“And that’s a season wrap for Richard!!” exclaimed Richard O’Brien, the Director of Episodes 12 and 13 of “2030CE” at 9:10 in the evening. The crew and cast applauded. It had been a long few days, particularly this last day. My call had been for hair, make-up and costumes at 8:15am, blocking rehearsals starting at 9:00 and then shooting non-stop until those wonderful words were spoken twelve hours later. He made the same announcements for series leads Cory, Skye and Jessica, all to generous applause … and the season was over. While I’d not been around as long as the kids (they’d started in early July and here it was October) there was a sense of relief and accomplishment – lots of hugs and handshakes – and food and drink was laid on by craft services for a celebration.

            I felt I’d left a mark that day. We’d been working in a colossal abandoned cement factory, the set for the Resistance’s “underground” headquarters. It was cold and dank, filled with derelict machinery and the smell of old cement, and there were points when I’d get lost in the maze of hallways, stairways and ramps trying to find the area where we were shooting. Having been in all the scenes filmed over those days I was exhausted, not just physically, but mentally and emotionally. I’d been buoyed by Richard’s comments over the shooting period, so I knew I’d been doing something right … but what, exactly, was still a mystery to me. In the course of the party our cinematographer, Michael Marshall, made a point of coming over to me and being exceedingly complimentary. “I really like what you’re doing”, he said, not casually. I said thanks and we talked for a bit. It was all I could do to stop myself from asking him “Can you tell me what I was “doing”? Truthfully, I had no idea! I’d said all my words, seemingly to everyone’s satisfaction, but the process was so far out of my wheel-house that I was only working instinctively. To be sure, I’d had some day-player-slam-bam-thank-you-ma’am experiences in the past, but they’d been nothing like this. I was usually limited to single scene characters who disappeared immediately afterward. There was never any huge involvement in the story line. This time I’d had the opportunity (and the unspoken requirement) of learning what the technical protocol was on set. I became more confident in what I had to do but, to a lesser degree, how I had to do it; my work was based in a kind of self-preservation more than anything else. In the Theatre, “process” was worked out over weeks of rehearsal in advance of performance. What the audience experienced each night had been taken apart, put back together, then honed and defined even more. It was the same show each time we did it. Now, very quickly, I had to get my head around very little rehearsing and doing scenes differently each time so that the Director and Editor would have an array of character choices to fit into their vision, sort of like a palette of colours they could use in the painting. It was very scary! I remembered Keanu working this way during “Hamlet”. I recognized what he was doing but it baffled me how he was doing it. I regretted never having had a conversation about that with him. His “takes” while running a scene in rehearsal (and often during performance!) were very different from each other, sometimes with subtle changes, sometimes with massive off-the-wall alterations, and those changes drove some of us crazy. But that was what he knew as a film actor.  I never got comfortable with that approach during “2030CE”, that I was leaving something incomplete, unresolved. But the fact that others were buying what I was doing … well, I just had to let go of my trepidation.

            Speculation about the Series continuing would come up from time to time. It struck me that getting renewed faced most TV performers as a season winds down. It had become obvious that ‘Victor’ was going to be a driving force down the road. We’d established my relationship with the kids, and we got along very well; but there were niggling little plot lines that left me (‘Victor’) dangling. While certainly being exciting, they were confusing cliff-hangers that left me (Richard) apprehensive about the down-the-road picture. Practically, I wanted to know what was going to happen, but that was a question no one could answer right then. I’d just have to wait … like everyone else … until January!! Even Sam managed to inject himself in the project by suggesting that he negotiate my contract for the next season. I didn’t know how that stuff worked and would probably need to talk to someone about the formalities in the movie biz! But that was a ways off yet.

            Almost immediately after the filming was done I was shunted back into spreadsheets and contracts. We’d solidified the Manilow Winter/Spring Tour and I found myself up to my neck in the dozens of orchestra budgets required for this trek through to April. Fortunately, Barry only worked on weekends – three shows, Friday, Saturday and Sunday, each in a different city. The complications with that kind of schedule were huge, mostly to do with travel, but I was pretty well in control of all the elements and had managed to get most of it done before heading into the theatrical arms of the next project – “Prok” for Manitoba Theatre Projects.

            As I mentioned, our playwright (Brian Drader) and director (Margot Charlton) were insistent that I do this role and approaching it was daunting. In real life, Alfred Kinsey was physically larger than I was and that bothered me greatly. And I also found his “Saviour Complex” difficult to deal with. He was described as contained, insular, avoiding of any confrontation of an emotional nature, calm, even-keeled on the exterior and always right … all of which, for me, pointed to some major chaos bubbling just under the surface. As his wife says at the outset “Prok walked alone. He played God.” Now how does that get assimilated and played out as the character foundation for an actor? I was scared … but at least there was time to find out.

The “Prok” name was a condensation of “Professor Kinsey” – “Pro K” – that his students affectionately used. He had founded the Kinsey Institute for Research in Sex, Gender and Reproduction at Indiana University. And it was immediately clear that Brian had gone much deeper than just addressing a why-he-did-what-he-did question. My approach would have to be to get as many of my lines down as possible before rehearsals and in particular, those for one gigantic monologue (“The Lecture”) in the second Act. I did massive notations in the script, setting down my “sense” of the character’s journey and trusted that this work would help the words “come off the page”. The good thing was that the play was so well written that there were no cracks into which to fall – ‘Prok’s’ arc was seamless. The bad thing was that there was no place to hide. I was thankful for the eight-hour days we would be devoting to the material. There are two other people in the play, his wife (and Narrator), Clara, being played by dear friend Pat Hunter, and five other roles all being played by my frequent stage partner, Arne MacPherson. The structure of the play was very filmic, moving between fantasy and the real world in a fluidly prismatic chronology which sometimes turned on a dime. It was making those transitions emotionally that concerned me most. I’d move out of a very intimate scene with Arne (playing a character named ‘Victor’ with whom ‘Prok’ seemed to be having a relationship) and into a dry analysis of the sex life of gall wasps, or from shaking hands and signing autographs at a book launch to being examined by a Doctor for a genital infection. There was no space to maneuver, no down-time to make a mental adjustment – just navigate the change and get on with it. And that’s what I meant about no cracks … no time for a loss of focus, just play on TOP of the arc. It certainly kept me on my toes!

            Rehearsals went extremely well. However, even though I’d gone through a debilitating slog to get comfortable with the words, there were points when I thought that I was a sham and shouldn’t be doing this. I experienced a growing desperation that I couldn’t memorize lines anymore, that this would be my last show. I never mentioned this to anyone, and it took me some tough days to work through the doubt. I struggled through some aspects of the play that were deeply difficult because of what I had to “get in touch with” in order to make them happen. I knew that the lighting and sound would help bridge those gaps, but making the emotional leaps continued to cause me great trouble. Margot was helpful, but we usually spoke in non-active terms, addressing the psychological track for any particular moment rather than the acting mechanics. Arne and Pat were having problems along the same lines as well, but we convinced ourselves that nothing was insurmountable and gradually moved along, albeit slowly and, at times, painfully.

            And then there were moments at the opposite end of the spectrum. In an early scene called “The Science of Sex” ‘Kinsey’ says to ‘Clara’, who is knitting in a chair, “Let me see your foot”. She raises her leg, still knitting, and ‘Kinsey’ kneels and removes her shoe. “What are you looking for?” she asks. “I’m researching a marriage course they want me to teach. Came across a bit about foot fetishism in Havelock Ellis’s Studies. How does this feel?” And he proceeds to suck her toes. The first time I read those stage directions I froze. Good God, Brian! Really?? How was that going to work? During rehearsals the actions were mimed, but I knew there would come a day when it had to be done “full out” and that day came once we were into tech. I understood the mechanics of ‘Kinsey’s’ action … academically … after all that was how he was approaching this small experiment. I knew what he had to do; but there were a whole lot of things churning under the surface as I thought about what I had to do. Pat and I had talked about it – a lot. She promised that she would have a pedicure and that her feet would be scrubbed. The morning of the scene she reassured me that all had been taken care of and it would be just fine.

            The Colin Jackson Theatre is a large room with a floor-level playing area at one end and the audience area on risers at the other. Along an adjacent wall there were two more rows, one on the floor level and the other a step up behind the first. There was no theatre lighting for that morning’s rehearsal, just the room’s ceiling lights, so it was all a bit drab and ordinary. There were a few tech folks seated in the audience area and, of course, Margot. This would be the first time we did the scene with all the “details”. Just as we started, Arne slipped in and took a seat in the front row of the wall seating. He was about fifteen feet away and right in my eye-line.

            I said the “how does this feel” line as I knelt, took off her shoe and rested her foot on my knee. There it was. Pink. Trimmed nails. A wee bit sweaty from being in her shoe. There was nothing left to do but close my eyes and go for it. There was no way to describe all the sensations that crowded into my brain – it was her big toe, now in my mouth, and I was sucking on it. Just after I get her toe in my mouth, ‘Clara’ giggles and says, “It tickles”. I could feel a perceptible shift in the room, a slight rise in the energy. “Do you find it stimulating?” Kinsey asks her as he begins sucking on her toe again. Then came a gurgling, sort of choking sound. I glanced up in Arne’s direction. And in that second, he lost it … he just … LOST it! The moments that followed were seared into my cerebral cortex as stop-action frames, complete with the “ka-chik” of a lens shutter sounding, as if photos were being taken of Arne exploding into laughter. “Ka-chik”: he was leaning forward with his eyes wide open in disbelief and his mouth forming a little “O”. “Ka-chik”: he was leaning back in the seat, one leg in the air, his head thrown back, his mouth now wide open in full howl and his arm was clawing the air. “Ka-chik”; he was on one knee on the floor, doubled over in complete surrender to his visceral response to the moment. ‘Clara’ says, “Actually, it’s quite nice … you made me drop a stitch.” And that set Arne off again. This time there was a soundtrack, unedited, fed by what I can only assume was the lingering initial image still rolling around in his brain. His laugh was deep and thick, interspersed with small falsetto sounds as he struggled to breath.

            At that point I didn’t know what to do. Should we continue with the scene – there was a lot left to go. Should we stop and let Arne finish his outburst. I looked over at him, now in real time, as he tried to control himself. In the scene, I was supposed to pull away from the toe and examine her feet, trying to appreciate their aesthetic. I think I heard Arne gasp out “Sorry … sorry”. I looked at Pat, but she was transfixed by Arne and laughing as well. ‘Kinsey’ had a bunch of things to say but it seemed useless to go on. Margot, who also seemed to have been caught up in the moment, said “Alright” and we all relaxed, trying to collect ourselves. It struck me that, while not quite as extreme as Arne’s, our audiences might have similar reactions to the toe-sucking scene. I hoped that since I’d now experienced a) the physical sensation and b) a response (of sorts), I could move along and allow this to be just another part of the process in bringing ‘Kinsey’ to life. It would never get easy.

            As I’d discovered over a number of years, Arne was so very easy to play with. He was always present, focused, generous and very real. I loved that quality about his work. In “Prok” he had the unenviable task of playing five distinct characters without the benefit of any major costume changes. It was only by my addressing him with the new character’s name at the start of a scene that the audience knew who he was. Arne’s changes were subtle and solid and gave our exchanges life and truth. The rush of adrenalin began as the tech rehearsals added the final element to the show. The addition of light and sound created that cinematic quality and certainly helped me feel cocooned in the story. By the time we opened, we three, we happy three, were so at home with each other that we felt safe and connected. That doesn’t mean it was easy, not by a long shot. In fact, for me, it got harder as we went along. I kept discovering routes I’d not investigated thoroughly in rehearsals and decided to challenge myself by mentally stepping into some new territory, always making sure that I maintained a firm grasp on the conditioning. With only ten performances, and with varying audience numbers, none of us ever settled in to the point where it became rote. I credit this show with assuaging those misgivings I’d had early on about my abilities to still perform. One hits on those confirmation moments every now and then and, thankfully, this was one for me. I was enormously pleased with the experience.

            While I’d tried to shunt him to the sidelines, Manilow still consumed me. In prep for the Tour, he was doing a lot of media appearances. Dealing with the machinations of network television when it came to hiring and payrolling the musicians left me weak. “The Today Show” seemed to make things complicated on purpose as their in-house protocols dictated all the terms of my approach and questions – I couldn’t talk to so-and-so without having asked another so-and-so for permission – and, as that kind of bullshit hierarchical structure always did to me, I balked … at least a little bit – I couldn’t bring myself to create any awkwardness for Barry. I managed to dealt with those little one-offs and the groundwork for the Tour got deal with. And then, much to my surprise, I found out that I would be “officiating” at Radio City Music Hall for Barry’s week-long sit there in February. Sam had to be in Europe and handed it all off to me. Yikes! Scary! But exciting.

            One other great piece of New York news was that the Broadway sit of the London production of “Chitty Chitty Bang Bang” was ours! The connections we’d made with the Cameron MacIntosh folks during the London “Oliver” fiasco (U.S. Equity not allowing the Brit cast to come over with the show) were now standing us in good stead and next Summer would see “Chitty” on our roster.

            Ken (Peter) and I had been discussing “West Side Story” casting on and off for the past few months. We needed to get on the stick to start locking down the major roles, something that, in my experience with Ken, always took more time than it needed to. While I was rarely in a locked position, sometimes his “suggestions” for performers left me baffled and, of late, I’d held off committing to anyone just to piss him off. But I realized this was doing me more harm than him, so we came to a few decisions. Unfortunately, we’d already lost some of my list-toppers, like Jon Tsouras for ‘Riff’ who had accepted a production of “Starlight Express” in Germany (our Winnipeg “kids” from the old days were making marks for themselves in the big world) and a few others who would have been, for me, perfect. The in-town auditions went pretty well and that was a little move in the right direction. Folks were geared up for working with Choreographer Bill Robertson again and had turned out in full force and great form and we got the ensemble pretty well set. But there were still some roles that I knew we’d not be able to cast at home and getting that settled was a priority, so it looked like we’d be heading to Toronto sometime soon. But all this tended to fade into the background as Barry became what I ate, slept and breathed in the time leading up to New York.

And then there was one last thing. I’d never had to do ADR (Automated Dialogue Replacement) before, but I’d been called in to record five lines in the “2030CE” season’s final episode. Now let’s be clear. There is nothing “automated” about “Automated Dialogue Replacement”! There had been some rustling noise from the body mics we were wearing, and now I had to do my lines over – same words, same inflections, same timing, same physical actions, same vocal quality! It was a very small, cramped studio with an overhead screen. The sections that needed attention were played for me a few of times so I could get the sound of my voice in my head and see what I’d been doing as it was delivered. Then, each was played again, this time with a large white vertical line moving across the screen as my visual countdown to record. When it got to the far side of the screen, I was to start speaking. I had to watch my lips and speak into the mic in front of me matching my words exactly. The maddening part of this was that it was being recorded … in Regina! I was alone in the studio with a local technician, headphones on, and listening to folks 350 miles away giving instructions and directing me! It took a bit for me to get into the swing of this process. There were a lot of takes. Five lines doesn’t sound like much but, let me tell you, it is! However, the good thing in of all this was that I got to see what the show looked like. It was pretty spectacular! I was a bit uncomfortable watching myself at the outset but concentrating on my lips left that feeling behind pretty fast. In the course of the session the folks at Salty Dog Studios in Regina told me that they thought the show would be back in production before we knew it. That was a heartening note on which to end the session.

And then I was off to New York … and Barry!