Friday Dance Party: Ginger Taps

Tomorrow marks the 100th anniversary of the birth of Ginger Rogers, so of course, she stars in this week's Dance Party. She has appeared in these pages twice before, in both instances with her most famous dance partner, Fred Astaire. My favorite of all the clips of the two can be seen here, and just last year, I celebrated Rogers's birthday with another fun clip.

This week's entry comes from the final film made by the dancing duo, and it was fairly accidental. Astaire and Rogers had not made a film together for a full decade, leading to gossip that there were frosty feelings between them (they both denied those rumors). The Barcleys of Broadway was intended to pair Astaire with Judy Garland, as a follow-up to their success in Easter Parade (the script for Barcley's was being prepared even as filming was ongoing for Parade). Sadly, as so often happened in Garland's career, her substance abuse problems and her emotional troubles caused the plans for another big musical role to derail, so our Ginger was approached as a replacement.
Released in 1949, it was the only Astaire-Rogers movie to be filmed in color. Ginger received some snark about her figure, which had blossomed a bit in the decade since she had last hit the dance floor with Fred, but I surely don't see any problems here.

I'm a sucker for a tap number, and these two deliver the goods. Happy Birthday, Ginger!

Nerd Notes: Furniture Booties

As we head into the third and final week of rehearsals for The Nerd at Wayside Theatre, I have to mention the unusual space in which we conducted our initial rehearsals. Our first two weeks were largely spent in the ballroom of a private home in Winchester, VA.. Apparently there is a generous patron of Wayside who has offered the use of his ballroom as rehearsal space. The building is an old and stately home, with a huge front porch greeting us every day, plus wood floors everywhere and banistered stairways leading to the third floor ballroom.

The building has a pleasant aroma of aged wood, and reminds me of the grand house I visited twice during my early childhood, where a great-grandmother lived.

This rehearsal space is located in a real showplace, but since people actually live there, we were not offered a guided tour. But as a former waiter, I felt sorry for the hired help who must serve whatever functions happen in the ballroom, as it's three flights away from the kitchen. The house is big enough to accommodate a back staircase (I inadvertently took it one day, and landed in the kitchen), so guests were not required to bump into the servants on their way to the Big Event upstairs.

My previous shows at Wayside have been rehearsed in the council room of Middletown, VA's town hall. That room was conveniently located across the street and across a parking lot from the theatre itself, and I have no idea why that space is no longer used for rehearsals. Anyhoo, nowadays, the first few weeks of rehearsal for Wayside's shows are conducted about 10 miles down the road from the theatre, in that swanky ballroom sitting atop the stately home.

There was nothing whatsoever unpleasant about this arrangement, but I started thinking about the various rehearsal spaces in which I have worked over the years. Rehearsal space always seems a challenge to theater companies, no matter what their size. The lucky theatre companies which are attached to universities fare pretty well with their rehearsal spaces; Shenandoah Summer Music Theatre, for example, is located on the campus of Shenandoah University, so they have access to some of the rehearsal/practice halls which students use during the school year. The Kennedy Center has lots of rehearsal space, and Olney Theatre, where I just finished working, now has a rehearsal hall located in their new theatre building.

But throughout most of my career, it has been rare to rehearse a show on the same campus in which it is performed. Wayside occasionally enlists their own bar/cafe for such uses, but has no actual rehearsal space on their property, and that is in no way unusual. Even huge theaters such as The Shakespeare Theatre in DC rehearse their shows largely off-site. This fact has always perplexed me, particularly when companies build their own theaters. The Shakes, for example, recently spent more than 80 million dollars constructing a state-of-the-art theatre, but failed to include appropriate rehearsal space. Ford's Theatre, the oldest theatre in DC (and one of the oldest in the country) recently underwent a multi-million dollar makeover, and did not include rehearsal space in their redesign (their shows are rehearsed on the top floor of a church building several blocks away). Until their recent revamp, Arena Stage, considered one of the grandfathers of all regional theaters, rehearsed their shows in a mini-mall down the street. The fact that rehearsal space is not considered a vital and necessary part of a theatrical facility baffles me.

But back to the current gig. The ballroom in which The Nerd has been rehearsing has beautiful wood floors. The gang at Wayside spent a lot of energy hauling rehearsal furniture up those 3 flights, and to insure the integrity of those floors, we spent some time during the first rehearsal tying makeshift protection on all the furniture. (Moments like these make me love working with small theater companies, who are always confronted with problems which must be solved in creative ways.) We have since moved into the theatre proper, so I don't expect to see that ballroom again anytime soon, but I won't soon forget the sight of our various chairs and tables spread out across the ballroom floor, wearing booties.

Friday Dance Party: No Rehearsal

Hard to believe a sloppy number like this ever made it onto national television. Dean Martin was notorious about his refusal to rehearse his variety show in advance; he drove everyone crazy by showing up on the day of taping each week, and winging it. For some reason, back in those days, variety shows included group numbers with all of their guest stars, even when those guest stars had no business being in a musical number.
It's no surprise that the only two troopers who acquit themselves adequately are Buddy Ebsen and Charles Nelson Reilly, the only ones with musical stage experience.

I am just completing my second week of rehearsal for The Nerd at Wayside Theatre, and I feel as under-prepared as these guys look. We have another full week before the audience shows up. I hope they bring their canned applause like the crowd below. I gotta get back to learning these lines. Happy Dance Party, everybody!

Friday Dance Party: Life's Full of Tough Choices, idn't It?

I recently received an email from somebody who claimed that this July, which begins today, has special significance. This year, July has 5 Fridays, 5 Saturdays, and 5 Sundays. In other words, five full weekends. This email, which was spam (go figure) claimed that this occurred only once every 823 years, and it was cause for people to send other people money. Ha. A brief investigation reveals that every month which contains 31 days enjoys a five weekend month about every 7 years. It's not that special at all.

But the first of July always holds some special significance to me, personally. I have written about early July in the past. Tomorrow is my birthday, and I have occasionally written about its importance to me. Birthdays come and go, I don't really care all that much, but when I am working on my birthday, I feel pretty good. This year, I will be spending my birthday learning lines for my current gig, but two years ago, when I was performing in Man of La Mancha, I wrote about one of the nicest ladies I have ever run across, Pat Carroll. Please go here for my remembrances of her. As she crosses my mind each and every birthday these days, it is only appropriate that this week's Dance Party feature Pat's most famous performance, one which she inherited after the original actress, Elaine Stritch, clashed with the musical director and was replaced.

From Teen To Dowager

I am hopelessly behind on the obits usually found in these pages, the line of decaying corpses wraps around the block, I'm afraid. Having just begun a new gig, I did not expect to find much free time in which to catch up, and that's just as well. I have heard from a number of readers that they quite enjoy my obits, which are often more of a tribute than an actual obituary. Other visitors to these pages, though, wonder why I spend any time at all writing about a polar bear who died at the Berlin Zoo.
But a death notice came to my attention today which I simply cannot ignore. She was one of the finest actresses I have ever come across, and I enjoyed her performances in various BBC adaptations so much, that I must put down my current script (sorry, Nerdies) and pay homage to this unforgettable dame.

Margaret Tyzack

1931-2011

Don't recognize her name? Don't recognize her face? I'm not surprised. Her career lasted more than 60 years, but she was never a household name, even when she was involved in international hits.

After the usual British training at RADA and the requisite years in repertory theaters, Tyzack made a big splash in the ground-breaking BBC adaptation of The Forsyte Saga, way back in 1967.

That 26-hour series, which was based on John Galsworthy's behemoth account of an upper-middle class (though decidedly non-aristocratic) English family at the turn of the 20th century, became an international sensation. During its initial run in Britain, churches were encouraged to adjust the time of their Sunday evening services in order to accommodate the viewing public. The series was broadcast in the states by the network which was to become PBS, though back then, it was known as "Educational Television," or NET. It was reported that, when the series was shown in Manhattan, there was a noticeable lowering of water levels immediately following each episode, as thousands of viewers flushed in unison. The Forsyte Saga was such a sensation in the US that NET was encouraged to create an entire weekly series devoted to British imports. Thus, The Forsyte Saga simultaneously led to the creation of Masterpiece Theatre and the invention of the miniseries.

Margaret Tyzack costarred in the series, playing Winifred, sister to the central character in the series, Soames Forsyte. She aged from an innocent teenaged girl to an elderly grande dame, and I was entranced with her work (even at my pre-teen age, I was attracted to strong acting talent). Tyzack appeared over and over on the various series which comprised Masterpiece Theatre, and I loved her in every one. The very first series which introduced Masterpiece Theatre was a costume drama called The First Churchills. The series starred Susan Hampshire, who had costarred with Tyzack on The Forsyte Saga, and had unexpectedly won the Best Actress Emmy for her performance. Hampshire and Tyzack were once again teamed in The First Churchills, and once again, our Margaret aged her character from naive teenager to imperious dowager (she played the historically accurate, and sexually ambivalent, Queen Anne). Hampshire once again snagged the Best Actress Emmy, and became known as queen of the miniseries, but I think Tyzack better deserves the moniker. Margaret probably gained her greatest notice for her performance in I, Claudius, another British miniseries broadcast on PBS. She played Antonia, daughter to Marc Antony and mother to the future Emperor Claudius (and guess what? She aged her character from naive teenager to imperious grande dame).

Take a look at this clip, in which she interacts with the great Derek Jacobi as the stuttering star.

My favorite performance of Margaret Tyzack's was her barely remembered title role as Cousin Bette. It was yet another British miniseries shown on Masterpiece Theatre, and should not be confused with the abysmal film version starring Jessica Lange. In this instance, Tyzack took a rare starring role, that of a poor spinster who has taken just about enough from her wealthy relatives. This adaptation of Balzac's dark comedy (very dark. VERY dark) provided our heroine with a the perfect role with which to display her sharp wit and ability to cut straight to the heart. This series was also an early showcase for a young Helen Mirren; the scenes between Mirren and Tyzack are absolutely delicious. Cousin Bette is available on DVD, and is worth your attention, believe me.

In addition to her various television appearances, Margaret conducted a very full stage career, I regret never having seen her perform live. She won the first of several Olivier awards in England in 1982, when she replaced an ailing Joan Plowright in a revival of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?; a year later, she earned a Tony nomination for her appearance as the Countess in the RSC's visiting production of All's Well That Ends Well. A while later, she was at the center of a casting brouhaha which almost prevented her winning a Tony.

In 1990, Maggie Smith and our Margaret starred together in a London production of Peter Schaeffer's new comedy, Lettice and Lovage. The show was a hit, and plans were made for a Broadway transfer. Actors Equity Association, which can withhold permission for foreign actors to perform on Broadway, granted immediate approval for Miss Smith, as she was an international star. But they balked at the suggestion that Margaret Tyzack should be allowed to make the transfer as well. Though she had already scored a Tony nomination, the union did not believe her presence (over that of an American actress) was necessary for the financial success of the show, so they refused permission for her to appear. Maggie Smith became adamant: if her costar, with whom she felt she shared a rare chemistry, was not allowed to transfer to Broadway, she would withdraw her own services. I have a lot of respect for Dame Maggie for taking such a stand in honor of one of her, let's face it, supporting players. Equity relented, and both Maggie Smith and Margaret Tyzack recreated their roles on Broadway,. And BOTH won Tony awards. God, I love that story.

Margaret Tyzack continued to work right up until her death. She won another Olivier award only a few years ago, and recently, toured with her old Cousin Bette costar Helen Mirren, in Phaedra.
Earlier this year, Tyzack joined the long-running British primetime soap, Eastenders, a casting coup for the series which resulted in a long-term plotline being created for her character. In failing health, Miss Tyzack was forced to withdraw from the series a few weeks ago; on June 25th, she died.

I wish I could find more clips from her TV work, but below, please enjoy a scene from her Tony winning performance in Lettice and Lovage. It was presented at the Tony Awards, and I said earlier, both she and her costar, Dame Maggie Smith, won Tonys that evening.

Happy Dancing And A Nerd Note

The mood has improved quite a bit around here this week, and not all of it has to do with the Marriage Equality now achieved in one of the country's most populous states. Sure, I'm happy about the development, and I'm not the only one to recognize the significance of the vote happening so close to Gay Pride Day. I've written several times about the Gay Pride celebrations which happen all over the country these days, not all of them occurring during June, which is Gay Pride Month. But there certainly seems a nice symmetry to the historic vote in New York on Friday, since today marks the 42nd Anniversary of the Stonewall Riots, commonly recognized as the official beginning of the modern gay rights movement.

Yeah, yeah, enough of that. I've had a busy week on my own, I'm sure you're dying to read all about it. I've been trying to get life in order before heading out to lovely Wayside Theatre ("the little theater with the big heart") for some summer stock fun. I've worked there a couple of times in the past, including a gig as Sancho Panza in Man of La Mancha, about which I wrote extensively at the time. Haven't been back in a few years, so I was pleased as punch when artistic director and Grand Pooh Bah Warner Crocker approached me last January, at our annual Equity auditions. He suggested I read a play called The Nerd. I had heard of it but had never seen the piece, so I ordered a copy online and read it within a week or so. It is one of the very few scripts I have ever read which caused me to laugh out loud, so I dropped Warner an email that I enjoyed the play and would be available for the summer run.

Many weeks passed, during which I was unexpectedly involved in Joe's Coat out at Olney Theatre (you remember that story, right?), but a month or so ago, I received word that I would in fact be returning to Wayside to play in The Nerd. I won't be playing the actual nerd, whatever you people think, but will be playing the dry theater critic who lives downstairs. Perfect casting, if you ask me.

I had assumed all along that the lovely and talented Warner would be directing the play, as he directs 99.99% of the shows at Wayside, but here's a funny story. Several weeks ago, I agreed to do one day's extra work (excuse me: "background work") for a film for HBO which had been shooting in the area. I dislike extra work (excuse me: "atmospheric artistry") with a vengeance, but I've been out of work since early April, so I bit the bullet and agreed to spend a very long day in a tent on the parking lot of a warehouse where a crucial scene of the film was being shot. It was an excruciatingly hot, humid, and dull day, but we went into overtime, which means the SAG (union) actors made some bucks.

During the hours and hours of waiting around in the hot tent, I recognized Bill Diggle across the way. I have only met Bill a few times, at auditions or, more frequently, at Opening Nights at Wayside (either his or mine). His head was buried in a script so I left him alone. He works all the time, though I try not to hold that against him too much. Anyway, I finally bumped into him an hour or so into the day. The encounter went something like this:

Me: "I didn't want to interrupt you while you were buried in your script. What are you working on? You work all the time so I hate you." (okay, that last sentence was only in my head)

Bill Diggle (BD): "I'm doing The Nerd."

Me: "Really? I'm getting ready to do The Nerd!"

BD (dryly): "I know. I'm directing you in it."

This was how I discovered that the guy I thought would be directing my show, wasn't. Not that it matters, I have a hunch the young and talented Bill Diggle will be a hoot to work with, and I've heard this arrangement will allow Warner to spend some time reorganizing Wayside's administration, insuring that the venerable theater moves well into its second half-century. Yes, The Nerd is part of Wayside Theatre's 50th Anniversary season, and I'm pretty pleased to be a part of that celebration.

So this week, I've been doing the Happy Dance. I'll be heading out to rural Virginia today, and we'll begin rehearsal tomorrow. I have a strong suspicion that I'll be issuing regular updates on our progress, as I did with Man of La Mancha. Stay tuned. And, if you are reading this on June 27, remember those brave men in heels who ignited the Stonewall Riots 42 years ago, and hug a homosexual.

Friday Dance Party: The Wind That Swept Through Georgia

Gone With The Wind is one of my guilty favorites. Guilty, I suppose, because its depiction of happy Negroes working in the fields and waiting on the white folk with a song in their heart and a skip in their step, seems pretty insensitive, if not downright racist. And historically inaccurate, too. But GWTW has crossed my path several times this week, so it is only natural that the Dance Party be plucked from that masterful melodrama. We begin, as we so often do on Fridays, with a corpse:

Cammie King

1934-2010

Somehow I missed the news that this gal had died last September, but it's appropriate to pay tribute now. She had a long career as a publicist and a museum director, but she will forever be remembered for her performance in Gone With the Wind. She often joked that her career "peaked at 5," and she was right. Other than a voice-over role in Disney's Bambi, our Cammie is remembered solely as Miss Eugenia Victoria, otherwise known as Bonnie Blue Butler.

She snagged the role of the only child of Rhett Butler and Scarlett O'Hara over a hundred other girls, she later reported, but that cannot be verified. Apocryphal stories abound regarding the casting of this small but pivotal role: it's said that Shirley Temple was courted, but was too old by the time filming actually commenced (this story does not ring true to me, as Cammie King was paid a lousy $1000 for her participation, and Temple was the biggest star in Hollywood in 1939. Plus, the role has only a couple of short scenes, it seems doubtful Temple's handlers would ever consider such a part for their star). It's also said that a young and fairly unknown Elizabeth Taylor was up for the part, but she also outgrew the role during the long pre-production period. Whatever the real truth, Cammie King's death last year leaves us with only two surviving performers from GWTW: Ann Rutherford, who played the small role of Carreen O'Hara (youngest sister to Scarlett) and of course, Olivia DeHaviland, who retired to France decades ago and is still hanging on (she turns 95 next week).

I just went scouring through my bookcases, looking for my copy of Gone With the Wind, which I read twice as a teenager, and again in my 20s, but I guess I've lost it along the way. It was a real page turner, despite its gigantic length. It was a sensational success as soon as it was published, 75 years ago this year. There are great stories about its diminutive author, Margaret Mitchell, and her slapdash writing habits and lack of organizational skills. She was a newspaper reporter in the 30s, highly unusual for a female, and GWTW was her only work of fiction. She claimed she wrote the last chapter first, then wrote pieces of the story out of sequence, and turned them in to her publisher that way. Somebody did an heroic job of pulling the massively disorganized jumble of chapters into a coherent whole, but it was worth the effort. The book was a sensation, and cried out for a film version, even as turning such a sprawling behemoth into a 90 minute film seemed impossible. Turned out it was, as the final cut of the film runs 4 hours with a full intermission, and even then, major characters and plotlines from the novel were cut. Large flashback sequences involving Scarlett's parents were eliminated, as was the interesting but incidental examination of Rhett's family in Charleston. Did you know that Bonnie Blue Butler was not Scarlett's only child? Our author Margaret Mitchell gave our heroine a son with her first husband, and a daughter with her second. Both were jettisoned from the film, as were Ashley's second sister (the film suggests Ashley's only sibling to be the embittered old maid India Wilkes) and Archie, an itinerant Confederate soldier who becomes part of the post-war inhabitants of the plantation Tara.

The story of how this massive melodrama was turned into one of the most successful films in history, is told in a delightful little play currently making the rounds of regional theaters around the country. I caught Moonlight and Magnolias at Totem Pole Playhouse this week, yet another reason GWTW is the star of this week's Dance Party.

The play is a fun snapshot of the writing of the film, and takes a fictional look at a real occurrence. After three weeks of shooting, producer David O. Selznick shut down production (at a huge financial cost), fired director George Cukor, replacing him with Clark Gable's best buddy Victor (The Wizard of Oz) Fleming, and sent the script back to rewrite. Moonlight and Magnolias wonders what would happen if Selznick had locked his new director, his script doctor, and himself, into an office for a week, to rewrite the script. Totem Pole's production is a hoot; a harried secretary, a writer who has not read the book, and a major sprinkling of peanuts and bananas all add up to a very funny play. In between laughs, though, Moon & Mags touches upon a controversy which actually erupted when GWTW was first published (and the discussion continues to this day). Though it won the Pulitzer Prize, the novel is often pointed to as an example of revisionist, racist thinking. In the book, the slaves are quite happy with their station in life; Mitchell defended her story by pointing out that the black characters were the most honorable in the book. She is right, but she skates over the fact that slaves were often tortured, starved, and separated from their families. The slaves at Tara were happy darkies, content to serve their white masters. That assumption is a little difficult to swallow, as is the repulsively positive way in which Mitchell treats the KKK.

But Gone With the Wind remains a favorite of mine anyway. This week's Dance Party comes from the Atlanta Bazaar scene, in which an auction is held to raise money for the Confederate Army. Our heroine has been widowed, by her first husband whom she married on the rebound, so she is in public mourning. It's fun to watch the close-ups of Vivien Leigh and Clark Gable as they dance; Gable was a pretty lousy dancer, which was just as well, as camera angles required that platforms were constructed for him and Leigh to stand upon during much of their dialogue. Unseen stage hands swayed the platforms to suggest that Rhett and Scarlet were sweeping across the dance floor while having their flirtatious conversation. In fact, for much of the time, they were standing still.
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