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!

Roy Scheider

1932-2008

It's Showtime.

Album Droppings: Unexcused Absences

I deserve a pink slip for some of the gross oversights in my CD collection.





I have finally reached a resting point in my mammoth undertaking: the transfer of my vinyl record collection to digital format.





It's taken over three months, but I have now completed the bulk of my task. But there is still plenty of work to do. I have about a hundred records which are not cast albums or soundtracks. Believe it or not, I actually purchased many "regular" albums, by "regular" musical artists.





But before I launch into that chasm, I have to confess that there were some very serious oversights regarding my theatrical collection.






I transferred well over a hundred albums, but I skipped about a hundred others. These were albums which fell into one of two categories: they were either pieces which I had already purchased on CD, or they are shows which I have decided I really don't need on home-made CD. Among those in the latter category are such items as the original Guys and Dolls (don't need it, I've got the Nathan Lane revival on CD. So sue me.), or the soundtrack to Flashdance (what was I doing with that, I wonder?).










But I have run across a handful of albums which I never re-purchased on CD, and should have. These items are imperative to have in digital form, and it is incomprehensible to me that I overlooked purchasing them, when they became available at the CD store.

















The most egregious example of my neglect is certainly the original cast recording of Sweeney Todd. Yes, I have the recent Patty LuPone revival, which is terrific, but why the hell I don't have the original Angela Lansbury / Len Cariou / Victor Garber recording on CD is just incomprehensible. The vinyl release is a double album set, and includes the controversial sequence which is almost always cut these days, the judge's self-flagellation scene. God, that's good!
















I'm also surprised that I never purchased the original cast album of Chicago, considering I saw the production live. Gwen Verdon, Chita Rivera, Jerry Orbach, supported by Mary McCarty and Barney Martin, all sharing the theatre with me, and I never bothered to pick up the CD? Whatever happened to class?





















Oh, and while I'm thinking about Kander and Ebb musicals, I'm stunned that I never purchased the CD release of an album I listened to hundreds of times in high school, the film soundtrack of Cabaret. This film may be the perfect example of how to translate a stage show to film, without alienating a modern audience.








Of course, I didn't recognize that at the time, all I knew was, I wanted to play the Emcee.

(and in 1989, I did.)

There are a couple of other film soundtracks which I have on vinyl, and should have purchased on CD. Hard to believe, but I never tracked down the soudtrack to Funny Girl, which is surely Barbra Streisand's finest film musical. I almost wore out my vinyl copy. I have the Broadway cast album, but Streisand really came into her own in the film, and the soundtrack is testimony to that. Everyone says it contains the finest recording of "People" she ever sang, but I'm not so sure (I think she always sang it better live, in concert). But it definitely contains the most exciting rendition of "Don't Rain on My Parade" ever recorded.














What did I have that I don't have? The soundtrack to On a Clear Day You Can See Forever, though again, I have the Broadway album. The movie was not all that effective, due to the unfortunate miscasting of Yves Montand as the male lead, but our Babs is a quirky hoot, and sings the score much better than Barbara Harris, who played it on Broadway.






















And what am I doing without a single CD of Sweet Charity? I don't know. I've transferred my album of Gwen Verdon's original cast recording, but I can't really understand how the years went by without my ever having purchased any digital recording of this classic show. There's gotta be something better than this...









If my friends could see me now...








In a day or two, it's time to start on the next section of my project. It's time to tranfer all my other music to CD. I'm hoping this goes a bit faster. I know I purchased a great many of these albums just to get a single song. I have the ability to transfer just one track from a full-length album, and I have a hunch I'll be doing that a lot.








It will be an eclectic group. I have everything from Gloria Gaynor to Joan Rivers to Billy Idol to Flip Wilson to Melanie to Dionne Warwick to Glen Campbell to Lily Tomlin to...well, you get the picture.








As before, the best place to start is at the beginning.:

Murphy and more

When I have a New York audition, I sometimes drive the extra 50 minutes north of Manhattan to the little town of South Salem, where my sister lives in rustic suburbia. "The Pond House," as I've nicknamed Joan's home, sits on a cul-de-sac, far removed from the street and behind a little pond which comes complete with fish and, in season, ducks and geese. Families of deer can often be seen crossing through her back yard.

It's usually a home of pleasant chaos. At any given time, the large house will be home to a husband, two step-kids, and a small menagerie of four-legged critters. From her third floor office, Joan runs her non-profit, AnimalKind, an organization which helps with animal overpopulation. Until recently, her own zoo consisted of two dogs and two cats, all of whom are treated as her children.


Murphy lived a golden life, though her beginnings were inauspicious. Joan found the shivering puppy in the woods behind her home in Raleigh, where she was living over ten years ago. Murph joined an already crowded house, which at the time included only one human (my sister), an Irish setter mix named Abbey, and two cats, Eugene the King and the newly arrived kitten, Guinness. All of them had been rescued in one way or another by Joan.


Murphy was the "middle child," and displayed a remarkable enthusiasm for life. She and the others in the menagerie traveled with Joan when my sister married her husband and relocated to New York. There is no doubt in my mind that the presence of her pets eased her very difficult transition from Single, Independent Career Woman, to Executive's Wife and sudden Stepmother to two pre-teens.

It's been said before, but it is the truth: people who do not have children of their own transfer all those parental instincts to their pets. Joan's animals are her children. So when Eugene the elder cat wandered off and did not return, it was sad, but we all understood that he probably wanted to die alone, as cats usually do.

It was the first in an inevitable series of losses which Joan and her brood have had to endure.

It was a bigger, more traumatic loss for my sister when Abbey, the senior dog, became seriously ill, several years later. A long period of various maladies forced Joan into the difficult but necessary decision that Abbey's time had run out. She died in Joan's arms, sitting peacefully and contentedly on the back deck, in the sun, where she had spent so many happy hours.

Several months before Abbey died, Joan made a long road trip from NY to Raleigh to rescue a poor puppy mut who had been chained to a tree by impoverished owners, who then deserted him. She stopped at my place to spend the night on her way back, and this large, furry critter would not let Joan out of his sight, he was so panicked that he would again be abandoned. So, Joan's family was joined by Balto, who was welcomed by the other animals. (Even years later, Balto maintains some of the effects of his traumatic puppyhood, including an absolute frenzy whenever a storm hits. Joan has spent countless nights hugging this poor dog while he shivers in the empty bathtub, as the weather rages outside).

Abbey's death elevated Murphy to the role of senior statesman, and she rolled out the welcome mat for the newest member of the tribe, a one-eyed kitten named Wink. I was present at Wink's rescue (in fact, I named the lad), and he couldn't have found a better home than The Pond House. After almost two years, he has grown from a friendly ball of fur into a real hoodlum, who spends most days outside wreaking havoc, and causes consternation for poor put-upon Guinness, now the elder cat.


Only a few weeks ago, Murphy, whom Joan considered the heart and soul of her current brood, took ill and died. It was a huge loss for Joan, and for the other canine in the house, Balto, as well. I could tell a palpable difference in the atmosphere of The Pond House during my short visit this week. Joan was not her bubbly self, and exhibited very little of her normal buzzing curiosity about my life and adventures.

And I noticed Balto spending a lot of time on the back deck, looking out at the driveway, watching for his friend and mentor Murphy to come back.

It's a quiet, sad time at The Pond House. Joan is a realist, though usually an optimistic one. She knows the life expectancy of "her children" can't match our own, but as her animals age, I think she is also losing her last ties to her younger life, when she was living happily and fulfilled in Raleigh, in her large ranch-style house with the huge back yard and surrounding forest, no neighbors in sight (she loved that), with her animals swarming around her whenever she returned from the day's work. She was single in those days, but never alone.


She isn't alone now, of course, but the only remaining vestige of those Raleigh years is grumpy, geriatric Guinness the cat. Balto and Wink are part of her current, more mature world. I think she sees the ending of that freer, younger life, made all the more real by the deaths of Eugene, Abbey, and now Murphy, and is sad.

A melancholy visit.

Fate's Touch

I have written about the loss of my dear coach, mentor, and friend Bobbi Holtzman, who is receiving a memorial tribute this weekend from the LA theatre community. I am disappointed that I cannot attend, but I know I have already said, and will continue to say, my goodbys and my thank-yous to Bobbi. She will rest with me always.

This week, I've again been made aware of Fate's sense of irony. Along with the announcement of Bobbi's memorial has come the news that another teacher from my undergrad days has died, Maryellen Clemons. She apparently had been battling cancer for a long while (I don't know if it was lung cancer, but as she smoked like a house o'fire, I can only guess).

This news leaves me with an awkward feeling of, well, I'm not sure what. I am very sorry for her suffering, and admire the tenacity she showed by spending so many many many years on the faculty of Cal State Northridge. But the truth is that she was neither my coach, mentor, nor friend. In over four years on campus, I can't remember a single compliment I received from her, nor can I recall one given to anyone else. In fact, I don't remember an instance where she ever expressed joy, or even pleasure. I believe she had real trouble expressing true emotions (which seems problematic in a performing arts teacher and director), but I surely came away from any encounter with her feeling I was not one of her favorites.


I had Maryellen in the classroom only once, in an advanced directing class during my junior year. I can't claim to have been a brilliant director, but I was still surprised to receive such lackluster feedback from her. Two years earlier, I had received glowing response from my Directing I instructor, a far more qualified talent. Anyway, our final project in Directing II was an hour long production, and I ambitiously chose to direct an abridged version of the musical The Fantasticks. (I chatted a bit about that experience here.) I was probably in over my head, but the production was an audience favorite. Not one of Maryellen's however, who watched the final show from the booth (a notoriously poor place to effectively judge a performance). I received such a lukewarm response from Maryellen that it remains the last time I have directed anything to date.

It was during this period, when I was a student in her class, that I had a recurring dream which caused me much discomfort. In this dream, Maryellen was wearing a floor-length poncho, which she lifted to reveal male genitalia.


But I freely admit I owe Maryellen some thanks. When I was a sophomore, she cast me in L'il Abner, as Lonesome Polecat (go here for more on that experience, including a Dance Party!). Though I had appeared in two musicals before arriving at CSUN, I had never sung anything solo. This production allowed me to sing a verse of the opening number, all by myself. A pretty big deal to me back then. A bigger deal was the fact that Maryellen placed me in her dancing chorus (she was a choreographer and former dancer, so her dancers were hand-picked and special). I was surely no dancer, but she made me feel like one, and the choreography she taught remains some of the most challenging I have ever conquered. I remember a particularly gymnastic move, where I had to flip my partner Carolyn over my back and head. The move was so difficult that Carolyn and I practiced it whenever we could, and even after we opened the show, we would sometimes bump into each other in the hall between classes. "Wanna flip?" one of us would say, and the other would say "yep." We would both drop our backpacks, strip off our jacket or sweater, and execute the 16-count back-flip right there in the hallway.

Maryellen directed me one more time, and choreographed me a third. She never gave me a chance at one of her leading roles (Lonesome Polecat was at best a featured role), but anytime she directed or choreographed a musical on campus, I was in the mix. I guess she needed men who could dance.


Her production of The Robber Bridegroom was a case on point. There were two roles I could have played, or at least should have had a chance at, but she refused to allow me to read for them. This audition cycle was ridiculously overdone, but I was released early in the process, so I forgot about the whole thing. Two weeks beyond the first auditions, after countless callbacks during which she had been reading many many actors for the leading roles, the cast list went up, and I was on it. In the ensemble, which turned out to be one of the strongest ensembles with which I have ever been associated. Maryellen cast the 12 or so chorus roles with actors who had all played musical leads before (I was finishing up a run as Albert in Bye, Bye Birdie while we were in rehearsal...off-campus, of course. I never got a role that large on campus). The Bridegroom ensemble remained onstage the entire show, and was part of all the action at all times. The show remains one of my fondest memories of those college days (go here for a more complete reminiscence of that experience).

Maryellen choreographed me one more time, in Jesus Christ Superstar. I must have been a senior at the time, and had finally figured out that I was never going to get a substantial role in anything with which Maryellen was associated. Still, I showed up at the first audition, and sang the old Judy Garland hit, "You Made Me Love You." (As a joke, I included the preamble to the song: "Dear Mr. Gable, I am writing this to you..."etc). You might think such a flamboyant audition would lead the director to consider me for the role of Herod, but no such luck. I was never called back for the show, but landed in its large chorus anyway. My role in the show remains the smallest I have ever had: Second Leper.
(That's me kneeling between Simon and Jesus, directly center stage and above the focused action. This is called "upstaging.")

I don't know a lot about Maryellen's life before she landed at Cal State Northridge. I do know she appeared, as a very little girl, in the classic film musical Seven Brides for Seven Brothers. My friend Valerie showed me the scene once, in which Maryellen is in the crowd. She had to freeze the frame and point to the black haired little waif in the corner of the screen, to show me Maryellen's performance in the film. Years later, Maryellen appeared in one of the major tours of L'il Abner, I suppose as a featured dancer, and the experience led to her directing the piece as her first major musical at CSUN.


As far as I know, once Maryellen landed at Cal State, she spent the rest of her artistic life there, directing, teaching, and occasionally performing. Coincidentally, my dear Bobbi directed her on campus in The House of Bernarda Alba, and she wasn't half bad. To this day I do not know what made Maryellen so indifferent, and occasionally hostile, to me while I was a student. But any negative feelings I have held toward her have been tempered by time and distance, and I sincerely hope she had a fulfilled life.

Judy, Judy, Judy

Quite rightly, I have been called on the carpet for the revelation I made in a previous blog entry: The only Judy Garland movies I have seen, from beginning to end, are The Wizard of Oz and Judgement at Nuremberg.

Somehow, some people think those films are not really the best illustration of the phenomenon which was Judy Garland. I'm sure they are right.

So, I determined that I should actually watch a full-length Garland flick. I went to Netflix to set up a rental of Annie Get Your Gun. Garland as Annie Oakley, singing "There's No Business Like Show Business," and all those other Irving Berlin tunes? What's not to like?

Oh, wait. She was fired from that movie.

Well, no matter. It's just as easy to catch one of Judy's dramatic roles. After all, she was nominated for an Oscar for her cameo appearance in Judgement at Nuremberg, and she didn't even sing! (Maybe she should have. She lost the award to Rita Moreno, who DID sing in her movie). So, I'll rent Valley of the Dolls!

Oh, wait, she was fired from that movie, too.

OK, this is getting ridiculous. I know there must be a lot of movies out there that Judy Garland was NOT fired from. I quickly finished up my current Netflix movie , in order to exchange it for one of Judy's Big Ones.

I really didn't mind giving up the movie I had, Uncommon Women and Others. It wasn't a movie anyway, it was a video tape of one of those PBS stage shows. I rented it because it was an early Wendy Wasserstein, who went on to win the Pulitzer. It also boasted performances by an early Meryl Streep, an early Swoozie Kurtz, and an early Jill Eikenberry. EVERYBODY was early in this video. I didn't mind sending it back to Netflix in order to get one of Garland's Greatest Hits. Wasserstein stole an idea from that classic show The Women, and populated her play with only females. Females who talk and talk and talk. Then they have tea and talk some more. Wendy undermines her point that these are all uncommon women who have so many choices, when her characters mostly talk about men.

Friday, one of Hollywood's Greatest Movie Musicals arrived, and I settled in to watch this classic Judy Garland film:

It took me almost no time at all to realize that wasn't Judy Garland. It was Debbie Reynolds. Now before you send me to the principal, let me defend myself. After all, there are a lot of similarities between Judy Garland and Debbie Reynolds.

...let me see.....hold on a minute....I'm thinking...

Oh, here's one: they both worked at MGM at the same time.

Oh, here's another one: they both have famous daughters.

OK, I'm dry. There are no similarities between Judy Garland and Debbie Reynolds. I don't know why I assumed Garland was in Singing in the Rain.

But not to worry. I have been back to Netflix and have rearranged my queue. I sent back Singing in the Rain (without finishing it. Donald O'Connor gives me the creeps), and Monday's mail will bring a terrific movie classic which I'm sure will really show Judy Garland off to great advantage:

The Bandwagon! That's entertainment...