Nietzsche said that what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. By the middle of my first week of rehearsals for “Damn Yankees” in Lake Oswego, Oregon, I wasn’t dead but starting to feel like the Incredible Hulk! There was an anger building up inside me that I had to fight to keep in check. It was exhausting. It started at the first “rehearsal”.
I’ve experienced many involvements in Community Theatre as a professional actor. There have been groups whose enthusiasm, joy and commitment make up for a lack of proficiency in the craft itself. There have been groups that knock your socks off on all levels and could be easily mistaken for pros. Then there are groups which, through no real fault of their own, seem to be serving time in a penal colony, just going through the motions. On this assignment it was, for the most part, this last group in which I quickly realized I was immersed … and I was not happy. While there were eventually some outlets for my frustrations – people to whom I could kvetch and bitch – I was initially shocked more than anything else.
I had met with the Director right after my arrival to discuss the role – ‘Mr. Applegate’ aka ‘The Devil’. The “depth” of our conversation should have been a clue as to her mindset, but I ignored it. My first call was the following evening and I had thought, since we only had two weeks before opening, that they would be fitting me into the blocking, giving me a foundation on which to build. I discovered that we were starting with a music rehearsal. ‘Applegate’ has one song in the show (“Those Were The Good Old Days”). I sang through it once and that was it. Now what? Folks had arrived sporadically as I’d been singing, and I began to pick up on their lack of enthusiasm about the experience. It seemed that the four weeks of rehearsal prior to my arrival had taken a toll. They were a rag tag group, none of whom I knew, and I began to worry that if this was how they were after four weeks, what did it bode for the next two! Some were missing and I learned that some had simply stopped coming. How, after all that time could a cast be so uninvolved and ill-prepared? They seemed like nice enough human beings, but as performers … well, I was astonished.
The level of disorganization was beyond me. There were no renderings of designs for the costumes or sets to be seen, the rehearsal hall floor hadn’t been taped (to represent the parameters of the set) and we were to have a run-through of Act One two nights hence! In my Journal following that first night I had written: “Oh dear, oh dear! I felt for a number of moments last night that I was in a scene from “Shakespeare In Love”, one of the theatre scenes where the actors are rehearsing amid the chaos and mayhem. At one point there was a group of people chatting over on one side of the room, our Stage Manager talking with someone on the other side, the pianist with someone else in the doorway, all while a couple of us are in the middle of the very small room talking through a scene with the Director. I couldn’t believe it. There seems to be no discipline here!” I just kept taking deep breaths, telling myself to keep calm, it will work itself out. It didn’t.
Two nights later we moved to the stage. I had been given some geography by the Stage Manager, but I think she was making it up as we went along as she’d not written anything down! The Act One run-through (gulp), which lasted four-and-a-half hours, made it clear that no one had any concept of where they were or what was happening in a scene! Our Director sat in the back of the theatre with her head buried in the script and made line corrections every now and then. I had to ask a couple of times that a scene be repeated so that folks on stage with me could at least understand who they were supposed to be looking at and reacting to. They didn’t know! The only thing that came clear that night was 1) that I knew all my lines and 2) that we (the cast) were, essentially, in a boat at sea and on our own. It was at that point that I thought I would have to step in … on the QT.
There were basic things which, if only by osmosis, someone who had performed in shows might have picked up along the way. I shuddered to think what our Director had been teaching her High School students over the past 40 years. Perhaps because our cast was made up of adults, one might have thought that they would know not to stand in a straight line across the front of the stage to play a scene. But that certainly wasn’t the case. It was a sad state of affairs, and now, with people approaching me for help, I couldn’t just stand by and watch any more. Partially out of self-preservation I quietly let it be known that I would be available to anyone wanting to run lines or work a scene. I was inundated.
But there were a few lines I didn’t think I could cross and kept my “coaching” limited to the scenes I was in, offering only suggestions to others who had asked for help. But a few nights later during another run-through, I couldn’t stand the disorganization any longer. From my seat in the house watching in disbelief, I let loose. A scene had just finished. The folks in the scene walked off stage without taking the furniture that had been assigned to them as the people in the next scene with their assigned furniture started coming on. There was a lot of furniture on stage, and nobody knew what to do! I stood up and yelled “Stop! Stop!” The Stage Manager wandered on and asked what was wrong. I ran on to the stage making it known that the transition had to be repeated so that folks would understand how the traffic patterns worked. I think I sort of pissed of the SM but there was no way I would let that happen again. They did it a few times until everyone knew the geography and that was that. Folks came up to me afterward and told me they had been waiting for someone to tell them what to do. At that point, I announced that I wanted to do Act One again the following night. No one objected. Not even our Director.
I swore to myself that I wasn’t going to do any bitching to my host, who was also the Theatre’s Producer at the Theatre, but that evening my frustrations eventually surfaced. She told me that if I wanted to step in and make some alterations or do some coaching on the side, our Director probably wouldn’t even notice! I told her that I had been doing that already but now I crossed the line and had out-in-the-open sessions with some of the principals and delved into some of the ensemble scenes. It was just a matter of asking them where their emotions were coming from and letting them know that all they had to do was listen and respond … things one might actually do in real life. Amazingly, these small directions seemed to be eye openers for all of them! Unfortunately, this all might have happened too late. What we had done in the rehearsal room didn’t seem to transfer to the stage for them and I would just sit backstage, in the dark, watching and shaking my head.
In the final days of rehearsal, things seemed to improve just a little. Gradually, lights seemed to turn on in people’s heads and a tentative reality settled in giving a semblance of truth to the characters and the story. I had warned a lot of my friends not to come to opening but to wait a couple of weeks for the kinks to work out before seeing the show – if they absolutely had to. Opening was, to my astonishment, acceptable … just. The cast had, if only because of the adrenalin, risen to the occasion. The audience responded well, even giving the cast a totally undeserved standing ovation at the end and there was a festive atmosphere afterward at a reception in the lobby. I avoided almost everyone, most of all our Director. I had nothing to say to her and I think she was embarrassed to say anything to me. I left it at that. Now for a seven week run!
All during rehearsals I had been receiving videos of the Pan Am workshop sessions from Jim Nichols. They were on the verge of announcing who gets what venue and I was apparently on the top of the list to announce the baseball games at the still-being-built Ball Park. I was tugging at the bit to get back and be more of a part of the lead up to the Games. Just before we opened, I got a load of faxed material from the organizers and discovered that I had been assigned to do the In-Line Hockey announcing! WHAT? Well, that wasn’t going to work. I knew about as much of in-line hockey (whatever that was) as I did about molecular biology. I was massively disappointed and faxed Jim back that this was not what we had talked about, that I knew nothing about hockey and that he should probably look for someone else to do the job. I heard nothing back.
As the run continued (only four shows a week) I had lots of time to visit with old friends and colleagues and took advantage of a lot of invitations. One person I’d not seen for a very long time was Jack Booch. He had directed me in “Camelot” at the Cirque Dinner Theatre in Seattle many years earlier. We had lost touch following an encounter in New York when he told me that I had “no business being here” and that I should leave town immediately. That sort of summed Jack up back then … loud, cantankerous, belligerent and downright rude. But it seemed that he had softened a tiny bit over the years and our lunch was rather pleasant … if only because Isabella (Chappell, my old Civic Theatre boss) was with us and acted as a referee from time to time. He always talked at the top of his lungs as if he were addressing everyone in the room (or, in this case, the restaurant) and I decided to egg him on just to see how obnoxious he would get. He didn’t disappoint!
In the course of lunch we touched on something that had been on my mind since I’d arrived back in Portland. We had been discussing the state of theatre in town. A few years after I’d left town, professional companies started moving into Portland, importing performers from larger centers, and the small community-based theatres which had been around forever just couldn’t compete. Big newspaper ads and slick, expensive publicity campaigns drew away audiences and many of the old venues closed down. While a few managed to hang on, the quality of their product dipped. Performers were turning professional, leaving the community theatres with slim pickings compared to the old days when they were the only game in town. At one point Jack suggested that he and Isabella come and see my show. I told him that they should just stay away. It would only make him angry, and he’d certainly make a scene in the lobby.
I once more found myself thinking “what would have happened had I stayed in Portland?” It had already crossed my mind in the case of New York and working as a Tour Guide at Lincoln Center. I was being groomed by Ethel Weinstein, my boss there, to move into Management. It would have been a straight ahead course and nothing – no politics, no competition – to stop me from moving up that chain. But I left for Winnipeg and didn’t look back. It was the same in Portland. Isabella had primed me to take over her job as General Manager of the Theatre. In chatting about it with other friends, we thought that what eventually happened might not have had I not moved to New York. Civic might have been saved, the School might have become the stand-alone Academy I’d been planning, community involvement and support might have improved and a malaise that had set in might have been thwarted. Its always a case of “what if” which, even now, makes me question some of the decisions I’ve made along the way. Jack, thankfully, took my advice and stayed away from the show. Isabella didn’t.
Meanwhile, Sam continued beating bushes drumming up business for the Fall. Despite LIVENT buying the farm, we’d gone on to land a lot of regional productions and also had some larger shows on the burner. Unbeknownst to me, for months Sam had been cultivating a relationship with a Musical Director named Steve Welch. Steve was an incredibly affable guy, up, joyous and extremely smart, and just happened to be Barry Manilow’s MD. One afternoon during a hand-off phone call with Sam, he asked, “You like Barry Manilow, don’t you?” “You bet I do” I said. “Well, get ready to start working for him” he said. What? WHAT!! I loved Manilow’s music, his lyrics and his voice. My mind immediately flew back to those long-ago, boozy after-show impromptus in the Upper Bar at MTC when we would gather around the piano, me pounding out Barry’s songs as Richard Ouzounian belted out at the top of his lungs … “when will I see you aga-a-a-a-in?”. Now, here I was, on the verge of working for one of my idols!
This was a 22-city Tour scheduled for late summer, and we were charged with getting 30 orchestra musicians for each city. Since Manilow only performed on weekends, Sam would do the advance getting the right players and a local contractor would pay them based on our budgets. At that point, I didn’t know what kind of special hell this would turn out to be. Barry Manilow or no Barry Manilow, suicidal thoughts would pop up frequently during that time. But more of that later.
The “Yankees” run continued well enough, but I was tugging at the bit to be heading home. Friends had made their way out to the show and were always kind and generous in their comments following a performance. I didn’t believe a word. Finally Isabella came to see us. She didn’t stay around after the show because, as she wrote me in a note, she would have broken down in tears. We spoke subsequently at length, and she told me how I was “wasted in the show in a role I wasn’t right for and, in spite of all my work, I couldn’t save things”. I said I had told her so and she had to agree. Meeting up with dear friends Sue Parks and Bill Dobson at a restaurant following the show one night, from across the parking lot Sue yelled “Alright, Hurst, you owe me nineteen bucks”!
Then it was over. With minimal fanfare we closed, I said my goodbyes and, the following morning, got in the car and started home. I pushed the drive doing ten hours each day and by the time I walked back into my house, I was ready to go again. First on the list was dealing with the Pam Am situation. As it turned out I had been reassigned, this time to do the synchronized swimming and water polo competitions at the Pam Am Pool. My uniform and accreditation were apparently waiting for me at the Games Office. At the outset I had told them what my rehearsal schedule would be for “Crazy For You” and they had said there would be no problem. I arrived at the Games Office to discover that because of my schedule, they couldn’t accommodate me at any of the events! I was floored. There was an “orphan” schedule (events without staffing) that an assistant and I checked for openings, but most of them required French announcers and the few English spaces didn’t fit my schedule. I was asked if I would be using my credentials to get into any of the venues to which I’d been assigned – water or roller sports. Telling them I wouldn’t be doing that, I handed the lanyards and ID back and my Pam Am Games adventure ended, unceremoniously and with a bit of a personal whimper. One small, short-lived joy was being asked to host the “Manitoba Night” at the Games with the wonderful Al Simmons, but had to let that go as well because of a “Crazy” performance that night. I was sad not to be involved and that it had all turned out the way it did. But onward!
Unpacking “the office” was the next thing to take care of. A lot of shows had solidified over the final weeks in Portland, and I was very quickly inundated by budgets and payrolls for up-coming shows – the Calgary Stampede, “Fosse” in Chicago, “Martin Guerre” in Minneapolis, a “JC Superstar” Tour, “Oliver” in Toronto– and it seemed like I’d never been away.
But now, my immediate focus was on starting “Crazy For You” rehearsals, and being back in the arms of a sane, disciplined and organized theatre felt tremendous! Robbie and Scott (Drewitz, our choreographer) were at the helm and were absolute princes working together in tandem, with only the quality of the show in mind. I seemed to be comparing everything to the experience I’d just had down South and with each contrast, I felt better and better. The Cast was approaching the work with joy and a total commitment to making it all work. Playing New York impresario ‘Bela Zangler’ was a treat. I had little to do in the first Act, but the second was where I got to let loose, particularly in “What Causes That?” a comedy song in “The Drunk Scene” with Larry (Mannell) playing ‘Bobby Child’ disguised as ‘Bela’ (don’t ask). At one point during the song, sitting opposite each other, confused and pretty well stoned beyond measure, we get to “mirror” the other’s actions a la Marx Brothers. The process took a long while to work because the choreography was so very specific, and in rehearsal we would constantly crack up as we stared into each other’s eyes working the “bits” with peripheral vision. It was glorious! Our antics turned out to get our audiences as well and it was all we could do to maintain our composure. The whole experience served to remind me how glad I was to be back in Winnipeg and on the Rainbow boards once more.
Producing the “A Christmas Carol” CD was finally completed, and it was spectacular … if I do say so myself! Nolan (Balzer, my engineer) and I had worked out the transitions, the music, sound effects and a myriad of details over a LOT of hours in the studio over the month since my return. We quickly got to the point where we were reading each other’s mind as we listened to the playbacks and our observations rarely clashed. One afternoon, Olaf, Nolan and I sat and listened to the final product, and it was, without question, engrossing and entertaining and I felt incredibly proud of what we had done. The production values gave an additional depth to the tale. We had dimensionalized the story and the characters so that they lived and breathed in a visceral way. At points, I’d forget it was me I was hearing. Now it was a question of marketing the recording and DaCapo got right on to that. Clinton had already approached some of the bookstores in town and they had jumped at the seasonal material being available so far in advance. One bonus in all this was the fact the we had built-in customers at the Dalnavert readings. It was only a few months before those started again and the Museum had no problem adding the CD to their gift shop merchandise. We’d see how they would sell in short order.
As things seemed to be sailing along on any number of levels, there arose again the unsureness of where I would be living in the relatively near future. Sam had been constantly beating the bushes for work in New York and shows kept being added to our list. Charlotte Merkerson, our Concert Master for a large number of the touring shows, had told Sam of a horn player in the City who had an apartment at 75th and Columbus – a nice neigbourhood close to the center of things – and was moving to Florida. Charlotte knew that Sam’s living standards were relatively high, as were mine, so the potential quality of the “Company Apartment” wasn’t in question. What was in question was whether it was the right time to make the move. Time would tell.