Ah, Liaisons...

So, I spent the last two days helping to run the 7th Annual Washington/Baltimore/Northern Virginia Actors Equity Liaison Committee Auditions.




These auditions were invented 7 years ago by the local Equity Liaison Committee as a vehicle to allow the local membership access to a large group of casters from the local theatre community. The auditions, now nicknamed "the Liaisons," have grown like gangbusters, and now attract theatres from other regions, as well as actors from New York, Chicago, and points beyond.




My usual function at these auditions is the all-important Sorting Of The Resumes. The actors arrive with 50 headshots, which must be gathered together with others in their group (7-9 actors audition in every half hour period) to be distributed to the auditors. It is a job for which I have volunteered for the past 6 years. I love checking out the various resumes and headshots (lots of color shots these days), and when I run across someone I know, I pop out to chat.





This year, however, I assumed the responsibility of "running the day," the phrase we have been using to classify the person in charge of the actors. It's a high stress job, funneling a couple of hundred nervous actors through the process. But I had a fun time, particularly on Tuesday, when the pressure was off me the actor. My own audition was on Monday.





Actors are not nearly as whacked out as you might think, at least stage actors aren't. We had very few weirdos to deal with, though I am still perplexed by one actor. "Eric" (not his real name. OK, it is his real name) took the time and effort to sign up for an audition slot, showed up for his audition, signed in, turned in his 50 pictures and resumes, then disappeared. He probably got the jitters, and was too embarrassed to tell any of the proctors that he was leaving. Instead, he simply bolted.



I can relate. These kinds of auditions can be nerve wracking (in fact, I find ALL auditions nerve wracking). I myself am not a very good auditioner, which, as you might suspect, has adversely affected my career. These days, I tend to get work in places I have worked before, rather than through a cold audition.



Auditions like the Liaisons require the actor to perform monologues of their own choosing. I find this a terrible burden for the actor. In a single time slot, one must choose pieces which contrast in tone and style, and be able to fully inhabit two (or more!) characters, in three minutes or less. I'm sure I have over a dozen monologues ready to go at any one time, as one needs a Classical Serious, Classical Comic, Contemporary Serious, Contemporary Comic, etc etc etc.



This year, I took a bit of a chance on my pieces. One, from Steinbeck's Of Mice and Men, was taken from my performance of the play last fall. It's always always always good to do a piece which one has already played in performance. It was a quick speech of about a minute's length, but I hope it showed me off in a different light (I am not usually seen as an earthy ranch hand).



My second selection was more dangerous. I spent many weeks prior to the audition in a state of flux, choosing one monologue, then another, then a third, but never being completely thrilled with any of them. Then, my great acting coach and friend Bobbi passed away, causing her to be in my mind a lot. It suddenly occurred to me to resurrect one of the pieces upon which I had worked with her all those years ago. Of course, all those pieces are meant to be played by an actor in his 20s or 30s, so that presented a bit of a problem. I am neither in my 20s nor 30s.



But I remembered a quiet little monologue we had worked on for a long while, from The Glass Menagerie. I usually would not pick such a well-known play for an audition such as this one, and the role is very much too young for me to play these days. (Sam Waterston played the role in the famous TV version starring Katherine Hepburn.) But the piece is described by its playwright as a "memory play," and one speech in particular, the final moment of the play, is clearly spoken a long time after the play's main action has concluded. I thought I could get away with it, with the spirit of Bobbi sitting on my shoulder.



We'll see if I did (get away with it). I had several compliments on the audition at the time, including a friend who confessed that, when I first announced The Glass Menagerie, he rolled his eyes, but I won him over. And I've received a call from one of the major theatres here in town, a theatre which has ignored me for a decade or so, for an audition there next week.



As for the Liaison Auditions themselves, I wish actors never had to go through such a death-defying experience. Pulling a few minutes out of a full length play and attempting to create something worthwhile, in front of 40 or so producers, directors, and casters, is a real mountain to climb.



I don't know why we do it.



Yes, I do. We have to.

Heath Ledger

Hard to quit you.

1979-2008

Suzanne Pleshette

Son of a gun

We had big fun.

1937-2008

Album Droppings: Diva Edition

I continue to slog away at my vast record collection, translating hundreds of albums to digital format. I've moved into the 'Ps"!


I have to admit that many many MANY of these albums are real losers. I don't know why I bought them in the first place.

Well, yes I do. I know why I bought each and every one of them. In some cases, in fact in a whole lot of them, I bought the album merely for the presence of a single female performer.

Such was the case with Pins and Needles. This was a studio recording celebrating the 25th Anniversary of a Harold Rome revue which in its original form ran about four years back in the 30s. This recording was released in 1962. Rome was at the time represented on Broadway as the composer of I Can Get It For You Wholesale, and for this studio recording of Pins and Needles, he enlisted one of the minor players in Wholesale. It is Streisand's appearance on this album (she doesn't need a first name on this blog) which encouraged me to purchase it. It's amazing how clear and clean her sound was back then (she was in her late teens at the time), with only a hint of the nasality which she adopted soon afterward.

While on the topic of I Can Get It For You Wholesale, it's a very under appreciated story of the meteoric rise and sudden downfall of an unscrupulous young businessman. The tone is considerably darker than another show with identical themes which appeared around this time (early 60s), How To Succeed in Business Without Really Trying. While Wholesale sings of "men and ulcers on parade," How to Succeed admonishes that a "secretary is not a toy." Audiences chose lightness over dark; How to Succeed won all the Tonys and the Pulitzer, and Wholesale is remembered solely as Streisand's Broadway debut.

I was never a Mary Martin fan. Give me Merman or Channing, please, but not the sugary sweet characters Martin tended to play. I own the original Sound of Music because one must, and the original I Do! I Do! because the terrific Robert Preston is worth it. The only other recording I have, either on vinyl or CD, which features Martin is One Touch of Venus. This is one of those studio albums which pretends to be an original cast album, and as such things go, this one is pretty darn good. Kurt Weill broke with his usual atonal habit and contributed a fairly traditional score, but as I am a fan of neither Weill nor Martin, you might wonder why I own this thing. Well, I purchased it on vinyl only a few years ago, when I appeared in a staged reading of the musical at American Century Theatre. We did a weekend's worth of performances, and I actually liked the piece. I had a ball playing sidekick Stanley.


I have lots of other recordings featuring various divas, but this one is probably the weirdest. Sid and Marty Krofft had booming careers as producers of children's television back in the 60s and 70s, but their shows all had a psychedelic twist. Lidsville took place in a world of talking (and singing and dancing) hats, and starred the hilarious Charles Nelson Reilly, a gig for which he was MUCH too good. The Bugaloos were all flying insects who were also a rock band, or something, tortured by a villainous Martha Raye who lived in a giant juke box. Or maybe the singing insects lived in the giant juke box. I can't remember those specifics. I can only remember being embarrassed for Raye, who was one of the great film clowns of the golden age, being reduced to this thing (our Maggie Raye has starred in the Friday Dance Party in these pages). Sigmund and the Sea-Monsters starred a post-Family Affair Johnny Whittaker, before things went so terribly wrong for him.


But the weirdest, wildest, most disturbing show from the Krofft Brothers was also their most famous, H.R. Pufnstuf. These guys surely ingested something illegal when they concocted this story of an island where all inanimate objects talked, and many of them walked. All of them annoyed. Poor Jack Wild, fresh from an Oscar nomination for Oliver, did the best he could as the kid lost in this acid-induced world, where the title character was a talking Dragon. Or maybe he was a dinosaur, who knew? Somehow, this piece attracted my attention way back when. I'm sure it was due to the presence in the cast of character actress Billie Hayes, whom I had loved as Mammy Yokum in Li'l Abner, and was here chewing the scenery as an incompetent witch.


This TV series was popular enough to spawn a film, and I own the soundtrack to that film. It has not been released on CD in this country, and somebody has listed the vinyl recording on EBay at 20 bucks. I imagine it used to be worth even more than that, as the soundtrack boasts a solo by "special star Mama Cass" (I bet she loved that billing) which has not been available anywhere else for over 30 years. That song, "Different," has now been released on a CD of Elliot's solo recordings, so I guess the value of Pufnstuf 's soundtrack has dropped (that number can be viewed here). The film was extremely low budget, shot on the TV series' sets, and when watching it now (full disclosure of my geekiness: I not only own the soundtrack, I actually own the movie on VHS-it's never been released on DVD), one feels rather sad. Three divas playing witches deserved better. Martha Raye was ending her long stage and screen career; to her credit, she is as subtle as anyone could be playing a character called "Boss Witch." Billie Hayes, who spent a lot of time in Krofft Bros. series, deserved better than to be remembered only for this hammy role of "Witchiepoo." She snagged the role of Mammy Yokum in the film version of Li'l Abner after playing the role on the first national tour (she stole it from original Broadway Mammy, Charlotte Rae. I love that.) And Elliot was just stepping out on her own, which is probably how she was talked into playing this role in which her first appearance is made sitting in a vat of fruit, munching on a banana.





It helps, I suppose, to be hopped up on mushrooms to enjoy this thing. But be careful. The mushrooms in Pufnstuf talk.

Snow Daze

I can't help it. I'm a sucker for the snow.

I get so excited, I just have to head up to my rooftop deck:

Here's the view once I get up there:

I missed the first snow of the season by being in Los Angeles, which, I understand, is enjoying temps in the 70s today. So, today's light sprinkling is especially appreciated. My first winter here in DC, back in '96, coincided with one of the major snow storms of the decade. At the time, I was living in a basement apartment, better know as "The Pit," and I was buried. Which would have been fine if I had any window action going on, but, just like Laverne and Shirley, my windows were all at sidewalk level, so I couldn't even see out them.

I don't live in "The Pit" anymore. Instead, I live in a Tree House. On such a day as today, I pull up all the wood blinds on all my windows, and just look.

Snow. It's addictive. It's Nature's coke!

Toilet Humour

I spent the better part of Sunday with my head in the toilet.

Literally, I spent about two hours trying to fix my leaky john. The toilet had been slowly dripping for many many months (only inside the tank; there was never any leakage onto the floor). Against my better judgement, I decided to finally try to fix the thing myself, and therein started a really monstrous afternoon. Why I even attempted it is beyond me; history has proven time and time again that I am not a DIY Guy.

I ventured out to Home Depot, a place which always gives me the creeps: the place is just too big. It makes me feel like a midget. And an INCOMPETENT midget at that. I look at all those acres and acres of aisles filled with Do-It-Yourself Stuff, and I feel completely overwhelmed, as well as highly unqualified to own my own home. I mean, I can't install my own ceiling fan, I can't re-tile my floor, I can't replace my garbage disposal, I can't even Plant A Tree For The Homeless. But obviously, everybody else can.

However, I needed to buy a new toilet flush valve apparatus, encouraged by a commercial I recently saw which illustrated how easy it was to replace the thing.

Never trust commercials.

My home toolbox is limited, as is my patience for such endeavors, and after several hours contorting myself in order to reach various toilet valves and fixtures, I had succeeded in creating a leak where one had not existed before. I now had a steady dribble onto the bathroom floor.

I gave up, and headed for the yellow pages to call a plumber who would surely have gouged me for an emergency call on a Sunday. And I was kicking myself for ever starting the damn project. As I waited on hold, I thought I'd make one more effort (I inherited that little bit of stubbornness from my father), so I removed the brand new flusher and re-installed the ancient relic I started with.

The new leak stopped.

And so did the old one I was trying to fix in the first place.

[sigh]

Stritch to stretch

I've been thinking of Elaine Stritch lately. Why not?





On a recent drive to and from Manhattan, I listened to the recording of her one-woman show, "At Liberty," so she's surfaced in my consciousness this week. I love her to death, who doesn't? Yet I can't help thinking that only those people who have seen her in person can really explain her appeal. Her career has included just about everything, but she is by far best known for her roles in various musicals. From "Sail Away," which Noel Coward constructed with her in mind, to her most famous role in "Company," to the Hal Prince revival of "Show Boat," to countless others, she is remembered primarily for her musical work. But in listening to her recordings, one can't help but notice that she is more likely to wobble off the note than hit it cleanly, so her appeal must be in the theatre itself.














I have not seen her in a musical, but I consider myself lucky to have seen her searing performance in Edward Albee's "A Delicate Balance" on Broadway. She received one of her numerous Tony nominations for that role, and would have easily won it too, if Zoe Caldwell hadn't attracted so much attention as Maria Callas in "Master Class" that season.










Stritch is currently reviving her "At Liberty" show at the classy Cafe Carlyle, so I was excited and amazed to read that she will next be appearing in a starry revival of Beckett's "Endgame." For anyone who did not study Beckett in college (nobody likes Beckett, we only study Beckett), "Endgame" takes place in a vaguely post-apocalyptic world (Beckett's favorite setting for his plays), in a basement room with one window, a guy in a wheelchair, a silent servant, and two trash cans. Hamm, the guy in the wheelchair, will be played in this production by John Turturro. Elaine Stritch will be playing his mother, Nell. She lives in one of the trash cans. Her husband, Nagg, lives in the other trash can. See why nobody likes Beckett?









But I bet our Elaine will wipe the stage with her costars, even though trapped in the garbage bin.