Good morning, all! Apropos of today's headline, I had two close encounters of the very strange kind with Faith Dane, who - so far as I know - is alive and well in New York. The first was in 1973, Jacob's Pillow Dance Festival. She showed up for a performance on the arm of choreographer Donald Saddler. I remember that she was quite tall.
Around 1990 or so, Miss Dane called The Drama Book Shop several times, looking for legal advice from one of the owners, a lovely gentleman who was one of the worst bosses I ever had: my memory is that she actually had been an exotic dancer who played trumpet in her act, all of which became part of the GYPSY libretto, and that she was looking for help in landing a chunk of the show's royalties as a creator. This may have been prompted by all the brouhaha at the time of the dancers' stories used in creating A CHORUS LINE.
So, there are things to do today: a breakfast at 9:00 with Susanna Tarjan, daughter of Jerome Moross, several hours with Harold Arlen, Yip Harburg and Ira Gershwin, and, after all the drudgery, the glamour and excitement of laundry. Heigh ho, the glamorous life!