Bill Hamlin

The DC theatre community is struggling with the loss of one of our elder statesmen, Bill Hamlin. He passed away yesterday after a battle with lung cancer.

I never had the opportunity to work with Bill, though he was a true gentleman to me the few times we met. And I witnessed many of his performances on various local stages such as the Washington Stage Guild, Theatre J, Everyman, and The Shakespeare Theatre.

He was at home in a wide variety of styles. Here he is in Shaw's The Philanderer at Washington Stage Guild.

Here he is in one of the most hilarious of his recent performances, in Michael Hollinger's Incorruptible, also at the Stage Guild.

In his last weeks, Bill's theatrical family rallied around his bedside, which must have made his final days easier. I hope he had a happy, fulfilled life.

Rest in peace, Bill.

Theatre Droppings: New York, 1975

I saw some memorable things during my first trip to New York in 1975. I was still in my stroller, of course, but sufficiently advanced to recall some specifics.

I have bragged many times that I witnessed true theatrical magic in the original production of Chicago. Gwen Verdon, Chita Rivera, and Jerry Orbach played the hell out of the piece, which was not a financial success during its initial run. (Nowadays, of course, it is the longest running revival of anything on Broadway.) I remember being impressed with Verdon and Orbach, but Rivera was the one who really blew me away. I left the theatre thinking she stole the show from the legendary Verdon, and I was sure she would win the Tony for her smashing performance. Alas, the steamroller that was A Chorus Line couldn't be stopped that year, and Donna McKechnie won instead.


McKechnie was such a sensation, she not only landed the Tony, she landed on the cover of Newsweek. It seems a cliche to say so, but the night I attended A Chorus Line remains one of the most breathtaking evenings I have ever experienced in a theatre. It's difficult to imagine now, but back in 1975, it was unheard of that a dancer could also fill the theatre with her singing, then knock your socks off with her spoken words. But everyone in the original Chorus Line accomplished that feat, and when, after more than 2 unrelenting, riveting hours, the show ended, I couldn't get out of my seat. A new type of musical was born with that production, and a new Broadway inhabitant was birthed as well: the Triple Threat. And they were all superb, from Pamela Blair's hilarious "Val" (Dance:10, Looks:3) to Kelly Bishop's Tony-winning "Sheila" to Priscilla Lopez, who brought the house down with her comic rendition of Nothing, then belted out what would become a show biz anthem, What I Did For Love. And of course, Sammy Williams, the shrimpy little dancing boy, shut the show down cold with, of all things, a monologue. Standing still in a spotlight, hands jammed into his jeans pockets, he told the story of growing up gay in an immigrant household, and in that moment, he forever shattered the illusion that dancers were not actors. (He won the Tony, too.)


Chicago and A Chorus Line were worth the price of the trip, but I saw four more productions during that first excursion to New York. A young actor/writer from the revue Beyond the Fringe, Alan Bennett, was just launching his career as a playwright back then, and he was represented on Broadway by Habeas Corpus, a farcical comedy which starred one of my favorite aging British sexpots, Rachel Roberts. It was her presence which attracted me to the production, though the cast also included Jean Marsh, who had recently won the Emmy for Upstairs, Downstairs. This was a pretty starry cast for such a light-weight piece of fluff: Roberts and Marsh were joined onstage by Celeste Holm (who has her own Dance Party in these pages) and June Havoc (remember June Havoc? Her early childhood had already been splashed across the musical stage in Gypsy, I wrote an obit for her here). Playwright Bennett went on to write The Madness of King George III and The History Boys and much more. According to my program of the show, I also saw a young actor who would soon move to Hollywood and become one of the country's biggest sex symbols: Richard Gere (I don't remember him in the play. He must have been dressed).



Another comedy I saw that week remains burnished in my memory as two examples of spectacular comic acting, and both performances were given by actresses better known for their dramatic work. I couldn't believe my luck when I read about Absurd Person Singular, which included in its six member cast, two of my all-time favorite actresses, Sandy Dennis and Geraldine Page. On the same stage! At the same time! Dennis's performance was darkly comic, illustrated at the top of the second act, when she, wordlessly, attempted to commit suicide in her own kitchen, while her husband obliviously prattled on and on about his disappointing career. This doesn't sound very funny in the retelling, but I have rarely laughed so hard in a theatre.


Act Three was Page's time to shine, as a drunken grande dame. For reasons I don't remember, she ended up on the floor, crawling across the stage in a full-length mink coat and martini in hand. Believe me, it all made sense at the time, and was hysterical.



Another straight play I saw during that trip in '75 had already been running for quite a while. I don't know exactly when Equus first opened on Broadway, but its original stars were gone by the time I caught up with the show. I was pleased to catch Francis Sternhagen still in the cast, as Alan's mother. The troubled teen at the center of the story, who blinds six horses because of a convoluted psycho-sexual trauma, was played by a totally unknown, totally nude Tom Hulse. The doctor who treats him, originally played by Anthony Hopkins, was by then being played by Anthony Perkins. Yes, that Anthony Perkins. The guy from Psycho.



I've seen close to a dozen productions of Equus over the years, but that first Broadway production was the only one in which I found the doctor to be creepier than the patient.

Fire'd

As usual around here, the weathercasters wreaked havoc with their dire predictions of a Winter Storm, due to hit DC this afternoon. Events were canceled, schoolkids were sent home, disaster loomed. But instead, we received a light dusting of the biggest, fluffiest snow flakes imaginable.

So, tonight, for the first time in a very long while, I lit a fire. The crackling makes one of the most relaxing (and most exciting. Go figure...) sounds in all of Nature.

A simmering fire, a martini with all the trimmings, and all is well.

Getting With the Program

My previous rant against Manhattan started me wondering just how many New York shows I have seen over the years. There is one way to tell, by digging out my programs.





When I first started attending professional shows, I saved every program, but that collection soon grew way out of hand. If I had continued that habit, I would now need a separate building to house so many tons of paper. So, I do not have concrete evidence of all the shows I have seen. It's too bad, because those first shows I attended, as an early teen, all live on in my memory. Growing up in Atlanta, I saw several seasons of Theatre of the Stars, the summer stock company which brought in mid-level celebrities to star in various older shows.




















It was there that I saw one of my favorite clowns, Paul Lynde, in Neil Simon's Plaza Suite, starring opposite Elizabeth Allen, who went on to costar as his wife in his sitcom. During those summers, I also saw Joel Grey in 1776, only a year before he won his Oscar, Ann Blythe in The Sound of Music (she was waaaaaay too old), and Betty Grable in Hello, Dolly! Guess who swung through town as Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof? Leonard Nimoy.



























Vincent Price came through Atlanta as Fagin in Oliver, and as I was only about 12, you would think I would have imagined myself as Oliver, or more likely, the Artful Dodger. But no, I came away from the show wanting to play Fagin. It remains on my list of roles to play.


















Well, I'm glad I still have those memories, because I long ago threw out the programs.
But I made a point of keeping all the programs from Broadway shows I have seen over the years. Yesterday, I rummaged around downstairs and found them. Some of them have not been examined in over 30 years.





I mentioned in an earlier blog that a group of us from college made the trip from LA to NY several times, and my programs verify that memory. I took trips to Manhattan in late 1975, in late 1977, again in 1978, then again in 1991. Over that period, I saw well over 30 productions, including some masterpieces and some mistakes.





I've made a cursory examination of these programs from the past, and have found some really surprising stuff. I'll sort it all out, and report back my findings.

















You can't wait, can you?

So Many Possibilities

I have a love/hate relationship with New York. I'm in the hate phase these days.






For many years I was in the love phase. Those were the "tourist" years, back when I was in college, and a group of us made the trip from LA, every year, the week between Christmas and New Year's. We made the trip solely to see shows, and, with the holiday matinees staggered throughout the week, one could see 10 or 12 shows if you tried hard enough.






And I always did. Rather than spend a lot of time on touristy traps, we spent our time On Broadway (and occasionally, Off-). I have already mentioned that these trips afforded me the chance to see many now classic shows with their original casts.







In the same week, for example, I saw the original Chicago, with legends Chita Rivera, Gwen Verdon, and Jerry Orbach, and the original A Chorus Line, right after it moved uptown from the Public Theatre.






But I never go to NY these days to see a show. I bet I've only seen two or three there in the past decade. Instead, my NY trips are simply schlepps north, looking for work. I am only brought to the City That Never Sleeps when I have an audition there.








I used to look forward to these audition trips. I had some nice success with them early on, right after I finished grad school. In fact, the very first time I ever went to NY for an audition, I booked the gig. It was with Shenandoah Summer Music Theatre, and it began a relationship which continues to this day. I've already written about that theatrical birth in a previous blog.











I've had limited success with other Manhattan auditions. Most of them run together in my fading memory, but I do recall one or two with some humor. Every time I'm summoned to NY to attend one of these overcrowded monsters, I try to remember one instance years ago. I don't even remember what the gig was, but I had been given some sides to study out in the hallway before being called in to read. This ante-chamber served as the waiting area for at least a dozen auditions happening in various rooms at this rehearsal studio. So, many people were sitting around in states of nervousness (or feigned indifference, or what have you), preparing to be called into the Principal's Office.











I couldn't help noticing an odd duck among us, a young man with (what's the PC term these days?) a developmental handicap. He had clearly wandered in off the street, looking for something to audition for. He was seated excitedly among us, waiting for someone, anyone, to come out of one of the doors so he could announce his intention to audition.











I glanced up at him, and he beamed a huge grin at me. "So many doors!" he exclaimed with wonderful anticipation. "So many possibilities!"











I remember that guy every time I am called up to one of those horrible rehearsal studios where auditions are held. Sometimes, it helps.









Here's one time it did. The gig was a summer stock production of Shakespeare's Love's Labour's Lost. After performing my standard monologue, the director proceeded to tell me all about his concept for this production. Shakespeare's treatise on Young Love, Courtly Behavior, and Growing Up, was to be set in...outer space.











The director got more and more excited, telling me all about this new interpretation which would shed so much light on Shakespeare's play, including the fact that it would take place on the Planet Navarre. I kid you not, the Princess and her ladies were to arrive on Navarre via spacecraft from (wait for it): The Planet France (my first thought was, "are they coneheads?", but I kept my mouth shut).











Though the four sets of lovers would all be human in appearance, the rustics local to the Planet Navarre (Costard, Holofernes, Nathaniel, etc) would be in alien form. Don Armado and his page, Moth, would be visiting from the Planet Spain.












I could feel my eyes glaze over as I smiled and nodded and tried to react enthusiastically to each more outrageous concept (I needed the job). I was given a speech of Boyet's (attendant to the Princess of France) to look over, out in the hall. Ten minutes later, I was called back into the room to impress everyone with my mastery of rhyming iambic couplets. But, only a second before I opened my mouth to begin, the director proclaimed, "Oh, by the way, you're an android."












The next 90 seconds are a complete blank in my memory; I only came to when I escaped from the room.








I booked the gig, and the highlight of the Centennial Theatre Festival's 2000 season was "Love's Labour's Lost in Space."








So many possibilities...

David Groh

1939-2008

So long, Joe.

(Don't) Stop The Madness

There is finally something coming down the turnpike at me, and it's not a runaway truck. It is instead a return to the John F. Kennedy Center for the Performing Arts, where I will once again be appearing in their resident production of Shear Madness.

It's always fun to be a part of their spring cast, which works only four days a week. The city is overwhelmed with tourists during the spring, largely due to school trips, and Shear has shrewdly taken advantage of that fact. For about 15 weeks from March to June, two complete and separate casts cover a total of 12 performances of the show per week.

There is a reason this show celebrated its 20th anniversary in DC last August. It is extremely well-produced.

I'm sure I will be blogging more as we begin rehearsals next month. In fact, I will get less than a week's worth, as the director will be spending much more time on the two newbies joining the cast for the first time. The remaining four cast members have done the show before, so less personal attention is needed.

As I've noted before, Shear Madness is the most fun gig in town, and also the most challenging. Look out!