Friday Dance Party: Let's Raise a Glass Together

It's no secret I have a huge respect for those actors who spend their professional lives "in support." Michael Jeter, the star of this week's Dance Party, had such a career. He made a splash in more than a few movies, including a memorable scene as a homeless transvestite in The Fisher King, and had finished several films before his untimely death (both Open Range and Polar Express are dedicated to his memory). But he's surely best remembered for two television roles. Years after guesting in a very small role on Designing Women, the same producers invited him to join the cast of the Burt Reynolds sitcom Evening Shade; playing the shrimpy but enthusiastic math teacher / football coach, he was nominated for three Emmys, winning the award in 1992. (He received subsequent Emmy nominations for guest shots on Chicago Hope and Picket Fences.) Generations of kids recognize him from Sesame Street, playing "Mr. Noodle's Brother, Mr. Noodle." But Jeter had a difficult life, and his struggle with drug and alcohol addiction led him to give up acting for a time. He was working as a legal secretary when the producers of Designing Women hunted him down. His stage career included appearing in the original Off-Broadway production of Caryl Churchill's gender-bending Cloud Nine, directed by Tommy Tune. It was Tune, in fact, who cast Jeter in his most memorable stage role, the impish accountant in Grand Hotel. The following clip features a tremendously exuberant performance which had underlying irony: Jeter's character in Grand Hotel was dying, and Jeter himself was diagnosed with HIV, about which he was bravely public. So, in this clip, a dying man is playing a dying man. But you'd never know it, as Jeter is a fireball. I remember seeing this number on the Tony Awards, and it persuaded me to see Grand Hotel on my next New York visit (in fact, I saw it THREE times; I wrote about seeing the Broadway version here).

Michael Jeter died six years ago this week. His dynamic stage presence is on view in this clip; the audience is clearly responding to his superb physicality (they interrupt the proceedings several times with spontaneous applause); watch as the character swills unaccustomed champagne and gets delightfully tipsy, all in the course of this showstopper: 

Two minutes after performing this heartstopping number live, Michael Jeter was awarded the Tony.

Guiding Light

1937-2009

My buddy Larry Dahlke has mentioned on his blog the passing of ER, after 15 years. He makes an evocative point that, sometimes, the long-time presence of certain things, like TV shows, creates a bit of stability in lives which are otherwise full of change. I couldn't agree more, and echo his sentiment with my own bit of wistfulness regarding the announced passing of the longest running scripted program in television history (it's even in the Guinness Book of World Records), Guiding Light.

This show is so old, it predates television. The soap (by the way, any idea why they're called soap operas? Anyone? It's because, in their infancy, these programs were all sponsored, and even produced, by companies which sold soap. In fact, Guiding Light has always been produced by Proctor and Gamble, the makers of Ivory and Camay, as well as Cheer, Prell, Crest, and Pampers) began life as a 15 minute radio drama in 1937, and remained merely audio for 15 years. The initial premise concerned a paternal reverend who placed a light in his window to let everyone know he was available to guide them. When the show made the jump to television in 1952, the "Guiding Light" became a lighthouse, guiding rudderless characters to safety. The motif of the lighthouse must have been dreamed up by someone who failed geography, as the show takes place in Springfield, Illinois, which is landlocked.

Like every other soap opera, Guiding Light has been a training ground for scores of folks who went on to more high-profile careers, such as Calista Flockhart, Cicely Tyson, Taye Diggs, and Hayden Panettiere. Allison Janey, Kevin Bacon, and James Earl Jones all spent time on the show, which was also home to the actress whom TVGuide claims to be the best actress ever to work in daytime, Beverlee McKinsey. I would not dispute that claim, and reinforced it when I wrote of McKinsey's death last year.

But I have two personal reasons for keeping Guiding Light on my radar. My old college cohort Bob Newman joined the soap right out of school, cast most certainly for his hunky good looks more than his talent, which was pretty raw back then. (Bob played Conrad Birdie to my Albert Peterson in Bye Bye Birdie during our college days. Here he is in a group shot from the show; he's lying in my lap.)

When the show paired Bob with actress Kim Zimmer, who has won multiple Emmy awards for her work, his self-centered young hunk matured into the show's leading man, which he has remained ever since.

For several years, the executive producer of Guiding Light has been a woman named Ellen Wheeler, who is another with whom I have a bit of history. Ellen won a couple of Emmys for her acting on All My Children (playing twins) and Another World (also playing twins), but when I met her, she was in a career slump. There is no other explanation for her being in Los Angeles, directing a stage production of Damn Yankees at Glendale Centre Theatre. She cast me as Applegate in the show, and provided me with the opportunity to play one of my dream roles, after which she moved back to New York and resumed her higher profile career. She became Guiding Light's head honcho several years ago, and was responsible for the decision to film the show digitally. It was a spectacular cost-saving move, but the technique of using hand-held cameras was quite foreign to daytime audiences, and they deserted the show in droves. That decision was the last nail in the coffin for the show, which will be ending its historic 72 year run in September.

When a Working Actor Isn't

It's been less than a month since Rosencrantz and Guildenstern closed, and I am sure I will never work again. This is the ongoing neurosis of the working actor when he is not working. That may seem like an oxymoron, but I do in fact consider myself a working actor, even when I am not working. For you see, when I am not working, I'm still working. I'm working on finding some work. Which, let me assure you, is work. When a working actor is actually working (that is, when a paycheck or other remuneration is involved), the day is pretty straightforward. You wake up, you prepare to go to work, then you go to work. But when a working actor is out of work, he is working very hard to find work. And I have always found that finding work is hard work.

The family has been traveling for a while, and I took the opportunity to return to DC for a bit, just in time for several local EPAs. That's a union acronym for Equity Principle Audition, which is the audition almost all union theatres are required to provide to the local union membership. Some theatres use these auditions to scout out new talent with which they may be unaware (it was, in fact, my attendance at an EPA at the North Carolina Stage Company which led to my recent gig), but many more theatre companies simply slog through the motions in order to fulfill their contractual obligation to the actors' union.

This time of year, the world is lousy with EPAs. Instead of returning immediately to the more sane environs of Asheville, I've decided to hang around DC for a little while and attend some of these general audition calls. On Monday I popped round to the Folger Shakespeare Library to wow them with my speech from Richard III. As usual with these kinds of big calls, the lobby was filled with non-union actors hoping for some no-shows in order to slip into the audition. I had an appointment, so waited only a few minutes before entering the audition chamber. The Folger's casting department, a lovely woman named Beth, has seen my auditions several times over the years, so there was no need for any upfront pleasantries. By coincidence, the gent right before me had also performed a speech from Richard III, playing the hunchback himself, in his most famous soliloquy ("Now is the winter of our discontent...blah blah blah"). My audition was a piece pulled from the Duke of Buckingham, a co-conspirator of R3's, and a role I played quite a while ago in South Carolina.

I have finally become accustomed to the habit most auditors who watch these auditions have, which is to spend more time looking down at your resume, or writing notes, or what-have-you, than actually watching your performance. The habit no longer throws me. This particular audition, however, introduced something new into the mix: a laptop. Instead of writing her notes in longhand, Beth was tapping them out into her computer. tap tap tap. Throughout my audition, tap tap tap. A pause for dramatic effect, tap tap tap. A slow build to the climax of the speech, tap tap tap. I can only hope she was tapping notes. Who knows, perhaps she was twittering...

My EPA last week, for the Granddaddy of Regional Theatres, Arena Stage, was a bit different. Arena has a relatively new caster, a terrifically enthusiastic young guy named Daniel, and he greeted me warmly (I think, but am not sure, that he has seen me in performance somewhere). These were musical auditions, and Arena has surprised everyone by placing The Fantasticks in their upcoming season. (I appeared in a college production Way Back When, and now I'm ripe to play one of those fathers.) I had a fun time singing a little snippet of a comic song, and had a nice chat with the accompanist, who is married to a buddy. This was a nice and pain-free audition.

There are several more EPAs currently scheduled in the DC area in the next week or two, so I'm hanging around to catch them. I'm even learning a new Shakespeare speech for an audition I don't yet have. How's that for optimism? When I'm in DC, popping up to New York is quite easy, and I've submitted myself to be seen by a regional theatre doing A Midsummer Night's Dream next season. I won't hear if I have the audition until right before the day, but I am forging ahead, learning a neat little speech by Peter Quince. Don't remember Peter Quince in Midsummer? It's definitely a supporting role, but I caught Kenneth Branagh playing the part years ago in Los Angeles and saw the potential in the role. I've never seen an actor playing Peter Quince swipe those mechanicals scenes from Bottom, but in that case, it happened. (Branagh's wife at the time, Emma Thompson, was a hoot as Helena.)

It never hurts to have plenty of Shakespeare at one's command, so I don't think learning a new piece will be in vain, even if this NY audition does not come through. I consider it part of my work, to try to be prepared for all contingencies. Sadly, this work, learning new pieces and attending general auditions, is unpaid. So I was pleased to learn that a film I appeared in several years ago had been sold to broadcast television, which has generated some unexpected income for all the actors involved. Today, I received this residual in the mail from Warner Brothers:

Thanks to John Waters's Pecker, I'm four dollars richer than yesterday.

Andy Hallett

1975-2009

Even if you are a fan of horror/mystery genre television, which I am not, you may not recognize this guy. At least not in his civvies. But all dolled up, there is nary a Buffy buff on the planet who does not know him, and is not disturbed by his death. He was a singer as well as actor, and had an unusual career-launching moment courtesy of Patti LaBelle, who yanked him up onstage to sing with her during a concert. He was spotted by Joss Whedon, creator of Buffy the Vampire Slayer, when he was appearing in a musical revue at Universal City in Los Angeles. (What Whedon was doing at the Universal Studios Theme Park is anybody's guess, but I love, and also hate, stories where Nobodies are plucked from obscurity by Somebodies who happen by.)

Whedon created the role of Lorne, initially called The Host, specifically for Hallett, in the Buffy spin-off Angel, where he appeared in 40 episodes as a recurring character before joining the over-the-title cast. By the time the series ended, he had appeared in 76 episodes and had created a character which was both comic (he ran a karaoke bar) and demonic (check out the horns and the Witchiepoo nose) and, let's be honest, a little bit gay. That gleam in his eye every time he leaned forward toward David Boreanaz can't be denied.

Hallett's post-Angel years were spent as a musician, and struggling with the heart disease which took his life last Sunday at age 33.

Maurice Jarre

1924-2009

"One could say my life itself has been one long soundtrack. Music was my life, music brought me to life, and music is how I will be remembered long after I leave this life. When I die there will be a final waltz playing in my head and that only I can hear."

Jarre's final waltz played yesterday.

He was a prolific film composer with a long and varied list of credits. Even some of his lesser accomplishments were well known, as he created the scores for Fatal Attraction, Is Paris Burning?, Mad Max Beyond Thunderdome, Jacob's Ladder, and Ghost. He worked with a wide range of directors over the years, including Alfred Hitchcock (Topaz), Wolfgang Peterson (Enemy Mine), John Huston (The Man Who Would Be King), and Franco Zeffirelli, who pegged him to score his landmark television miniseries Jesus of Nazareth. He worked frequently and successfully with Peter Weir (Witness, Year of Living Dangerously, Dead Poets' Society) but he achieved award-winning acclaim working with David Lean. Jarre's Oscars were all awarded for Lean films: Lawrence of Arabia, Dr Zhivago, and The Passage to India.

It's a bit eerie that Jarre died this past weekend, while my thoughts were all on my mother and her death 26 years ago (I wrote about that in the previous entry). Jarre had a huge popular hit with his "Lara's Theme" from Dr Zhivago, which was probably my mother's favorite piece of film music. She rarely had the time to sit down and play the piano, but when she did, she usually played "Lara's Theme". Both my sisters played the song as well, much better than I ever did. I studied it the one year, in the third grade, in which I took piano lessons, and against all odds, a video was made of my efforts. So allow me to close this obit with my performance of "Lara's Theme: Somewhere My Love." (Oh, by the way, when I was a kid, I went by the name "Alexander")

My Mother's Day

Two years ago, I wrote a letter to my mother in these pages.

One year ago, I sadly reported a full quarter century without her.

A few months ago, when my mother would have turned 80 years old, I wrote about her music.

I wonder if I write too often about my mother?

Today is Mother's Day for me, as it is the 26th anniversary of her death. Sounds pretty gloomy, and it has its melancholy elements. But I know I'll spend most of the day remembering the good stuff. After 26 years, the very sharp pains of loss have dulled. I'll surely enjoy a large plate of what we call "Mama's Spaghetti", with homemade sauce which she occasionally served. The recipe is in her hand, and lives above my refrigerator. Naturally, I'll be dining on her china, given to her on her wedding to my father, way back when people did such things. The day will have some sadness, mixed with some regret, too, but that can't be helped. (And shouldn't be.)

If you still have your mother with you, don't wait 'till May 10, the official Mother's Day, to call. Give her a buzz today. You're very lucky.

Friday Dance Party: Mambo!

Stephen Sondheim must be having a pretty good week. He had a birthday (79! wow) and the major revival of his first Broadway show, West Side Story, got a nice nod from the NY Times. It's being directed by the show's librettist Arthur Laurents (in his 90s! Double wow), who adjusted some of the dialogue to be spoken in Spanish. Well, it makes sense that the Puerto Ricans at the heart of the story would not be speaking English when they are alone together. That aspect of the revival is getting mixed comments, most of them agreeing in principle, but noting that theatre-goers not already familiar with the story may be a bit lost. Are you kidding me? Who doesn't know West Side Story??


I bet Sondheim is pleased that one of his songs, "I Feel Pretty," is now being sung totally in Spanish. Perhaps the translated lyrics do not commit the same sins which Sondheim believes the original words do; he's complained for years that the song's lyrics are too sophisticated for a character such as Maria (a girl right off the boat from Puerto Rico would not be using interior rhyme). Relax, Steve, nobody cares. Instead, revel in the knowledge that a piece written a whopping 50 years ago still holds some interest. That interest has been maintained, at least partially, due to the hugely successful film version from 1961. West Side Story the movie is still considered one of the finest film adaptations of a stage musical, and was nominated for 11 Oscars. It won all but one, losing Best Adapted Screenplay to that other tunefest, Judgement at Nuremberg.



WSS is one of those chestnuts which I thoroughly admire and yet never had a desire to perform. I appeared in an abridged, one-hour version in college, as a directing project for my friend Judy, but would never have landed a role in a professional production (I had dark hair, so I was cast as one of the Puerto Ricans, pretty laughable, as I am the whitest guy anybody ever met). I suppose I could play poor Glad Hands now, the adult schnook who arranges the dance at the gym which gets the love story going. In the film, John Astin took the role, and gave no evidence that he could play that lothario Gomez Addams a few years later. Honestly, I don't know how he was able to stand at the sidelines, listening to this dynamic music by Leonard Bernstein, and fight the urge to join in.
Anyway, in honor of Sondheim's birthday, and the current revival of his first hit, and because George Chakiris looks so suave in his lavender shirt, and because I couldn't find any dance numbers in Judgement at Nuremberg (even with Judy Garland in the cast) please enjoy the Dance at the Gym. Sock Hops at my high school never looked like this...