Well, dear readers, a fifty-year-old mystery has finally been solved. Yes, you heard it here, dear readers, a fifty-year-old mystery has finally been solved. I’m sure you remember the story of me at seventeen seeing The Most Happy Fella at a theater-in-the-round starring original cast members Robert Weede and Art Lund. It was a life-changing experience – both seeing the magnificent show, but more importantly seeing Mr. Weede give the best performance I have ever seen in the musical theater – and also meeting Mr. Weede, having him arrange for me to see the closing evening performance and then inviting me to attend the cast party afterwards. He certainly taught me everything about how to behave to people who take the time to tell you they love your work or enjoyed something you do. At that cast party he introduced me to everyone, including director Ernest Sarracino. And sometime thereafter, Mr. Sarracino asked me to audition for Peter Pan at Melodyland starring Jane Powell. I did, he cast me, I attended the first rehearsal and then realized I just could not do the drive to Anaheim every day AND attend my first semester of LACC. So, I dropped out. But none of that is the mystery.
The mystery has always been where I saw the show. For some crazy reason I had San Bernadino in my head, always. But every time I searched that city I came up empty in terms of The Most Happy Fella being done there and there even being a San Bernadino theater-in-the-round. I knew for sure I had not seen it at Melodyland. In searching, the only other theater-in-the-rounds were Valley Music Theater in Tarzana (and I knew it wasn’t that) and the Carousel in West Covina. So, it had to be that and certainly that would account for my thinking it was some distance away. Over the years, I’ve searched for programs or even any information about exactly what date I would have seen it, but I have come up empty every time – not even a mention of the show. The other day, there was a thread about Melodyland on a theater chat board and that led to some posts about the Carousel – people remembered this and that, and so I posted about having seen The Most Happy Fella there. And this guy came back and said that he could find no record of it having played there in the 1960s. All I could tell him was that I saw it. It was almost as if he didn’t believe me. He’d read an obituary on Mr. Weede that said he’d retired in 1964 or something, but of course I pointed out to him how incorrect that was, as Mr. Weede did The Most Happy Fella all throughout the 1960s, and, of course, he starred in the new musical, Cry for Us All on Broadway in 1970. Anyway, this guy had unlimited access to the LA Times newspaper archive and could find nothing. This irritated me so much that I again began Googling every possibility, still coming up blank. But I did find a little article about Mr. Weede and Mr. Lund doing the show up north in an outdoor theater – there were stills and it looked pretty amateur and it stated that Mr. Weede did the show as a favor to the artistic director and it was more of a family affair as Mr. Weede had his kids in the show.
So, that was proof that he’d at least done the show, but that wasn’t in the round nor would I have ever driven up near San Francisco. I searched for hours last night – West Covina, Anaheim, Tustin – all for naught. I searched a list that had some theater-in-the-rounds but it was hardly complete and I got no help from it. I searched every way you could search and still nothing, so I was still convinced it was the Carousel. But the guy wrote me back and said he’d seen the 1965 show list for the Carousel and The Most Happy Fella wasn’t on it. Say what? If I were anyone else by this point I would have been doubting my sanity and I’d probably would begin to think I’d dreamt the whole damn thing. But my memory is my memory and I knew what was what. Then the guy told me that the Jane Powell Peter Pan that I’d dropped out of was in December of 1965. So, I was right about the year certainly and that narrowed down the time frame, since I absolutely knew I did not see it whilst in high school. I’d thought I’d seen it while at LACC and even thought I knew where I was living at the time. So, yesterday morning the noisy neighbors were out there making a ruckus at eight-thirty, so I got up and went to the computer. I’d already typed in every major city I could think of but had come up empty. So, on a whim, I typed in San Diego even though I couldn’t imagine having driven that far. I typed in “San Diego” and “The Most Happy Fella” and “Robert Weede.” And I got a hit. One single hit. A San Bernadino newspaper had a story on actress Virginia Jaeger playing Marie in a production of The Most Happy Fella starring Robert Weede and Art Lund at the Circle Arts Theater in San Diego. And there, in an instant, the mystery was solved. The dates were two weeks in August of 1965, which would have made the Peter Pan thing make perfect sense. And then I looked up the Circle Arts Theater and found a hit on it and a photo – and voila – the minute I saw the photo I knew I’d found the answer. The Circle Arts was a theater-in-the-round and they had big stars in big musicals – from the early 1960s through around 1970 or so. The building in the photo was instantly recognizable to me. So, I obviously did the long drive (I hadn’t started LACC quite yet, but would two weeks later), and I probably told Mr. Weede I’d driven all the way from LA and perhaps that’s why he invited me to see the final performance and attend the party – a little reward for the three-hour drive.
I was beyond thrilled to have the mystery solved. On the page I’d found about the theater, there were a bunch of stills from their 1961 production of West Side Story, which starred Carla Alberghetti and Larry Kert (I saw both of them a year later in a West Side Story production that played the Moulin Rouge). And there was a shot of some of the Jets, and sitting there was my pal Pete Menefee – just a kid. Pete danced in all the LA shows and he’s in Mary Poppins as a chimney sweep, too. Then he became a costume designer, which is how I met him, when he did the costumes for Forget-Me-Not Lane at the Mark Taper Forum. He’s attended many Kritzerland shows with his ever-lovin’ Tom Hatten. I sent him the link to the photo and he told me who everyone else was in it.
Other than that, it was a rather nice day, I suppose. I had a chopped salad with three tiny drops of oil and a whole lot of red wine vinegar – so very few calories. Then I picked up a package, came home, did a jog, and then it was time to go to rehearsal. This was Sami’s first day at school, and apparently it wasn’t that pleasant, so it took a while to get going, but once we got there we had fun, especially with the Dissection of the Frog number, where I added even more stuff and that she loved – all of it made her laugh and energized her, which is, of course, the Sami we love.
After rehearsal, we had a quick production meeting to lock down rehearsal times and our tech schedule. The set designer came in with some ideas, one of which I loved and so he’ll now do a new rendering for me and we should be set. After that, I came home, had some of my low-cal, low-fat hot dogs on low-cal buns.
Today, I think I’m not going to go out to eat – instead I’ll make some pasta with butter and cheese, which I’ve been craving. I’ll jog, I’ll do some work on the computer and also I’ll be up bright and early to announce the new Kritzerland title, which is another Bernard Herrmann classic – two, actually – Hangover Square and 5 Fingers. This has been completely redone from the bottom up from the disc that was in the big Herrmann at Fox box. First off, Hangover Square was severely truncated in the Fox box – we’ve got a whopping sixteen minutes of additional music. 5 Fingers sounds like a whole different score now – superb. Here’s the cover.
Tomorrow I’ll relax a bit, then we have our pre-rehearsal for the What If in the September Kritzerland show. Then some of us will go grab a bite to eat. Saturday, we’re in at ten or eleven to rehearse until about five – this is our long day and the day in which we are going to solidify everything. Sunday, we’ll start at eleven and go until four and I know we’ll run the show start to finish, then clean up stuff and then drill the transitions from scene to scene, as well as any lines she’s still struggling with.
Well, dear readers, I must take the day, I must do the things I do, I must, for example, announce a CD, do a jog, eat, hopefully pick up packages, and relax. Today’s topic of discussion: What theater memories are printed indelibly in your memory, where you can remember every detail of the experience? Let’s have loads of lovely postings, shall we, whilst I hit the road to dreamland, happy to have finally solved the fifty-year-old mystery.