MemoryThon 3
curser down for more memories & comments ... and pictures from our past -
Have something you'd like to add - mail it to me at hbagdasian@aol.com
THANKS!
^
Lynnie Raybuck & Marcia Gay Harden in Deb Proyor's BURRHEAD
*
Nick Olcott and Eric Zengota in John Nassavera's PHALLACIES
^
here goes:
5/18/20082:33:13 AM Eastern – RUSSELL METHENY
Trios,Trios, Trios, Trios Carry Out, Odeon, Trios. And after midnight, laughing it off with Liz Stuart at Krammerbooks or sorted dives on P St. Yikes, is this some sort of internet reunion.
RUSS
Russell Metheny working on the set design for Mark Stein's comedy PINNACLE -
probably the summer of 1978 [you can see the beginnings of the set model in the lower left hand corner of the snapshot]
5/16/20082:33:43 AM - BARI BIERN
Bob- You're the second person to mention the talking toilet play! It was Richard Haight's "The Tissky Curse". Larry Bangs starred as the precocious porcelain protagonist.
Bari
Bari Biern and Scott Sedar in LIVES OF THE GREAT COMPOSERS,
a bill of four comedies by Tim Grundmann [February to March 1982]
^
May 16, 2008, at 10:06:00 AM, HBagdasian added …
Yes, and Diane, the woman who served up subs at Trio pizza, played Aunt Minerva who had to take the cursed toilet with her whenever she traveled.I am having too much fun! Keep those comments and memories coming!
Regards to all, HarryB
5/18/2008 9:40:07 AM – LYNNIE RAYBUCK
Well. That’ll teach me not to open my inbox for a couple of days.
Trio's. Trio's Pizza if desperate and Fox for drinks and the opportunity to watch the beautiful Ethiopians. Millie and Als for pitchers and pizza.
and commentary:
Susan Cassidy was in Phallacies and the legendary pheromone manufacturer who was the center of the Bart W and ex drink throwing incident at Boss S.
I worked in the basement kitchen of Food for Thought for a while as a way to hang with Steve LeBlanc and get free veggies--the soups were relatively safe. (all shift cooks made a soup and a "something else") far more fun in the boiler room than the kitchen.
There was also the basement apartment next to the theatre and 6 packs were always cheaper. Hanging with Tom Moseman, Jimmy Leonard and an occasional visit with Marcia GH.
Dale, do you still have Caron Tate's email to add in. She's still in CA--and where's Mr. Fred?
I was also a commuter-from NoVA and was under something/body's protection.
Love to all, please note new email: lynnieraybuck@verizon.net
The cast of John Nassivera's PHALACIES (seated) Eric Zengota and Lynnie Raybuck
(standing L to R) Jim Fyfe, Nick Olcott, Susan Cassidy, TG Finkbinder and Hank Jackelen. [January 1982]
5/18/2008 9:48:11 AM – DONALD CAMPBELL
Not to slight Trios (is it still there?), but... At Kramer Books, my impoverished and incorrigible paramour, Lola (name changed to protect the not-so-innocent) and I would pull out a one-hit faux-cigarette pot pipe, pack it with a certain herbaceous weed (absurdly available in the vicinity) and blithely smoke away, right there in the cafe, smug in our self-congratulatory daring, while we shared a coffee and maybe a single Danish. After an hour or so pretending to be intellectuals (and not just stoners) we'd be so damn giddy, the management of even that charmingly lax establishment would start giving us the hairy eyeball.
So, we'd pool our remaining resources and laugh our way over to Booeymongers to slake the munchies by splitting one of their stuffed, juicy heroes with the goofy names.
Also late nights at Columbia Station, the cast of "Practice" would often get plastered while rocking out to some local western-rock band.
The cast of PRACTICE, a drama by Jack O'Donnell
[September - October 1979]
Or if we were really pumped, the roller boys would head for the Kalorama Roller Rink after the show. Those are truly my fondest memories, whirling round and around that magnificent, soaring, multicultural, art-deco roller palace, with the banquettes in the center (am I dreaming, or was that real?) in a haze of marijuana smoke pierced by mirror-ball rainbows, while Earth Wind and Fire, Stevie Wonder and Sly pumped up the volume at the heyday of disco skating.
Sigh... we wuz yunger then.
Anyway, greetings fellow NPT alums, from Brooklyn where I bump into Richard Haight (progenitor of the oft mentioned "Toilet Play") with alarming frequency at the kids soccer games; Owen Parmele occasionally on the subway; and once in a blue moon, Timmy Grundmann.
Regards to all. If anyone has a lead on Agnes Cummings of "Eddie's Catchy Tunes" or Ernie Meyer of "Practice") let me know. So who's up for a corporeal reunion...
Don Campbell
Don Campbell (on floor) with A. David Johnson and Dana Vance
EDDIE'S CATCHY TUNES - book, music & lyrics by Tim Grundmann
[April - June 1979]
5/18/20081:31:25 PM – JIM BRADY
Oh wow! I assume you mean Fred Strother as Mr. Fred. From my etheric dance floor where I have spent the last 30 plus years with Dodie, I see Fred still on
Quincy St. looking after his Mom and niece. You can catch him on the last couple of seasons in "The Wire." He is the one driving around in a wheelchair. If it was the other Mr. Fred, well Mr. Shiffman just received a well deserved Helen Hayes award for a play that he was in at Studio Theatre called Souvenir, A Fantasia on the Life of Florence Foster Jenkins.Jim
Jim Brady in Mark Stein's comedy PINNACLE
[October - November 1977]
5/18/20083:13:30 PM – RICHARD HAIGHT
My thanks to all of you who have been mentioning THE TISSKY CURSE. For better or for worse, it's good to be remembered.
Hello to Don Campbell: I don't know who you've been talking to on the soccer field, but it's not me. I haven't been in Brooklyn for over 30 years. (And I don't care much for soccer.) All I can say is -- the person you are speaking to must be exceptionally good looking. Thanks for thinking of me, and my best wishes to you and yours. Sincerely, Richard
5/18/20084:32:11 PM - DON CAMPBELL
YIKES!
Must have my wires crossed... Correction: I often see a talk with a Richard (not Haight!?) who was one of the bad guys in “Practice”. Profound apologies for misidentification to the author of the aforementioned porcelain potty play and for any unfortunate association with children kicking balls on the grass. Still, I’ll always have the Kalorama Roller Rink...
DC
5/18/2008 8:12:19 PM – LuANNE P. ORIGER
I led such a sheltered life back then, the most drinking I did was at cast parties, although I do remember a memorable tying one on or two at Mr. Eagan's, just south of Dupont Circle on Connecticut Ave.
Cheap eats--Trio, of course for the food and the atmosphere and Margo's tri-colored hair (wasn't that a job requirement for all the Trio ladies?!?); also great cheeseburgers at Christopher's on N Street.Love, Lu
5/19/2008 6:07:36 AM – TG FINKBINDER
I was always impressed that Russell Metheny decorously cut his Trio burger in two before going at it. Such refinement. Obviously it made an impression: it’s how I cleave mine today, and yes, every time I do so, I think of dear Russell.
TG
Monday, May 19, 200810:27 AM - BOB THOMAS (Rayel)
Someone else may have already mentioned the night the gay biker club bought out the house for "Nightmare!!" ? -- and gave it a standing ovation. As I recall the scene, somebody (might have been you, Harry?) told me that night when I showed up for work that a bunch of "bikers" had bought out the house for the show -- but did not mention the all-important "orientation" detail. So I was actually worried about how they might react . . . Then they arrived . . .
All the best,
Bob
Monday, May 19, 200811:58 AM – HARRY B responds
Were they "The Druids"?
I missed that performance because I had a Board meeting or something ... I did hear some wild tales about audience reactions that night .. Tim? Fred? Tanis? LuAnne? ... can you share any memories of that night?
Now that might be some fun reading. I do remember that days prior, someone had copped a bunch a sinks and toilets from a movie theatre they were demolishing in Bethesda - playwright Madeline Lundberg, I think it was ... bless her heart, I suppose she thought she was doing us a big favor by obtaining four sinks and four toilets and putting them in our furnace room. Well, on the night the bikers were attending "Nightmare!!" several of the audience thought the furnace room was a men’s room and left us plenty of liquid in the unflushable toilets. The clean up was particularly disgusting.
Regards to all
HarryB
5/20/200810:48:50 PM – LuANNE ORIGER
Yes, it was the Druids and I remember their using the dead toilets in the boiler room. Other than that, I think they were pretty well behaved...seemed to recall we made a killing on concessions too that night. LuAnne
5/20/2008 9:50:07 AM – JIM BRADY
Oh my GAWD!!!! Bare buttocks in chaps. Yes it was The Druids and I had never seen anything like that group. As I remember, they loved the show. Fav lyric sung by Barbara Rappaport, " I'm an old blind nun, and it ain't much fun.
Jim
(L to R) Chris Kaufmann, Barbara Rappaport, Tanis Roach and A. David Johnson in NIGHTMARE!! - book, music and lyrics by Tim Grundmann
[December 1977 - January 1978 and April 1978]
5/19/2008 10:43:24 AM – GEORGE PALMER
Bob:
The biker group may have descended on the theater more than once, but there was one particular performance, I believe of “Nightmare”, that a black, gay biker group attended, en mass, on the same night as a large Christian organization. At first lots of staff spent time separating the two groups, when in the lobby, but by the end of the evening both groups were schmoozing with each other. Such was the strange power of a Tim Grundmann show!
Also, may I ask if anyone has a hardening of the arteries problem due to all the food consumed at the Trio?
George Palmer
5/21/2008 9:35:18 AM - BARBARA RAPPAPORT
Golly --Gee -Of course it was Trio all the time for me. Wow, the memories. First of all, I remember Debbie Cerutti and I unwinding at Trio's with of all things a glass of sherry. That was the hectic time of the first Nightmare! I never drank so much sherry before or since.( have I erased my lame e-mail attempt I hope Debbie Cerutti remembers.) Of course, I remember The Druids. They were my best audience ever. I do remember the toilet play that … wasn't at ASTA - Remember, Harry?
Barbara
[Note from Harry … THE TISSKY CURSE premiered in the basement theatre on
20th Street during our first season. It was reprised in the Dramathons, 1st as a one-act (1976 & ‘77), then as a longer play (’78 & ’79) which included a slide show of Aunt Minerva “on holiday” with her toilet. Wonderfully bizarre]
Barbara Rappaport as Grandma Doubleton
Tim Grundmann's musical comedy, OUT TO LUNCH
[July - September 1978]