haines his way

06/11/2002:
"OFF-THE-CUFF"

Well, dear readers, yesterday’s topic of discussion proved to be most popular with the populace and I loved reading all your posts and seeing how many of you go all the way back to the Bay Cities days of yore. Not the Bay Cities days or your, mind you, no, the Bay Cities days of yore.
Last night, if I recall correctly (IIRC, in Internet lingo) was that show that dear reader, Robert Armin directed, that Musicals of 1964 thing. I was reading some very nice posts about it elsewhere – in fact, one person, who is also a “reviewer” of theater music for that particular site, praised just about everything and mentioned just about everyone except our very own Robert Armin. I think this gentleman needs to be bitch-slapped, don’t you? I hereby elect our very own dear reader, Mr. Craig Brockman, to go over and bitch-slap that “reviewer” from here to eternity.
Last night I attended a little show myself, over at the Jazz Bakery. I like the Jazz Bakery because it is located in what used to be Helms Bakery. You will know what that means when you read my very own novel. If you do not read my very own novel you will not know what it means, hence you will not be in the know, you will not be with it, you will not be in the loop, you will not be cool, man, cool, and a hep cat, you will not be hip, you will not be in with the in crowd, you will not be in the scene, man. In any case, performing last night was Mr. Bill Dana, who’d appeared in our Tourette’s Syndrome benefit. I find him most amusing, and he did Jose Jimenez (unfortunately, his straight men were the band, not a good thing – these boys should not go into comedy). The first half of the evening was a singer named Patty Clark, I think. I knew for sure, but then these fershluganah gardeners started mowing in front of the window and I can no longer think and I can no longer remember if “Clark” is her last name. I did not know Miss Patty Whatever-her-last-name-is, but I liked her voice quite a bit. She apparently was a band singer in days of yore and even had her own radio show. I’d venture to say she is in her seventies now, but her voice retains it’s silky sexiness and she can still belt them out when needed. She’s very tall. This was a tall woman. And she is very animated, which made me nervous as there were wires on the stage and rugs and she almost tripped several times (she dances all over the stage like mad). She has several weird things she does, like closing her eyes for most of the songs (she keeps her eyes closed when she’s bowing, too) and she has a habit of telling the audience what the lyrics are before she actually sings the song. But it’s the voice that counts, and the voice is excellent.
Pre show, I supped at Kate Mantelini’s on Wilshire Boulevard. I had the shrimp and crab salad with Louie dressing. I wish Louie had dressed before I ate the salad, because frankly who wants to watch Louie dress while they’re eating? The salad was quite tasty with the exception of the mutant olives. The olives were tiny shriveled up wizened little nubs and clearly mutants. I think maybe they’re called Greek olives, but that’s just trying to slap a name on something and make it seem normal. These tiny shriveled up wizened little nubs were mutants I’m telling you, and in days of yore such things would never have been in a salad – no, a salad of yore would have had nice big juicy olives with holes in them so you could put them on your fingers.
The singing bird is outside, singing songs from 1964 Broadway musicals – of course, the singing bird gave due credit to Robert Armin.
Perhaps we should simply all click on the Unseemly Button below or I shall have nothing whatsoever to write in the next section. Wouldn’t that be a fine kettle of cheese slices and ham chunks if we were all to go to the next section and it was blank? That would be unseemly, so let us all click right this very minute before such a thing can happen.

Well, you see, I’ve gone and written everything I had to write in the first section and now I am without thought, without a clue as to what to write in this section. This section will now be entirely off-the-cuff. I was going to do it off-the-collar or even off-the-sleeve, but off-the-cuff seems best. I’m trying to remember if I’ve ever written this section on-the-cuff, although I don’t see how it would have fit on-the-cuff, the cuff being a small thing. Has anyone noticed how small a thing a cuff is? Why can’t we have bigger cuffs? Although if we have bigger cuffs then we will need bigger links and where does it all stop? And have you ever thought of this: the cuffs on our shirts are entirely different from the cuffs on our pants, and the cuffs on our pants are entirely different from the cuffs on our hands. For example, only the cuffs on our hands need a key. One does not need a key for the cuffs on a shirt or pant. Isn’t that interesting? Where else would you find an entire paragraph on various and sundried cuffs, that’s what I’d like to know? Perhaps in the next paragraph we’ll talk about pockets.
Have I mentioned that I wrote everything I had to write in the first section? Holy cow, why did I do that? “Holy cow”? What is a holy cow anyway? A born-again cow? A cow that likes Billy Graham? A cow that prays? A cow that goes to church every Sunday? What in tarnation is a holy cow? Perhaps it is a cow that recounts the story of Baby Jesus? Perhaps it is a cow who is a rabbi? Do Jewish holy cows eat borscht? Are Catholic holy cows baptized? Do they eat wafers? I shall have to ponder this holy cow business further.
Oh, I know what I haven’t written about. I haven’t written about our Unseemly Trivia Contest winners. We have three count them three High Winners in Mr. William F. Orr’s guest contest. And, of course, our handy-dandy electronic hat has chosen the Highest Winner, who will, of course, receive a sparkling prize. First the question:
A 60's musical had among its principle players a Howdy Doody host and a friend of a horse. Name the musical, the host, and the horse.
And the answer is:
The musical: Camelot
The principle player who was a Howdy Doody host (on a Canadian version of the show): Robert Goulet
The horse: Flicka from My Friend Flicka (starring Roddy MacDowell)
Our High Winners are Jeffrey Kauffman, freedunit and Michael Shayne. Our randomly selected Highest Winner is freedunit. And, of course, Mr. William F. Orr will receive a sparkling prize for having his contest used. If both gentlemen will send their handy-dandy addresses I will send them their handy-dandy sparkling prizes.
Holy cow, don’t forget that tomorrow is Ask BK Day, so get your excellent questions ready.
Well, dear readers, I’m afraid this entire section has been entirely too too off-the-cuff. Perhaps tomorrow this section will be off-the-shoulder, which is ever so much nicer and quite stylish, too. In the meantime, I must do the things I do. Today’s topic of discussion: What is the most annoying thing that has happened whilst in a legit theater? I’ll start: During Prelude to a Kiss an elderly Jewish couple started arguing. It started softly, and people were telling them to be quiet, but the argument soon escalated and soon they were practically yelling at each other. Poor Timothy Hutton was in the middle of one of his monologues and he didn’t know what to do. He just finally stopped and glared at the area where the yelling was coming from. Everyone was shushing these people, but they would not stop. They were finally escorted from the theater, and the audience applauded and Mr. Hutton went on with the play. The other awful thing was at Tru, with Mr. Robert Morse. The play had just begun, perhaps five minutes had gone by, and someone in the first row took a flash picture. Mr. Morse stopped, looked at this person in annoyance, and then went on a five minute diatribe to much applause. He then immediately got back into character and went on with the play. During the play, there was something about being hounded by the paparazzi photographers, which he played directly to the front row person, which brought the house down. Your turn.

Replies: 41 Unseemly Comments

My first comment: Why should "any" of us have known that Robert Goulet hosted a Canadian version of "Howdy Doody"?
And where does one find trivia on the order of the horse that played Flicka also appearing in "Camelot"?
Just curious, mind you.
Second comment: I have nothing to contribute to today's topic. And it makes me feel left out.
Third comment: Someone on this board must remember or have knowledge of a period in the early 60s when the NYC newspapers went on strike and a number of theatrical shows died as a result -- no publicity, for one, was blamed, since people simply stopped going to the theater during this strike.
One play that I am aware of was described to me by a dear friend, long since departed from our dimension, as the most entertaining farce he had ever witnessed on Broadway -- him and a few other folks. It was Bert Laher in "The Beauty Part." The show, he said, was brilliant, but it died, along with many other shows. Anyone familiar with "The Beauty Part" and anyone know if it has ever been revived?
Posted by Ron Pulliam @ 06/11/2002 09:56 AM PST

Of course, it's "Lahr" -- type me as a lazee copeyeduhter!
Posted by Ron Pulliam @ 06/11/2002 09:58 AM PST

The most annoying thing in the theatre is ALWAYS old ladies opening cellophane candy wrappers and too-young children talking incessantly. (Children should, of course, be brought to the theatre and be brought regularly, but only when they are of the age to behave.) I think it's interesting that the Kennedy Center now offers free Halls mentho-lyptus (in quiet paper wrappers) for all the potential coughers in the audience.
Posted by Phil Crosby @ 06/11/2002 10:06 AM PST

To Ron Pulliam: re-read the trivia question--the horse wasn't in "Camelot", the horse's friend was in "Camelot." This was one of the few trivia questions that actually seemed clear to me, which may portend my coming mental demise.
This probably doesn't count as
"annoying" or "legit" theater, per se, but I once attended a concert of Bernstein's "Chichester Psalms", which opens with a very dissonant voicing of a major seventh chord. This chord unfortunately triggered a grand mal seizure in an epileptic woman in front of me. Compounding this situation (which was bad enough) was the fact that this piece is sung by children, all of whom were, obviously, facing the audience and were in total shock and basically stopped singing. The conductor, who had his back to the audience, could not figure out what was going on, and began gesticulating wildly to his non-singing children's choir. I just so happened to have been the office manager of the Epilepsy Association of Utah while in college, so I knew what do with the poor woman flailing about in front of me, but it was one of those theater-going moments I'll never forget.
Posted by JMK @ 06/11/2002 10:07 AM PST

The most annoying thing that I have seen was last night at the aforementioned BROADWAY MUSICALS OF 1964. I'm not refering to the constant parade up and down the aisles of people going to and from the bathroom throughout the show, nor the rush to leave by many before the show was over; I am not even referring to the man who kept screaming "bravo" or "brava" after every number whether it deserved it or not (some did, some didn't). No I'm talking about the woman in front of me with the bright flashlight trying to read in the dark during the show!!! At least she turned it off when I asked her to.
Posted by William E. Lurie @ 06/11/2002 10:10 AM PST

Well, really, Mr. Ron Pulliam, I cannot let your protests go unanswered. Even though, without specific documentation on the location of your tongue, I believe it might have been suspciously close to being in your cheek.
Some of us (although not I) are Canadian. Furthermore, Herr Monsieur Mister Goulet's rôle as Lucky Pierre on The Howdy Doody Show has been mentioned in biographical notes. (Actually, a quick Google search on "Howdy Doody" would also yield that information.)
And, peculiar that you should confuse Mr. Roddy McDowell and the horse he befriended. It was Mr. McDowell who played Mordred, not the horse, of course, of course. Now listen carefully to the cast album, particularly "The Seven Deadly Virtues". Does that sound like a horse? Or even like Francis the Talking Mule? No, indeed. A horse's friend, yes. A horse, no.
But as I often remark when my Joe's family plays Trivial Pursuit at holiday gatherings, "The point is not to answer the most questions. The point is to argue about the rules."
Posted by William F. Orr @ 06/11/2002 10:24 AM PST

Ah, yes...."a friend of a horse" and Roddy McDowall..it's all so crystalline now.
Visions of "Mr. Ed" notwithstanding. Or "Francis the Talking Mule".
And Peter Graves was very friendly with "Fury," as was "Tommy Rettig" with the TV "Flicka." And his mother, Anita Louise, was a friend of Flicka, too.
But, "Boy, Howdy"! Love it when it all falls in place. Nothing like a goodly bit of teatro obscuro!
Posted by Ron Pulliam @ 06/11/2002 10:31 AM PST

When I saw the illustrious Mr. Anthony Perkins in Equus on Broadway, I would pick the performance where they bussed in a load of high school kids. I have nothing against high school kids in general, mind you, having been one myself upon a time.
However, when the play approached its most dramatic point and Peter Firth removed his pants, standing there all buff and toned in his alltogether, somebody in the high school section wolf-whistled, whereupon the whole section broke out in guffaws.
Mr. Firth, a credit to his profession, played his scene on with no indication that he had heard.
Ah, and another case. I saw Pippin with Michael Rupert. When Mr. Rupert made his first entrance held aloft by members of the chorus, some young man behind us shouted out in disbelief, "He's Jewish!" I did indeed want to throttle the young man in question.
And look, there's another Robert Goulet connection.
The sad thing is that today I was playing the Kevin Bacon Game and discovered that I am closer to Linda Lovelace than to Kevin Bacon. Ah me!, as we say.
Posted by William F. Orr @ 06/11/2002 11:15 AM PST

'Wonderful Town', London revival with Maureen Lipman, mid-80s. The set that was supposed to represent Eileen and Ruth's apartment got stuck in its tracks halfway onstage, and refused to budge. Lipman, Emily Morgan and Ray Lonnen gamely continued playing the scene. After a few minutes, the set suddenly juddered forward on its tracks and moved into place - and Lonnen turned to Lipman and said, 'Gee, I see you girls are still moving in!'
It got the biggest laugh of the night.
Posted by Stephen Farrow @ 06/11/2002 11:21 AM PST

Okay - I'll admit I have not won a single triva question YET, but I have to side with Mr. Pulliam on this one - who the HELL would know anything about a CANADIAN version of Howdy Doody, anyway?????
Anita - who is waaay too young to have even seen the AMERICAN Howdy Doody, but still....:)
Posted by Anita @ 06/11/2002 11:22 AM PST

Ouch!
Ouch!
Ouch!
Please stop, Anita! I give up! No more bitch slapping--pleeese!
Posted by William F. Orr @ 06/11/2002 11:28 AM PST

And that's funny, not annoying. I should learn not to skim without my glasses.
The most annoying thing that I ever saw happen in a theatre wasn't at a performance I was watching. I'm the front-of-house manager for two university theatres, and it was while I was at work. The show had started - it was some dance group that had rented the space - and we'd cashed out the box office etc. About 35 minutes in, a woman turned up, asking if she could still get in. Sure, I said, and went into the office to get her a ticket. When I came back out into the lobby, the woman was talking on a cell phone. Suddenly, the door to the auditorium opened, and another woman came out into the lobby, also talking on a cell phone. Our fabulous latecomer, it transpired, had planned to attend the performance with her sister, who'd arrived on time - so she'd used her cell phone to call her sister in the theatre to come into the lobby and find her so they could sit together.
Then there was the woman who told me at intermission that her boyfriend would be arriving halfway through the second act to pick her up, she was sitting down near the front, and could I come and get her when she arrived?
And even they pale next to the couple who brought their less-than-year-old baby to a studio performance of 'Camino Real' - a production which used a traverse stage, so there was now ay out without crossing the stage. TINY space, the baby, of course, cried loudly, disrupting the show for both the actors and the audience (letting him in was not my idea), and that theatre (our second space) has a tiny lobby which, coincidentally, is also the actors' principal entrance to the stage in that configuration. At the first intermission, I had to ask them to leave. The mother took it reasonably well; the father didn't - he apparently assumed that his rights as a parent outweighed the right of the 70 other people in the show to be able to hear the dialogue, and the right of the actors to be able to hear themslves think. The resulting scene was not at all pleasant.
Posted by Stephen Farrow @ 06/11/2002 11:32 AM PST

Hold still while I bitch-slap you!
Michael Rupert is Jewish? Is Gregg Edelmann, also? Let us play Jewish Geography. I will start. Madeline Kahn, yes?
Bad things that happened in the theatre? Well, Frank Wildhorn’s Jekyll & Hyde, for one. Off-stage? In the audience? Of course, there is the famous, well-documented performance of West Side Waltz during which a patron in the front row set his jacket upon the stage apron and Katharine Hepburn was outraged at the placing of a jacket upon an apron and stopped the show, rapping her walking stick and ordering the jacket be removed. I will have to think of personal ones to share. Unfortunately, there have been too many…
Posted by freedunit @ 06/11/2002 11:40 AM PST

bk, I think that Craig Brockman is a most excellent choice for designated bitch-slapper. He has demonstrated unique natural talent and impressive skill in the bitch-slapping arena. Such an alleged “reviewer” should be bitch-slapped from here to eternity. May I suggest that Craig bitch-slap him on the waterfront, also?
Posted by freedunit @ 06/11/2002 11:49 AM PST

Blame Canada?
No, blame Alex Trebek!!!
Let's all line up and bitch-slap him, one at a time!
Posted by Ron Pulliam @ 06/11/2002 11:50 AM PST

I wish I had some annoying anecdotes to tell about people in the theatre but, except for the general habit of some people who treat the theatre as their living room and decide to speak to each other and comment during the entire performance, I don't have any memorable incidents in my mind. I do, though, think there were probably a few times the audience went home talking about "that actor who fell off the stage". Yes, yours truly, back in my performing days. I went through a period, I can't imagine why, maybe I needed even more attention, of falling off the set or getting locked out of the theatre while the show was in performance. I needed to make an entrance through the house and neglected to check that the door was unlocked. It wasn't. By the time I found an open door I was so high from adrenaline I could barely talk.
One summer I was playing a sailor in South Pacific and the set designer had made a rather ingenious washing machine for Luther Billis. Well, the director made the mistake of placing me near the set piece at the end of Dame (There is Nothing Like A). The sailors needed to make a quick exit but I got caught up in the Washing Machine and proceeded to fall in getting my shoe caught on a piece of it. I hung upside down for about two minutes while Luther finished the scene and the audience was in hysterics. As Luther exited (he was a big man and I'm short) he reached down, picked me up by the leg and carried me off with him to great applause. We had a re-blocking session the next day before the performance.
Then there was the time I was a super in a Metropolitan touring production of Il Trovatore w/Renata Scotto. She was at the University of Minnesota playing Northrup Auditorium. They must have been desparate for bodies because they took me to be a SOLDIER! As I said, I'm short (5'3") and every other man who answered the call for supers was at least 5'11'. There were football players and basketball players and dancers. I was the only person from the Theatre Department to come to the call. Not only did they take me BUT, they gave me something to do!!! They told me to wheel the gun carriage off the stage after our scene. I'm wearing a robe that would be big on Goliath, a helmet that goes down over my ears and they ask me to move a set piece? OK, I was very happy until my too long robe got caught under one of the wheels and I couldn't move it for what seemed forever and I could feel the eyes of Ms. Scotto burning into me as I dragged off the gun carriage delaying her entrance for what seemed eons. Needless to say, I was given an envelope with my stipend and told my services were no longer needed. Ah, the memories of my youth!!
Posted by Ben @ 06/11/2002 11:57 AM PST

Ever since Trey Parker, Matt Stone & Marc Shaiman first blamed Canada. It has been all the rage to blame Canada, as Robin Williams did once at the A.M.P.A.S. awards. I am very fond of Canadians, but I also enjoying a good blaming of Canada. Don’t blame me for blaming Canada; I love Canada. Blame Alex Trebek? No, blame Sean Connery. Or put the blame on Mame. Or blame it on the bossa nova.
Posted by freedunit @ 06/11/2002 12:01 PM PST

Ok, this was a local movie theatre, but it's just too good. A group of disruptive teenagers were repeatedly shushed, and then asked by their fellow patrons to keep quiet. These requests were ignored, and theatre management failed to intercede. Finally, one man left the auditorium and returned with a fire extinguisher and blasted the entire group of mouthy teens with a cloud of frosty CO2. I believe the ensuing litigation was settled out of court.
Posted by Scott R @ 06/11/2002 12:14 PM PST

I was calling light cues for my play Survivors at one peformance. There was one intimate monologue that was done downstage very close to the audience. At that performance a woman's cellular phone started ringing. She got it out of her purse and the dropped it in front of the actor. She then got up and left theater. The rule for the shows that no one is admited once the show begins. She couldn't get back in and started to bang on the doors trying to get back in. Cudos to my actor, he didn't flinch one and went on with the show as if the woman never existed.
Posted by Michael Shayne @ 06/11/2002 12:53 PM PST

I can honestly say I've never been in the same room with anyone who was doing the bossa nova. I thought it was some TV fad or something.
I read an article once in which Julie Andrews had a delightful anecdote about "Camelot."
There was a St. Bernard in the "cast" and during one of the performances in the "Merry Month of May" number, the dog squatted and left a large pile of poo on stage. Andrews was aware of the tittering, looked around and saw what caused it...and chose the opportunity to play to it with the lyric, "Whence that fragrance wafting through the air...." which allegedly brought the house down.
Posted by Ron Pulliam @ 06/11/2002 12:53 PM PST

Well first let me say how sorry I am that I haven't posted sooner. My computer is having issues, so I am doing an overhaul. Why my computer is having issues, I do not know - perhaps it thinks it is the New York Times. My computer should be it's handy dandy self soon enough. In the meantime, I just wanted everyone to know that I have indeed gone to "said" message board and posted. While I did not use the term bitchslap, as I think that might be unseemly for the ill-advised, I did post kudos to our dear fellow HHW friend, Robert Armin. How anyone giving a thorough review of such an event can overlook the director is mindboggling. Yes, you read that correctly. My mind has been boggled and apparently, so has my computer, because both of us were not functioning well once we learned of the heinous gloss over of dear Robert. And speaking of... why do we use THAT term? GLOSS over? To me that sounds nice and aesthetic. To gloss over ANYONE here at HHW is a travesty of justice and I am happy to be the designated bitchslapper. I think I might have to design some bitchslapping products that we can all buy and wear. What does everyone think of that idea?
OK.. I will be back later when my computer (not my fathers, to which I am posting this on) is unboggled.
More later..
Posted by Craig @ 06/11/2002 01:14 PM PST

oh yes...and how can I forget to wish one of my favorite actors, Gene Wilder, a very Happy Birthday. I think Wonka bars for everyone is in order!
Posted by Craig @ 06/11/2002 01:19 PM PST

When I typed '70 other people in the show', I meant, of course, '70 other people in the audience'. Somehow it appears that I'm not at my most lucid this afternoon.
Posted by Stephen Farrow @ 06/11/2002 01:23 PM PST

I am always too ecstatic to be annoyed by anything small or petty whilst at the theatre. And I've never experienced anything quite so heinous as yelling during a production, so there you are.
Posted by Lolita @ 06/11/2002 01:27 PM PST

I love Robert Ward, I love Robert Ward, I love Robert Ward.
Posted by Lolita @ 06/11/2002 01:28 PM PST

It was only late last year that I rediscovered Wonka Bars. I did not know that they were being made, but they are. Chocolate with graham-cracker bits, that is a Wonka Bar. Wonka Bars are nice, but I feel like chocolate cake… Let us have chocolate cake to celebrate birthdays.
Posted by freedunit @ 06/11/2002 01:33 PM PST

Glad to hear that there were positive comments about last night's show (Broadway Musicals of 1964). I am so modest and retiring that I would never think of bitch-slapping someone for not mentioning my name -- so it was nice of Bruce to do so! Where did you read these nice comments, pray tell?
If anyone wants to hear New York's answer to Guy Haines, come to Don't Tell Mama at 9 PM Wednesday. I've been talked into singing at least one song -- but I may cover my face throughout.
Posted by Robert Armin @ 06/11/2002 02:27 PM PST

BK-
I too love those pitted black olives you get in a can -- that is until I heard an interview with an olive expert on the radio. Then I learned that to get those olives to look so plump and black, they are artificially "pumped up with oxygen" and cured with lye. Those wrinkled black "nubs" in your salad, I believe, are Thasos olives from Greece and are quite salty (a method of dry curing, I believe).
In case you want to know everything there is to know about olives, check out these two websites: http://splendidtable.org/gourmetguide/source_olives.html
http://www.emeraldworld.net/olive.html
Posted by Donna @ 06/11/2002 02:35 PM PST

Donna, as olive and breathe I never thought I would see one pitted against another.
Posted by freedunit @ 06/11/2002 02:53 PM PST

How could I have overlooked this:
I was sitting in the audience on the opening night of the first musical I directed, "My One and Only." In Act I, the Reverend Montgomery's uptown chapel (apostolic by sunshine, alcoholic by moonshine) is over-run in a prohibition police raid. Pandemonium ensues, and after a beat of silence, the three New Rhythm Boys appear on stage in nuns habits. During that beat of silence, a woman stands up in the center of the house and proclaims "Jesus is Lord and He's coming soon!" This was immediately followed by the New Rhythm Boys singing "Amen." Blackout.
Posted by Scott R @ 06/11/2002 03:00 PM PST

I attended the performance of the Broadway production of My One and Only after which reporters descended upon Twiggy and Roscoe Lee Browne to demand their reactions to news of the death of Richard Burton. Twiggy had just found out and was visibly upset.
Posted by freedunit @ 06/11/2002 03:25 PM PST

Of course, there is the famous story of Ethel Merman ejecting a drunken patron from a performance of Call Me Madam when he became unruly during “Can You Use Any Money Today?” But Elaine Stritch tells it best, so I won’t.
Posted by freedunit @ 06/11/2002 03:30 PM PST

A Christmas pantomime in London 1993 is my most memorable annoyance in a theatre. "Peter Pan" was the show and it was playing at the enormous Colliseum theatre (usually Ballet or Opera there). An argument broke out in a side box as to whose child had hit who and that an apology was in order - it was so LOUD and the aggrieved parent of one child was calling for the manager and the police etc. My very favourite actress was attempting to be a wonderful PETER PAN at the time. The actress was Maggie Smith and it must have been awful for those on stage to continue and try and have themselves heard over the din from the box. The inconsiderate patrons csertainly had good voice projection (I assume they were not miked).Perhaps they were doing "reality theatre" and I missed the point. Fortunately I did get to see Maggie Smith in Private Lives the same year - and that was wonderful. I think it was also the year of "Travels With My Aunt" and "Love and Pain and the Whole Damn Thing". A vintage year for Dame Maggie fans.
Posted by Tom Guest (from OZ) @ 06/11/2002 04:29 PM PST

Subj: Anthony Teague
I read with interest the notes on Tony Scooter Teague. I have several friends who did the first national tour of A Chorus Line with him back in 79 and 80, but no one seems to know what happened to him between that time and the time of his death in 1989. He had changed his name to Alec, an obvious nickname for anyone who knew him, and I know his aspirations were to write and possibly direct. Shortly after he finished the Chorus Line tour he divorced and I think went back to Los Angeles to live, but I'm not quite sure of that. He also loved San Francisco and could have landed there before he moved to Southern Oregon to be near his family until he died.
I am, and always have been, a tremendous fan of his. I remember seeing him for the first time in the movie West Side Story when I was only 16. Of all the actor/dancers in the cast my attention was drawn to him partially because of his talent, but mostly because of his strong sense of life. He was a happy kid doing what he loved and it came across clearly. That energy was contageous. I always felt he was an exceptionally talented performer who should have had a stronger career. I think he would have had not cirucumstances interrupted his momentum. Immediately following filming How to Succeed in Business w/o Really Trying, he was called to active duty with the Navy. He served two years just when he was beginning to be taken seriously in the Business. Then, after discharge he married and moved to the back woods of Northern California to raise a family. A bad choice if he wanted to recapture the attention he'd lost while in the miliary. It also didn't help that he returned home at a time when Hollywood and Broadway were changing from the world of Busby Berkeley musicals and television variety shows to an environment that welcomed Hair to Broadway and Hippie themes in tv and film.
If anyone out there has any information on the missing years before his death I'd love to hear. I really think he settled somewhere and tried to become a serious writer. But I don't know where. I know he had a screenplay that was ready to be picked up by a major studio in the early seventies but never was. The rest is a mystery.
Thanks
Broadwaybasics
Posted by Broadwaybasics @ 06/11/2002 05:25 PM PST

This is not the most annoying thing I have seen in the theatre but it was one of the dumbest. I was attending the Broadway performance of "Rent". Curtain was at 7pm. Curtain came and went and the audience started to get very restless. I became aware of a brouhaha (is that correct) a couple rows in back of me. It seems that someone was sitting in the wrong seat. A head usher was called to the row and everyone passed their ticket stubs down so he could see them. As he looked at one of the ticket stubs the head usher said, "this ticket is for Show Boat." The theatregoer had presented the wrong ticket at the door of the Nederlander and somehow it was not caught. She then proceeded to scream at the usher, asking him what "they" were going to do about it. She refused to budge and police eventually came and escorted her, yelling very loudly. By this time it was close to 8pm and the audience was about to go on their own rampage.
Posted by Dennis Clancy @ 06/11/2002 09:11 PM PST

I think I have two stories. Like everyone else, I'm not sure if they rank as "most" annoying, but they're right up there.
First was at the revival of "Man Who Came to Dinner" with Nathan Lane, Harriet Harris, Jean Smart et al. A man was sitting alone in one of the box seats. This seat was VERY close to the stage and could be seen by the audience as well as the actors. This man ate a bowl of soup during act one! (Where did he even get a bowl of soup?) He then propped his feet up on the rail and fell asleep. He came back after intermission to finish his nap, this time snoring throughout. No one could quite believe it. And this was not part of the show!
The second incident occurred at a touring prodcution of "Fosse" (I think), A man and a woman sat next to me and had been sitting quietly for 10 or 15 minutes before curtain. Just as the lights were dimming, and announcement was made to put away cell phones, etc., at that moment, the woman proceeded to get her phone out of her purse and make a phone call. The usherette came over and told the woman to put the phone away, at which point the woman said she needed to call her babysitter! What, she couldn't have called her babysitter 10 minutees before? Or gone out to the lobby? Don't these people remember when you had to go somewhere else to make a call (like a payphone)?!?!?! She yelled at the usherette and then complained to the head usher. Luckily the couple left at intermission after receiving glares from all of us around them. I also spoke to the head usher and priased the usherette for doing her duty.
Boy, I'm mad now just thinking of it. I think I'd better have some cake!
Posted by Kerry @ 06/11/2002 09:32 PM PST

Re: Anthony Teague
According to Google, the following is from
www.geocities.com/tritonbase/decease/teague.htm
I couldn't connect to the site but got Google's cached version.
"Tony was a nut! He was a reserve quartermaster and made a patrol with us. He had already been in WEST SIDE STORY as one of the JETS and had co-starred in HOW TO SUCCEED IN BUSINESS WITHOUT REALLY TRYING. In spite of the fact he was a "real live movie star", he was a submariner and a good shipmate. "
It doesn't add any new information, but it's nice to see his shipmates remembering him.
Posted by William F. Orr @ 06/11/2002 09:34 PM PST

I just wrote about nine of the most memorable experiences and it came to about four type-written pages in length, which I am sure is more than anyone here wants to read. Therefore, instead I will report that I have suffered people coming, going, crying, drinking, eating, fighting, kissing, paging, phoning, photographing, recording, singing, sleeping, snoring, stomping, swearing, talking, tapping, touching—me!—without permission!—at theatrical performances, and I have had uncouth or unruly patrons redressed, reseated, and removed. Detailed accounts will appear in the book.
I love the idea of a Bitch-Slap products line, especially if it has a bitch-slappingly cool logo. The Clapper has been a very successful brand, and I think the Bitch-Slapper could be, too… Slap on! Slap off! Slap on! Slap off! The Slapper!
I thought Tony Teague was just terrific in the motion picture How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying and the first national tour of A Chorus Line.
Dennis, I wish I had been at that performance of Rent. I would have bitch-slapped her back to the Gershwin Theatre.
Posted by freedunit @ 06/11/2002 10:02 PM PST

Re: Tony Teague
Thanks to William Orr and Freedunit for their comments on Teague. He was an under-recognized talent.
Because he was as talentd as he was, I think whatever he did in those last years (1980 - 1989) might possibly have value and his literary efforts might be locked away somewhere in some studio vault.
Any information, performance or otherwise would be appreciated.
By the way, did any of you know he studied with the American Conservatry Theatre and has done legit and Shakespeare as well as the musical comedy most know him for?
Posted by Broadwaybasics @ 06/12/2002 08:33 AM PST

A certain Daily News Theater Critic who shall go namesless (cough change the M's in Bruce's last name to another consonant) gave a nice review to dear reader Robert Armin's 1964 show yes failed to credit him... I am guessing that being a director is a lot like being in P.R. -- if you are doing a good job, you are "ignored" - when there's a problem, you are the first one to be singled out..
Posted by Craig @ 06/12/2002 08:33 AM PST

BroadwayBasics, yes, I did.
Craig, I think you are right about directors. As for the unnamed Daily News critic you named with a modification of bk’s name, I sat next to him at a critics preview of Elaine Stritch: At Liberty at the Neil Simon Theatre. Well, not next to him, but his partner, who sat between us. When the so-called critic got up at intermission, his partner engaged me in small talk. Usually, I don’t want to talk small talk, but I talked to him. Inevitably, he asked me what I thought of the show. I told him it is the best show of any kind that I had seen in a long time—at least since I saw it at the Newman Theatre. The next thing I knew, I told him, “It doesn’t really matter what I think, but what he [the critic] thinks. He better like it and write wonderful things about her.” The partner replied, “Oh, he will.” I do not like that particular critic, nor do I like the buckshot-initialed one at the Old Gray Lady.
Posted by freedunit @ 06/12/2002 09:40 AM PST

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