GAMECOCK DIARIES, PART EIGHT: GAY FOR PLAY

(Another entry in my occasional series describing the pursuit of my MFA. This full series of entries can be seen here, in reverse chronological order)

Richard and I became good friends during our USC years. He was the only MFA directing candidate on campus at the time, and he directed me in one of my favorite performances.

In September, 1994, I started my second year of my MFA degree at USC. When the fall semester began, I was slated to appear in three, count'em three shows between September and December. But then I ducked participation in the first show of the season, Hot L Baltimore, without knowing that act would have consequences for me down the road.  Then the second show of the season, Othello, was bumped into the following semester, so I ended up playing only one show that fall (go here for the tale of slipping out of Hot L Baltimore and my disappointing performance in Othello.) 

This is the MFA class behind mine. The guy in the stripes was ejected from the program soon after he arrived. Three of the others were new to me; Eastern Standard gave me the chance to really get to know these kooks.

My days were pretty well defined that semester. The schedule went like this: in the mornings, we grad students were teaching undergrads, mostly non-majors who needed to fill their schedules with easy electives. We taught a Beginning Acting class (self-explanatory) and Speech & Diction, with the main component here teaching IPA to kids who couldn't have cared less (IPA is the International Phonetic Alphabet which, in those times before the internet, was used to symbolize the various sounds made while speaking English. Riveting stuff, eh?).

Here's our Katherine teaching the IPA.
Those squiggles represent the sounds
we make when speaking. This alphabet
used to be used to teach English as a
second language. Archaic nowadays.

In the afternoons, we ourselves took class, which included Movement (we got some Alexander and some Laban there), and Speech (which included a weekly class with The Shakespeare Theatre Company's dialect coach Sarah, who commuted from DC every Monday to teach), as well as a private session with on-campus speech teacher, Jayne. We also, of course, took our own Acting class, which was lead by a different teacher each semester that year. I wrote more on these academic classes in the third entry in this series, go here for that report.

We had our first read at
my place, which
Richard dubbed the
"Shady Rest."

The evenings were spent in rehearsal. The Fall '94 semester, which began, as I said, with my being slated for 3 shows, had been reduced to one production. Our directing MFA candidate, Richard, was to direct one of his thesis projects on the main stage. He chose Eastern Standard by Richard Greenberg. 

Greenberg launched a long and plentiful career with Eastern Standard; he is perhaps better known for other plays such as Three Days of Rain (which had an infamous revival starring Julia Roberts a long while back) and Take Me Out, for which he won the Tony for Best Play in 2003 (that show's revival in 2022 also won the Tony for Best Revival). None of this had anything to do with our production in the fall of 1994. 

In those days before Google, it was hard to research living playwrights, so though I had heard Greenberg's name, I did not know anything about his work. In researching this entry today, I have learned that Eastern Standard was his first Broadway production, and it put him on the map. The show is not often remembered as an "AIDS play," despite the fact that the disease was a central plot point of the play.

Newcomers Sarah and Richard became
fast friends at USC. They hung around each
other a lot, if you glanced up and saw one
of them, you were likely to see the other
standing next to them. I loved their
easy comradery, but I recall their antics
interrupting more than one rehearsal in
more than one play.

These days, Aids Plays don't have much sizzle, but back in the 80s and 90s, playwrights were cranking out work which often addressed the plague which was tearing through the theatrical world. Angels in America and The Normal Heart became classics of the genre. Eastern Standard did not, having fallen off the radar until the recent death of Greenberg has brought it back into the spotlight.  Back in the day, though, the show was a big success for the writer. 

Director Richard cast only one undergrad, Mack (left), among 5 graduate actors. Mack had a hard time "playing gay" and didn't seem
to have much stage presence on his own. I still don't know why Richard chose him over other, more qualified actors. Maybe he had a little crush?

Eastern Standard has six characters, and director Richard filled the cast with five MFA actors and one undergrad.

Liz played the waitress.
She was inexplicably
invited to Long Island
with the yuppies.

The play concerned a quartet of sophisticated upper-middle class yuppies who meet cute in a swanky Manhattan restaurant. Phoebe sits at one table with her brother; she has just ended a relationship with a guy being prosecuted for insider trading. Her brother Peter (my role) is a successful TV writer who has bigger problems than being single: he's just been diagnosed with Aids. A second table holds an architect and an artist, two old college friends who are admiring the brother and sister from afar. A third table holds a bag lady who has slipped into the restaurant and whose loud rantings and physical attacks bring these four yuppies together. Thus the meet cute. 

Nan played Mae, the homeless bag lady. I have a picture of Nan and me backstage at every show we did together, which is over a dozen.

The second act moves to a beach house on Long Island a while later, where the two couples are vacationing and have inexplicably invited the homeless woman to join them. And also the waitress. I can't remember exactly how that was justified, but it made sense at the time.

I remember telling the
costumer I did not want
to appear shirtless, though
act two took place at the
beach. I was shy about my
body at the time. A month
or so later, I started hitting
the gym to prep for my
next adventure. Stay tuned

The show was great fun to play, as Greenberg's dialogue was full of sparkling wit (the playwright has been described as the American Noel Coward) mixed with moments of quiet drama. Most of that drama concerned my character's struggle with facing his diagnosis in the midst of a brand new love affair. This plotline also created most of the drama offstage as well. As we were playing on a college campus, the full student body was invited to attend. Most of them didn't, of course, U of SC was a major football university, who went to the theatre? But all the theater students were required to attend a performance. This included a huge group of students in a class called Creative Drama, or something like that, which was a crib course populated with hundreds of students looking for an easy A.

On closing night, Sarah stepped off a 
platform during a blackout and fell. She
continued the show while sitting on a 
chaise, confusing all of us (we hadn't
seen the fall). EMTs were called. I think
of this every time I tell an actor to 
break a leg. 

Those students were decidedly not like the other undergrad actors on campus, they were more like the general populace, as it were. During our 6 performance run, we occasionally heard an uneasy squawk or two when the two gay characters physically came anywhere near each other.  At our final performance, filled with all those kids who had put off seeing the show earlier, we had a pretty rowdy time. There was no physicality between the two gay characters other than a single hug, but you'd think the world was ending. Remember, this was 1994, and in South Carolina at the time, it felt more like 1974. 

Eastern Standard afforded me the chance to show off comedic chops, but also the chance to delve deeply into a familiar psyche: a gay man trying to make his place in the world. A few months later, I was to tackle this theme even harder, in the solo play The Night Larry Kramer Kissed Me. Stay tuned.

 

 

HE'S GOT POSSIBILITIES 

When I heard that composer Charles Strouse had passed away, many memories came back to me, of the various musicals he had written, and of the several times I interacted with them. Most recently, here: 

Quite a few years ago, I played that poor, put-upon schnook Harry MacAfee in Strouse's Bye, Bye, Birdie, a character I had dreamed of playing since first seeing the movie version as a kid, with Paul Lynde in the role. But playing MacAfee was not my first encounter with this musical; 35 years earlier, Birdie would have a big impact on my development as a performer.

It was during my college days, in the late 70s, when I first landed in Birdie, which, let's face it, is one of those musicals done constantly in high schools and colleges. 

Ron Hill headed the chorus dept at my Atlanta
high school. He had an early death and I harbor
no ill will for his comment to me that I could
not sing. But it kept me out of musicals
for a while.

At the time, I was unsure about my place in musical theater, as I had had a music teacher in high school who informed me I couldn't carry a tune. I believed him for a while, but my attraction to musicals finally won out. Turns out, this guy was wrong (maybe it was my voice changing which confused him). Anyway, I gradually dipped my toe into musical waters, first in a very small role in Hello, Dolly as a senior in (a different) high school, then in another small role in L'il Abner in college. 

That's me as Lonesome Polecat, Indian Brave. He made Kickapoo Joy Juice, "heep grade A." The racism in this role is apparent now, but back then, they just smeared Texas Dirt all over me and sent me onstage.

I sang a full verse of the opening number in Abner, which gave me some much needed confidence (I wrote about that experience here).

I had no business playing Motel the Tailor, the
orthodox Jewish boy who didn't know how to
wear his prayer shawl. I also couldn't sing his
big solo, until it was transposed to a lower key.
"Wonder of Wonders" was my first full solo number
in front of an audience. I ended it with a cartwheel,
cuz that's what you do when you're insecure about
your singing.

Soon after, I landed in a community theater production of Fiddler on the Roof, and sang my first full solo number in front of an audience. I was gradually proving to myself that I could carry a song successfully on my own (I wrote about that experience in dinner theater here). During this period, I met my great friend Judy, who approached me in the hallway at CSUN and asked me to be a chorus boy in her directing project, a slimmed down version of Cabaret.

I was originally a Kit Kat Boy, but by the time we opened, I was playing the Emcee. It was a dream role for me, and I was lucky to play the role in a full-length production 10 years later.

I had always loved Cabaret, (I wrote about my adoration of this musical here), and Judy was mixing the Kit Kat Club girls with some boys (since the Alan Cumming revival of Cabaret, this is commonly done, but back in the mid 70s, no one was doing it). Of course I said yes. During our rehearsal period, the guy playing the Emcee was showing up high to rehearsals, and Judy dumped him and elevated me to the role. 

Dick Van Dyke didn't get much competition from me, but I was still proud that I handled the leading role without, you know, crapping out. That's me as Albert in Bye, Bye, Birdie, in the bowtie, surrounded by the citizens of Sweet Apple, OH, which apparently had a majority Armenian population. Everyone in this picture is of Armenian descent except me and the guy in my lap. Oh, and there's one Latino in this crowd, doing director Judy a favor by giving his talents to the ensemble. Thanks, Ronnie!

A while after that,  Judy gave me a tremendous gift. She was developing her director skills by directing a full-scale musical for her church's youth group, and she asked me to play Albert J. Peterson, the Dick Van Dyke role in Birdie.

I was afraid of "Talk To Me," Albert's
big ballad in the piece. My costar
Carla was afraid of the romantic kiss
at the very end of the show.

This was my first leading role in a musical, with four big songs, including a ballad. I had never sung a ballad in public and I was very afraid of it. (It's all those held notes, don't cha know.)  We only ran a couple of weekends I think, but the show was a success, and I think I was, too (so don't tell me otherwise, let me remember it this way, k?) 

Our college chum Bob Newman played our
Birdie, not everyone can pull off gold lame`.
Bob went on to a successful TV career, and
several Emmy nods for Guiding Light.

I learned how to be a leading player while portraying Albert, and after that experience, I never again shied away from auditioning for roles in musicals, leading or otherwise.  

Thirty five years after that college experience, I landed in Birdie again, at Shenandoah Summer Music Theatre, this time playing Mr. MacAfee. (I wrote about this gig when it was happening, go here for that report). This climactic scene was completely revamped in the film. In the stage version, MacAfee, completely starstruck by the show's host, creates total chaos on The Ed Sullivan Show. 

Unless I'm missing something, these two productions of Birdie were the only times I sang songs by Charles Strouse. One of them, "Put On A Happy Face," found its way into the Great American Songbook, and another, "Kids," is one of the funniest numbers in any classic musical comedy.  With that first production back in the 70s, I believe he played a big part in my development as a musical theatre actor.  Thanks, Buddy!

Charles Strouse 

1928-2025