 This was a project and this was a cause...and I enjoyed the hands on experience. And I mean hands on....from
sitting and having a margarita pizza in the most popular Italian restaurant in the area while asking the owners between bites to be one of our sponsors..... having a bagel, lox and cream cheese in the only New York style "deli" in
the region and getting the owners to provide gift certificates for our daily show raffle...to KOHLS department store who even sent volunteers to usher several performances....plus the many teachers and parents and concerned citizens who
wanted to support this cause....and of course having JOHN SBORDONE of THE FLAGLER PLAYHOUSE providing the venue the time and energy...we did it.
|
Billie proudly remembering the 5 lines
she got to say on Broadway before she met Brock. |
Brock telling off Billie. |
The FLAGLER PLAYHOUSE is
adorable ....its an old church that has been renovated with state of the art lights and sound and a beautiful proscenium stage with lifts and levels ...all that good stuff ...and the audience gets to sit in the original church pews... on a
couple of interviews I mentioned that the people that came to a Sunday matinee got a "two-fer"....a show.... AND a religious experience.
|
Costumed by Bob Mackie |
And we had quite the show....JUDY
HOLIDAY might have had BRODERICK CRAWFORD...but I had ROBERT DIMSEY...who as one reviewer said "grabbed the bull by the horns and gave a bravera (I had to look it up
before I congratulated him just to make sure it meant something good) performance." Each of his onstage performances were riveting to me as BILLIE and would shake me up each and every time.....it was
wonderful.
We did it as a 1940"s live broadcast....with a sound effects person and announcer in their booths right onstage....with "applause" signs and "on
air" signs and commercials from our sponsors read by our announcer J. WALKER FISCHER....who for many years has been a radio personality in the FLORIDA area. |
|
We had our head mikes and onstage we had the stand-up mikes
just like you've seen in the old radio broadcasts in those black and white movies on TCM....our director JOHN SBORDONE put so much action and movement to it...we took such creative liberties that people forgot
that there wasn't scenery or props....just us....and I was so clicked into this character that even after we would rehearse and we were given notes I was still talking as BILLIE ....she, me, we...got very
intertwined....I am truly sorry its over because I was having a ball...I even was allowed to put in a "sands of time" number at the end of act one when BILLIE gets really happy and does a little song
and dance from her "glory days" of performing in "ANYTHING GOES."
|
Left to Right
Robert Dimsey (Brock), Monica Toner (Sound Effects),
Bob Weaver (Devery), J. Walker Fisher (Annoucer/Senator Hedges), Jonathan Haglund (Paul) |
And of course with live theatre there is always something exciting and
unexpected that can happen.......at our final dress they had laid out new carpet backstage and they didn't have magic tape to show where there was a step up to the next level and I came careening around the back of the theatre and
"bam"... from then on....the magic tape was visible for every performance ...on opening night they had a screened partition onstage stage left where I could change out of one costume to another (Yes, I know I said it was a radio
broadcast but as I said we took liberties to keep it "very entertaining"), so as I was whizzing by it after screaming at BROCK....as I rounded the corner and exited past the partition to backstage I
heard this loud "bang" behind me.....without even touching it and thank g-d not changing behind it...the partition clunked to the floor...VERY LOUDLY.....we continued......then the next night....since this was a radio
broadcast....we held scripts but I had much of it committed to memory by this point anyway and ooh! I am so lucky I did ....during act two...I get very excited and exasperated at BROCK ..and as I was gesturing with the words "So, where
are you anyway?" I moved both my hands that were holding the script outward and THE SCRIPT SPLIT NEATLY RIGHT IN HALF...so remember how CLINT EASTWOOD had A FISTFUL OF DOLLARS....well, I had two fistfuls of
script ... ...and as someone said to me afterwards...."You didn't miss a beat"
|
Instead of taking off "rose colored glasses"
I put them on. |
The hardest part of the entire run was getting dressed
with the body mike..... tech and sound effects would stand around me in my dressing room wrapping whatever they wrapped around me over and over before I put "anything on "and covered the mike pac with a...brace yourself...
condom...they said that is what holds it best on bare skin...so on my dressing room table every time someone came in including the MAYOR and they looked around.... there was a red box of TROJANS awaiting its
next performance...and since I was the only female in the cast it sure must have looked like I was "ready for any possibility."
Every time we did a rehearsal with one of them the tech person
kept saying to me "I've never touched one of these before"...each and every time....I could have said a million things back to "her" but I figured while I'm standing there in my all together if that's what she needs to
say "each and every time" go for it. |
And maybe she was right because they would tear or burst in her hands as
they tried to encircle it around the mike pac that was taped to my rib cage and since no one from the staff wanted to run down and get new ones our director kept going to the same pharmacist at the same pharmacy numerous times always in a
flurry to get back to the theatre..."the pharmacist must have been duly impressed with his repeated request in such a short period of time"....the pharmacist was probably on automatic pilot every time he saw him rushing towards
the counter .....what a picture!
|
I couldn't even change costumes without awaiting the tech
people so that I wouldn't disturb my sensitive mike....so I was always the first person the tech person did when I entered the theatre and I was the first person right after intermission started and the last one after the show.
|
Jonathan Haglund did the role William Holden
originated in the movie. |
All the hard work and concentration I put into this role made it so
worthwhile by the audiences reception....each and every performance got a standing "o"....I give a standing "o" to the five music teachers that are now going to go back to their jobs....and I was elated over the review
in "The Flagler Times"....the reviewer gave the history of the role ..how it had been designed for the actress Jean Arthur and three days before it was to open on Broadway she dropped out and Judy
Holiday took over and the rest is history. "Quite an artistic challenge for ANNIE GAYBIS, who acquits herself wonderfully in the starring role. No surprise really - we were awed by her performances."
|
Our "Excellent" director, John Sbordone |
Well, I am sure glad I found out "after" I
opened that it was an "artistic challenge"....to me it was an "ode" to JUDY HOLIDAY...even the call letters of the radio station was WHOL -THE HOLIDAY NETWORK....I
hope the late great GARSON KANIN was pleased...I sure was and so were those five teachers. |
|
Want to see a Previous, “What's New?” 