he was also Visiting Assistant Professor, & a BFA, from California State University, Long Beach, where he was also on the faculty.


WCK3 is now on the faculty of the University of Oregon & we have the chance to see each other often. When we do, we toss our scarves over our shoulders, air kiss, squeal & then we list our credits, because we are THEATRE PEOPLE.

Born On This Day- May 6th... Harvey Fierstein

“If you don't look, you don't know,”

Well, first of all, there is that voice. I always think of my distinctive voice, made possible by decades of pot smoking & whiskey drinking, but Harvey Fierstein brings it all to a whole new level. .. a 300-pound man who sounds like he's been chain-smoking since the age of 3.

Fierstein grew up in Bensonhurst, the son of a handkerchief manufacturer & a school librarian. He attended Pratt & began his career in the mid-1970s performing in drag bars under the name Virginia Hamm. It was Fierstein's collection of interconnected, semi-autobiographical one-act plays in the late '70s- Torch Song Trilogy, that eventually brought him to Broadway. (He also starred in the big screen adaptation.). He has the distinction of winning Tony Awards for both writing & playing the lead role in his long-running play, about a gay drag performer & his quest for true love & family.

Fierstein has since effectively become a celebrity spokesperson & champion for gay civil rights. He describes himself as a "first real, live, out-of-the-closet queer on Broadway". He wrote the book for the musical La Cage aux Folles & he has been nominated for 11 Tony Awards (the Tonys are a high Holy Day at my house & will be broacast live next Sunday). Fierstein has been featured in the films Bullets Over Broadway, Mrs. Doubtfire, Death to Smoochy, & Independence Day.

Fierstein's turn as Edna Turnblatt in Hairspray earned him a Tony award in 2003. Fierstein virtually owned the role, but he was ultimately turned down for movie version of Hairspray. (Closet case-John Travolta was cast instead.). He played Tevye in the revival of Fiddler on the Roof on Broadway & & then toured the country in the iconic role. His brave, unlikely & open portrayal of a straight father of 3 daughters in the Jewish- The Sound Of Music earned him rave reviews all over the country. My first professional role was as Motel the tailor in Fiddler On The Roof in 1971. I have a soft spot for this show & I think it would nifty to play Grandma Tzeitel in Harvey’s production. Harvey, if you are reading this...

I really like & admire Harvey Fierstein. He has been a vocal gay rights activist, speaking out for gay people, queer theater, & AIDS causes. He has been a spokesman for the Services Legal Defense Fund, a group that advocates for the rights of gays & lesbians in the military. Fierstein: "Time will tell us what we did and didn't do. The way that I look at it, the only thing that I will definitely take credit for is that Torch Song & La Cage Aux Folles, 2 of my shows, were the first ever gay themed shows to make money on Broadway. I think that counts more than anything."

Harvey Fierstein Turns 59 years old today. He is currently appearing in the revival of La Cage Aux Folles. The production & his performance received raves. He lives in 7 acres in Connecticut. Harvey... Let's have cocktails & have a chat.

& The Curtain Falls... Arthur Laurents

He meant a great deal to me, one of my favorite show biz creatures: cranky, candid, & curt. He was part of the team that created my favorite musical, writing the book of Gypsy, one of the best librettos ever. It has character; it has a flavor of the period of the various theater styles of the time, a feeling of being transported back to the world of second-rate vaudeville & burlesque. It's amazing that the script actually does that. It is a great, great vehicle for a certain kind of actress, who is bigger than the sum of her parts.

He was the screenwriter of my favorite Hollywood Romance- The Way We Were, based on his own novel, which was based on his own life,with his long time partner Tom Hatcher as the Robert Redford character & Barbra Streisand as a stand in for himself.

I made note on this little spot on the Internet of news that Streisand wished to play Rose & direct a new film version of Gypsy. This spring Arthur Laurents’s had conversation with the musical's lyricist, Stephen Sondheim, that convinced him there shouldn't be another Gypsy movie. Laurnets: "He said, 'What is the point of it?' & I said, 'They have this terrible version with Rosalind Russell wearing those black & white shoes.' & then Sondheim told me something that he got from the British… & it's wonderful. He said, 'You want a record because the theater is ephemeral. But it's wrong. The theater's greatest essence is that it is ephemeral. You don't need a record. The fact that it's ephemeral means you can have different productions, different Roses on into infinity. So I don't want it now. I don't want a definitive record. I want it to stay alive."

He was role model to me in so many ways, he planned ahead for his death, giving directions to his agent Jonathan Lomma that when he died that he wanted it noted: "he was predeceased by his partner, Tom Hatcher, with whom he had lived in happiness for more than 50 years.”

In his engaging memoir from 2000- Original Story By, he was straightforward about his liaisons with gentlemen, referring to his partners as “those unremembered hundreds.... I think that people who are healthy have good sex, with a lot of variety to it."

Tom Hatcher, a former actor & real estate developer, would be his partner for 52 years. Hatcher died in 2006.

Laurents: “Writers are ‘the chosen people’ & I have been the happiest when sitting alone & putting my daydreams & fantasies down on paper.”

Laurents: "Gypsy is about the need for recognition. ... a need everyone has in one way or another."

I found him to be attractive, especially in his younger years, a small, compact man, like a cross between a Roman emperor on a coin & a hot gym teacher, difficult, diffident & Jewish… all plusses in my book.

Laurents:" They say I'm mean. They say this for 2 reasons. I I think too fast & I talk as fast as I think, & I'm often acerbic. But I say mean things as a defense. People who get their feelings hurt don't realize I have a very developed set of defenses. But also I will not suffer fools & amateurs. What that has cost me is a ... reputation. So?"

For more about his life, see my post on his birthday here.

He left this existence today at 93 years of age. He was still working up until March 2011.Mr. Laurents, I hope to see you at the big curtain call some day.

Today's Birthday Gay- American Playwright William Inge

I have never been in a play by William Inge, although I have studied & admired his work. I have it on good authority that Junior wants the chance to play the title role in Come Back, Little Sheba in the Kenton Players summer production of that American classic, to be performed at our 9th annual block party this August. It will be on rep the rest of the summer along with my all-naked Fiddler On The Roof & a cast of 3rd graders in Death Of A Salesman. Shaping up to be an astounding summer season on my block.

Inge is our American Chekhov, on the surface he created common conversation about the smallness of people’s lives, but the characters go very deep.

Pain permeates Inge’s plays. His major works: Come Back, Little Sheba, Picnic, Bus Stop & The Dark at the Top of the Stairs (all became successful films featuring top Hollywood stars), reveal rustic Americans struggling with sexual repression, alcoholism, small-town gossip & religiosity. These issues haunted Inge his entire life.

Inge won the Pulitzer for Picnic in 1953 & an Academy Award for the screenplay of the 1961 film Splendor in the Grass. Even his buddy & mentor, Tennessee Williams, was envious of his success. Yet, he would still spend a life seeking the validation of the citizens of Independence, Kansas who scorned him for being a homosexual.

Inge was talented & tortured. His long struggle with booze & profound shame over his homosexuality plagued him before, during, & after his decade of great success.

In 1973, still considered one of the country's most successful dramatists, Inge ran out of reasons to continue life in the closet. He went into his garage of his Hollywood home, shut the door, & behind the wheel of his new car, he turned the key. Inge: "Death makes us all innocent, & weaves all our private hurts & griefs & wrongs into the fabric of time, & makes them a part of eternity." Inge would have been 97 today.

Born On This Day In 1564... Will.I.Am Shakespeare

In my 45 years of working on stage I only played in a few works by The Bard of Stratford-On -Avon, all of them small roles: Prince of Aarogon in The Merchant Of Venice, Verges in Much Ado About Nothing, Andrew Auecheek in Twelfth Night, Peter Quince in A Midsummer Night's Dream & 3rd witch in the Scottish Play. Among the list of roles I never got to play, at the top would be: Malvolio, Shylock, & Caliban... I was probably short on talent & short on chances in my short lifetime. 

More has been written about William Shakespeare than any other writer, & it is still being debated whether Shakespeare was Shakespeare. Entire books have been dedicated to the subject, on both sides of the issue. The 3 strongest possibilities for the true identity of the Bard: Francis Bacon, Edward de Vere, 17th Earl of Oxford, & Christopher Marlowe were all homosexual.

Shakespeare wrote 154 sonnets, apparently not intended for publication. 126 of these sonnets address the poet's love for a young man. I, of course, claim him as one of the gays: handsome, dressed well, preferred to live, work & travel with male companions rather than be home in Stratford with his wife, wrote & acted in plays, & enjoyed cocktails, gossip & shopping. But the real tip off is when he outed himself at the Tony Awards when he thanked his boyfriend with this acceptance speech:

A woman's face with nature's own hand painted,
Hast thou, the master mistress of my passion;
A woman's gentle heart, but not acquainted
With shifting change, as is false women's fashion:
An eye more bright than theirs, less false in rolling,
Gilding the object whereupon it gazeth;
A man in hue all hues in his controlling,
Which steals men's eyes and women's souls amazeth.
& for a woman wert thou first created;
Till Nature, as she wrought thee, fell a-doting,
& by addition me of thee defeated,
By adding one thing to my purpose nothing.
But since she prick'd thee out for women's pleasure,
Mine be thy love & thy love's use their treasure.

Born On This Day- March 26th... The 100th Birthday Of Thomas Lanier Williams

"The best way to have new days is to travel or be sexually promiscuous or work with intensity on a long creation."

As I continue you to mourn the loss of Elizabeth Taylor, I am lightened by the turn around in the critical eye of her acting talent. She was indeed, a truly great screen actor, one of the best & possibly no more so than in her work in pieces by Tennessee Williams. Maggie the Cat in the film version of Cat On A Hot Tin Roof? Suddenly Last Summer?

In my fairly large collection of favorite gay writers, there is my holy trio: Truman Capote, Gore Vidal, & Tennessee Williams. Today marks the 100th birthday of Mr. Williams. I wish he could be here today to celebrate at Post Apocalyptic Bohemia. He would have liked being here with me. It looks quite like New Orleans & I am a big ol’ enabler.

I have never performed any of the works of Tennessee Williams. I have been lucky in life & theatre, but not that lucky I guess. Perhaps I am right for Big Daddy (a name often pinned on me) or even Amanda Wingfield.

Tennessee Williams was passionate, profound & prolific, breathing life into characters like Blanche DuBois & Stanley Kowalski in what I consider to be the best American play- A Streetcar Named Desire. Like his best characters, he was troubled & self-destructive, an abuser of drink & drugs.

He won 4 Drama Critic Circle Awards, a Tony, 2 Pulitzer Prizes, & the Presidential Medal of Freedom. He was derided by the critics & blacklisted by the Roman Catholic Church, condemning his work as “revolting, deplorable, morally repellent, & offensive to Christian standards of decency”.

Thomas Lanier Williams was born in Columbus, Mississippi in 1911, the son of a shoe company executive & a Southern belle. Williams described his childhood in Mississippi as happy & carefree. His sense of belonging & comfort were lost when his family moved to urban St. Louis, Missouri. It was there he began to look inward, & he began to write “because I found life unsatisfactory.” Williams attended 3 different universities, & briefly worked at his father’s shoe company. He moved to New Orleans, where he began his lifelong love of that city.

His first critical acclaim came in 1944 when The Glass Menagerie opened in Chicago & moved to Broadway. It won a Pulitzer Prize, the New York Drama Critics’ Circle Award. The film version won the New York Film Critics’ Circle Award. At the height of his career in the late 1940s & 1950s, Williams worked with the great artists of the time, including Elia Kazan, the director for stage & screen productions of A Streetcar Named Desire, & the stage productions of Camino Real, Cat On A Hot Tin Roof, & Sweet Bird Of Youth. Kazan also directed Williams’ shocking screenplay Baby Doll.

In 1961, his longtime lover-Frank Merlo died of cancer. Merlo's death left Williams with a deep depression that lasted more than decade. He became quite insecure about his work, much of which was taking a critical beating. Williams began to depend on alcohol & drugs & though he continued to write, completing a book of short stories & another play, he had begun a downward spiral.

In the 1970s, Williams wrote plays, a memoir, poems, short stories & a novel. In 1975 he published one of my favorite book- Memoirs, which detailed his life & discussed his addiction to drugs & drink, & his homosexuality. I still have my first edition copy.

In the winter of 1983 Tennessee Williams died alone in a NYC hotel room filled with bottles of booze & pills. It was in this sort of desperation that Williams would so honestly write about & show his genius.

I find his 25 full length plays to be hauntingly lonely, lyrical, potent & hypnotic, even the difficult & experimental works of his later years. I started reading him in my late teens & he continues to fascinate me. I love Mamet, Shepard, August Wilson & Albee, less so Miller & O’Neill… but Williams is my sure vote for Greatest American Playwright.

The Arrangment Of The Screens... A Consideration Of Stephen Sondheim On His Birthday

The Husband: “I can’t believe you have not cracked that Sondheim Book (Finishing The Hat: Collected Lyrics 1954-1981 with Attendant Comments, Principles, Heresies, Grudges, Whines & Anecdotes), that you couldn’t wait to own & you purchased back in November!” Stephen: "I am treasuring it, waiting for the perfect afternoon to spend with it. I will know when that moment is right." As Sondheim said in Into The Woods: “I was raised to be charming, not sincere.”

The greatest composer/lyricist for the theatre & I have some history together.

In the spring of 1973, I saw A Little Night Music in the pre-Broadway tryout in Boston. I was my late teens, 2500 miles from home, & sporting a huge red afro; I sat in the darkened, half-filled theatre & let the magic & enchantment wash over me. This was not my 1st Sondheim. I had, of course, seen West Side Story & Gypsy!. When 17 years old, I had talked my parents into letting me go to San Francisco all by myself to see the original cast (minus Dean Jones) of Company (I had more than just a little fun freely footloose & 17 in San Francisco in 1971). I had worn out the Original Cast Album of Follies the same year.

5 years later, I would play Henrik in A Little Night Music, a fabulous role & the closest I ever came to playing an ingénue. The character plays the cello. Traditionally the orchestra’s cello plays the music while the actor mimes the playing. Because I actually can play the cello, & I was able to do my own cello work. I thought this gave my performance a bit more authenticity, although I had to practice for hours & hours to be able to the play cello & sing at the same time… in character. I found this rather daunting & I worked hard to make it work. I understand that I was rather convincing in this role.

Your Host in A Little Night Music, circa 1977

I would go on to play Hysterium in A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum on 2 occasions, including a long run at Seattle Civic Light Opera.

I did another long run in a sold out, & extended production of Side By Side By Sondheim, a musical revue of collected songs from several produced & un-produced Sondheim musicals. Among the songs I was so very lucky to perform in that show, was my favorite Sondheim tune- Anyone Can Whistle. Via the wonders of Facebook, the director of Side by Side & I reconnected & he sent me a DVD of the show. I am not all that keen for watching myself on screen, but I was pleasantly surprised at how good the show was, how young I looked, how much hair I had, & what a captivating, compelling, curious, & clever vocalist I was 26 years ago. I was also sort of hot, with single digit body fat, curly red hair, & discreet risqué deportment. I totally would have done me.

I sang Not A Day Goes By from Merrily We Roll Along for auditions for a few years in the 1980s, until I decided that singing Sondheim for auditions was cliché & too gay… even for me.

I was aware early on, that Stephen Sondheim was a homosexual, & it did give some solace when I was grappling with coming out. Sondheim came out as gay only when he was 40, & he did not live with a partner until he was 61. He shared his life with writer- Peter Jones, until 1999, living at the Turtle Bay house that has been Sondheim’s home & writing place since the early 1960s. Katharine Hepburn used to live next door. Sondheim: “up one night at about 3, pounding on the piano, writing The Ladies Who Lunch for Company, when I heard this banging on the door. There was Hepburn, in a babushka & no shoes, saying, ‘Young man, I cannot sleep with the noise you’re making’.”

Sondheim: “If I had to live my life over again, I would have children. That’s the great mistake I made. It’s too late now. The idea of being a homosexual & raising children was one that was just not acceptable until, my goodness, I’d say the 1970s or 1980s. You want to live long enough to see your children grow up, they’re not puppies. The joy is not just to have them, but to watch them change & grow. So, yes, that is a great regret. But as Bach proved to a great degree, you can have both. It would be nice to have both. But to have any outlet for creative energy is indeed a very good emotional substitute for not being able to put that energy into the raising of a family.”

There is common thought on Sondheim, that although he can do LOVE in a theatre piece, he struggles when it enters his own life. Even people who follow him closely have assumed that he was single. It came as a surprise in 2006 when he announced: “I have someone else now, his name is Jeff. We celebrated our 7th anniversary. Jeff is a great joy in my life & once I had tasted the joys of living with someone, I wanted to live with someone else when it broke up.”

There is the work though; about 20 major stage shows, music & lyrics: A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum (1962), Anyone Can Whistle (1964), Company (1970), Follies (1971), A Little Night Music (1973), The Frogs (1974), Pacific Overtures (1976), Sweeney Todd (1979), Merrily We Roll Along (1981), Sunday In The Park With George (1984), Into The Woods (1987), Assassins (1991), Passion (1994), Bounce (2003) which later became Road Show (2008), as well as lyrics for West Side Story (1957), Gypsy (1959), Do I Hear A Waltz? (1965), Candide (1973). Plus the revues: Side By Side By Sondheim (1976), Marry Me A Little (1981), You're Gonna Love Tomorrow (1983), Putting It Together (1993/99) Moving On (2001) & Sondheim on Sondheim (2010) that are anthologies of his work as composer & lyricist. For films, he composed the scores of Stavisky (1974) & Reds (1981) & songs for The Seven Percent Solution (1976) & Dick Tracy (1990). He also wrote the songs for the television production Evening Primrose (1966), co-authored the film The Last of Sheila (1973) & the play Getting Away With Murder (1996). In total, his works have accumulated more than 65 individual & collaborative Tony Awards & an Oscar.


Sondheim created cryptic crosswords for New York Magazine in the late 1960s. He was screenwriter for the television series Topper (1953) & The Last Of Sheila (1973, with his friend Anthony Perkins). He appeared as himself in the film Camp (2003).


In March 2008, Sondheim & Frank Rich of the NY Times appeared in an interview/conversation in Portland, titled A Little Night Conversation with Stephen Sondheim. WCK3 & I were fortunate enough to attend. One of my revered revelations from that evening was that Sondheim & I share a favorite non-Sondheim musical in She Loves Me. He was very funny & charming that evening. I am crazy for Frank Rich & I have loved Sondheim’s music & lyrics for 50+ years. I was thrilled.


I feel so damn old. During the Company/Follies era, Sondheim appeared on the cover of Time with the caption- The Boy Wonder of the Theatre. The boy went on to an Academy Award, 8 Tony Awards (more than any other composer) including the Special Tony Award for Lifetime Achievement in the Theatre, multiple Grammy Awards including Song Of The Year for Send In The Clowns in 1974, & a Pulitzer Prize.

He turns 81 today. We both got old & we both got lucky. Oddly enough, he shares this birthday with the British composer of that weird musical with the singing & dancing CATS. Go figure.

"I chose & my world was shaken. So what? The choice may have been mistaken; the choosing was not. You have to move on."
Sunday In The Park With George

Born On This Day- March 18th... Songwriter John Kander

The celebrated songwriting team of Kander & Ebb were working on the musical The Scottsboro Boys when Ebb died in 2004 of a heart attack. The Scottsboro Boys tells the true story of 9 young black men falsely accused of rape in 1931. It opend on Broadway last season to strong reviews & weak box office. Today is the birthday of the musical half of the team- John Kander.



From The Act to Zorba, for 5 decades, composer John Kander & lyricist Fred Ebb have been Broadway's paramount songwriting team, the longest running music/lyrics partnership in Broadway musical history. They've given the world some of the great creations of the American Musical Stage. Their scores have a breathtaking ability to capture the flavor of a specific time & place, with music brimming with audacity & brilliant, droll, penetrating lyrics. The team has taken on serious, challenging subject: Nazism, abortion, murder, capital punishment, prison torture, greed, corruption, with originality & stunning talent. Kander & Ebb combine razzle dazzle with a political conscience. On John Kander’s award shelf sit Tonys, Oscars, Emmys, Grammys & Songwriters Hall of Fame Awards. They've written for the great musical performers of our day: Lauren Bacall, Joel Grey, Gwen Verdon, Frank Sinatra, Robert Goulet, Chita Rivera, & Barbra Streisand.


In 1965, their 1st produced show-Flora, the Red Menace introduced Liza Minnelli to Broadway & a young singer Barbra Streisand had hits with 2 of their songs- My Coloring Book & I Don’t Care Much, & their careers were launched. 22 shows later & they are still at it, even with ½ the team deceased. Her are the John Kander contributions to Musical Theatre:


• A Family Affair (1962) - lyrics by William Goldman
• Flora the Red Menace (1965)
• Cabaret (1966)
• Go Fly a Kite (1966) - music and lyrics also by Walter Marks
• The Happy Time (1968)
• Zorba (1968)
• 70, Girls, 70 (1971)
• Chicago (1976)
• The Act (1978)
• Woman of the Year (1981)
• The Rink (1984)
• & The World Goes 'Round (1991)
• Kiss of the Spider Woman (1992)
• Steel Pier (1997)
• Fosse (1999)
• Over & Over (1999)
• The Visit (2001)
• Curtains (2006) - additional lyrics by Rupert Holmes
• All About Us (2007 revision of Over & Over)
• The Scottsboro Boys (2010)

Chicago remains one of my favorite musicals & in high school, I adored the score to their not so successful- 70, Girls, 70s, including this tune:



In 2006, at 79 years old, John Kander bravely came out of the closet. He said he had waited so long for professional reasons. I agree, because when choosing to go to a Broadway musical, audiences have often been known to bypass shows written by homosexuals.

Born To Dance

I saw her on Broadway several times, at least 3 time in the musical- Chicago alone, & she is a long time favorite of mine. Gwenyth Evelyn Verdon was one of Broadway's biggest stars of the Golden Era & beyond. She was an actress & dancer who won 4 Tony awards. With flaming red hair & an endearing quaver in her voice, Gwen Verdon was a critically acclaimed dancer & occasionally an actor in films in the 1950s,1960s & 1970s... & into the 1980s with terrific work in the films Cocoon & Marvin's Room.




Verdon is strongly associated with the work of her husband, director/choreographer Bob Fosse. She was his primary dancer/collaborator & muse for whom he choreographed much of his work. She was the guardian of his legacy after his death. Because of his extramarital affairs, in 1971 Verdon filed a legal separation from Fosse, but never divorced him. She held him in her arms as he suffered a fatal heart attack on the sidewalk outside the theatre where  his musical- Sweet Charity was being revived.

Verdon & her daughter with Fosse- Nicole collaborated to create the Broadway show- Fosse. She continued to teach dance & musical theatre until 1999. Best known for her verve, vim & vivacity. On the day she died in 2000, the lights on Broadway were dimmed in honor of the passing of one of its brightest stars. Gwen Verdon would have been 84 years old today.

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I caught Matthew Bourne's Swan Lake on PBS a few years ago & I was blown away. His production turned tradition upside down & took both the theater & dance worlds by storm when it arrived on Broadway in 1998. Swan Lake to the unlikely step of playing Broadway, instead of a concert hall or opera house. It went on to win 3 Tony Awards. Acclaimed as a landmark achievement on the international stage, it has become the longest running ballet in London’s West End & on Broadway. I was revived this season on Broadway, & has had hugely successful tours in Britain.



Bourne was the Artistic Director of his first company- Adventures in Motion Pictures (1987-2002). His new company is named- New Adventures.

His best know productions include Nutcracker!, Swan Lake, The Car Man ( A modern dance version of the opera- Carmen) & Play Without Words. Bourne is a Resident Artist at Sadlers Wells Theatre & has created the choreography & direction for several major revivals of classic musicals: Oliver!, My Fair Lady, South Pacific & the hit West End & Broadway musical Mary Poppins for which he won an Olivier Award & A Tony. His production of Swan Lake is featured in Stephen Daldry’s film- Billy Elliot.

Bourne started training to be a dancer at the rather late age of 22 .He's grateful he came to it late: "If I hadn't had my experience of all those things, I don't think my work now would connect with a much wider audience than the dance world. If I'd started young as a choreographer, as a dancer, the subject of my work would be movement, much more choreography as such, because I wouldn't have all those other influences".

He danced professionally for 14 years creating many roles in his own work. In 1999 he gave his final performance playing The Private Secretary in the Broadway production of Swan Lake. His other ballets include Edward Scissorhands & Dorian Gray. I am a bit smitten. I had a lover who was a professional dancer. He was very flexable. Bourne turns 51 today.

Born On This Day- January 11th... Acting Great Eva Le Gallienne

I was one of the lucky ones who saw her on Broadway in the hit revival of the Edna Ferber-George S. Kaufman comedy- The Royal Family based on the Barrymore family, that was the hit of the 1976 season & a major triumph for the amazing Eva Le Gallienne, who played the mother of the fabled family, skipping girlishly upstairs in Act I & descending like an elderly queen in Act 3. Her performance was one the most memorable in my theatre going history.

She had acted in or directed nearly 150 live theatre productions, given 16 film & television performances, made many of radio broadcasts. Le Gallienne translated many of the works of Ibsen & Chekov. She wrote 4 books, including the memoir With a Quiet Heart- a biography of Actress Eleanora Duse, & numerous articles for magazines. She graced the cover of Time magazine in 1929. A gifted actress who loved her craft, Eva Le Gallienne was one of the most successful & popular figures in American theatre for 6 decades.

 In 1918, Le Gallienne had an affair with the flamboyant Hollywood actress Alla Nazimova. When the relationship with Nazimova faded, she became involved with set designer & writer Mercedes de Acosta, a former lover of Nazimova's, reminding me of some of the lesbians in my life now, who have affairs with exe’s exes, it get's so complicated!). Although Le Gallienne had many lovers, she was never comfortable with her lesbianism & briefly considered a sham marriage to actor Basil Rathbone.

Le Gallienne founded the Civic Repertory Theatre in NYC, with the financial support of one of her lovers- Alice DeLamar, a wealthy Colorado gold mine heiress. In 1928 she earned a great success with her performance in Ibsen's Hedda Gabler. The Civic Rep disbanded at the height of the Depression in 1935. Le Gallienne continued performing until the end of her life, but after the closure of the Civic Repertory Theater, she mostly lived quietly in the country with her partner of  50 years- Marion Evensen. In the late 1950s, she had a notable success as Queen Elizabeth in Mary Stewart & also appeared in several television specials, even winning an Emmy for a televised version of The Royal Family. In 1964, she received a Tony Award for her production of Chekhov's The Seagull.
 
At the age of 80, Le Gallienne was cast along with Ellen Burstyn in Daniel Petrie's film Resurrection. Le Gallienne's performance earned her an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress. She died at her home in Conneticut in 1991; she was 92 years old.

Born On This Day- January 10th... Sal Mineo

He was born Salvatore Mineo, Jr. in the Bronx, New York on January 10, 1939.

I have a very odd connection to Sal Mineo. In 1976, I was actually an acquaintance of the man charged with his murder. This was nothing sordid. This man was pursuing one of my best friends. WCK3 & I were concerned for our friend because this mystery man seemed especially troubling. Sal Mineos’s death was major news in LA that February. WCK3 & I really had the chills when this creepy man, who had been aggressively working on our good friend, was charged with the movie star’s demise.

Sal Mineo was nominated for an Academy Award 2 times, & he enjoyed success as a stage director & recording artist, but he is mostly remembered for his performance in Rebel Without A Cause & for the brutal murder that ended his life just as he was on the verge of reinventing himself & his career.


You can feel the sexual heat of the actors in this screen test.

He made his first film appearance in 1955, & appeared in many screen productions, usually playing ethnic& troubled youths. Mineo's career was dominated by that single role that eventually achieved mythic status: Plato in Nicholas Ray's Rebel without a Cause (1955). Mineo's homosexuality was a fairly open secret even at the height of his Hollywood success. He had affairs with Peter Lawford, James Dean, & with Nicholas Ray during the filming of Rebel Without A Cause.

With maturity, he sought to explore his homosexuality in his life & his art. Although he appeared in several television productions & films (his last film was Planet Of The Apes), he found the theater more supportive of his aspirations & sensibilities.


From one of my favorite shows of the era- Shindig! in 1967

In 1969, he directed the Broadway & West Coast productions of Fortune & Men's Eyes, John Herbert's exploration of power roles & homosexuality at a prison. Mineo's production was controversial for its nudity & simulated sex.

In 1976, he was cast as a bisexual burgler in a Los Angeles production of James Kirkwood's P. S. Your Cat Is Dead. As he returned to his West Hollywood apartment from a rehearsal on February 12, 1976, he was stabbed to death. The murder remains cloaked in mystery. A suspect who initially confessed later recanted, but was nevertheless convicted. Over the years, & Mineo's friends & relatives have claimed that the authorities, eager to solve a high profile murder case, charged the wrong man. He was just 37 years old when he was murdered.

A Dream That Will Need All The Love You Can Give, Ev'ry Day Of Your Life, For As Long As You Live

In 1976, after graduation from college in L.A. with my very useful B.A. in Theatre, I was off to attended the HB Studio in the West Village neighborhood of NYC. Established in 1945 by the actor/director Herbert Berghof, HB Studio was created to provide professional theatre training & practice for aspiring & accomplished actors of all ages. The legendary actress Uta Hagen joined the Studio in 1948 as an artistic partner. The pair married 10 years later. Hagen & Berghof trained many of the outstanding actors of the American stage & screen.

When I finished the certificate program at HB, Uta Hagen gave each me a wrapped book, which I assumed was her important tome- Respect For Acting. Instead it was a copy of her cookbook. I should have realized it was a sign.



Certainly then, in my early 20s, I would never have even conceived of giving up show biz. It was my entire life; every breath was dedicated to The Theatre.


I never grew tired of the process & I loved the work. I had deep craving for the kind of attention & exaltation one can only achieve from performing on stage in front of a live audience.


But, walk away from it, I did. I could not endure more auditioning. After 35+ years, one would think that I would have been used to it, but I grew weary of putting myself out there. In my late 40s I found that I was no longer able to stomach, suffer or swallow the very possible humiliation of being rejected for being ME.


This feeling was more solidified with my auditions for Films & TV, but stage auditions held their own private abasement & humiliation. In TV & film work, I had started to feel an unfathomable mortification when entering a room of 50 stocky, bald, pugnacious men of my own age range. Casting directors seem to lack in any imagination & were seeking actors that looked exactly like the storyboard presented by the ad agency. Make no mistake… I loved doing commercials, it may be the happiest I have ever been as a performer, & I worked steadily in the 1980s & 1990s, but waiting in a room to do my audition thing with dozens of gentlemen that look much like me, became a special kind of hell for me.


Stage auditions really should have left me less scared, & for the most part this was true. To attempt to get a job in a play or a musical, an actor starts by doing a prepared monologue or 2 that contrast, & a song, usually for the director, but sometimes round #1 is for a casting director. In the 1970s-1990s I was up for that challenge. I always had audition pieces that I loved performing, so that even an audition felt like a roller coaster kick for my ego. I knew that my selections were atypical & unique & well suited. I was secure that I would not be boring anyone.


I actually had a good reputation for these auditions. I once had the chance to glance at my audition card, for a musical that I was up for, that stated: “a young, sexy Jimmy Durante”. I was happy with that assessment.


The beginning of the end for me was the practice of having to audition for directors that I had worked with before, in major roles, major roles where I was well reviewed by critics & well regarded by cast members. The straw that broke this camel’s back was a director, who I had done major, important work for, who made the following comment at a dinner party: “You would have been ultimately better in the role than Mr. X, but he just really nailed that audition.” I had never, ever sassed a director over being passed over, & yet I spilled out: “Really? I didn’t understand that it was audition as gladiators. For you, it wasn’t who would eventually be the brightest in the role, but who was left standing at the end of the day?”


I am fortunate to have done several dream roles: Elliott in Private Lives, Hysteriam in A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum, Herr Shultz in Cabaret, LM in Pump Boys & Dinettes, in the cast of Side By Side By Sondheim, Henrik in A Little Night Music, Horace Vandergelder in Hello, Dolly!, & my own favorite- Fagin in Oliver!.

Your Host as Fagin in Oliver! (1978), photo provided by Brian who played the Artful Dodger, who found me via Facebook, as did the talented young man who played the title role.

Roles I dreamed of & never got the chance to play: Riff Raff in The Rocky Horror Show, Dr. Pengloss in Candide, Shylock, Malvolio, Caliban, & my most desired of all parts- Captain Hook.


I don’t believe in mucking around with copywrited work by living authors, but I was just a bit excited when I was about to be cast as Joanne (the Elaine Stritch role) in an all-male version of Company. The shows received a cease & desist from Stephen Sondheim before casting was even was completed. I agreed with Mr. Sondheim’s lawyers, but I could really taste that role & it would have been interesting to play a character so close to my personality in real life.


Am I retired forever? I believe I am, although this post started with a daydream about being on stage again. My favorite kind of role was always a supporting character in a musical, the sort of part that you spend a lot of time in the green room doing a crossword or playing cards, a character that has 3 or 4 really terrific scenes & one big crowd pleasing, bring the house down, musical number… less work, but more attention. As I consider this now, the role that will bring me out of retirement will be Mother Abbess in The Sound Of Music. I believe I may have been waiting my entire life to bring this character to life: a wise & patient old, but wise cracking, nun who has one of the all-time best Act One finales: