5/20/2008 11:18:29 PM - KEN BLOOM

Dear All,

Just before the first production of Nightmare premiered, Timmy, Harry, and I were unsure about the success of the piece. It was about 1 am and, as usual, Russell was alone in the theatre working on the set when we had a group nervous breakdown.  As I remember it, we took up the revolve, moved the tower on which the band played and moved the baby grand piano, breaking its leg off. Somehow, the sound of the piano crashing to the floor snapped us out of our trance and we put it all back together somehow.

Pissing off other theatres: Frankie Hewett was really miffed when we produced All Night Glut at the Biograph at the same time as the All Night Strut was at Ford's. Of course, the ad we placed in the Post was in the same typeface as All Night Strut.

Speaking of the same typeface and pissing off other theatres. Zelda Fichandler was really angry when the Arena Stage ad in the Post read: Hamlet: Murder, Mystery, Revenge: The Greatest Play of All Time. The Post was kind enough to place our ad for the musical version right next to hers. Ours read: Hamlet: Girls, Gams, Laughs: The Greatest Musical of All Time. When, in the Sunday Washington Post, Alan Kriegsman wrote that our version had the most integrity of concept, that pissed off both Zelda and Louis Scheeder (from whom we had "borrowed" swords and costume pieces. Louis didn't know it but he paid for shipping costs of costumes we had borrowed from different theatres up and down the East Coast.

Did you know that Joy Zinoman acted at New Playwrights? It was in a reading of Sophie Burnham's Penelope, directed by Molly Smith.   [Harry adds – the entire cast wore white sheets as togas … imagine, Joy wrapped in a white sheet]

When Tim and I cast Eddie's Catchy Tunes we were looking forward to casting Herc and Merc, the two Greek gods. We thought we'd have the auditioners take their shirts off since we wanted muscle men. But we chickened out at the auditions and were unpleasantly surprised when we saw one of the guys we cast in the show with his shirt off.

The end of Eddie's Catchy Tunes wasn't written by the first preview. The show just jumped to the end of the shows, the whole Trixielocita (sp?) scene wasn't written. After the show, we had an emergency meeting with Harry, Russell, Timmy, Robbie, and I and we decided to have Dana's character thrown into a volcano. So, Russell stayed up all night painting a volcano, I had Robbie {assistant director Robbie McEwen] call Peter Zakutansky, the costumer, to order up grass skirts for the entire cast. They put the song and scene in the next night (which I think was opening night but Harry disagrees) with little or no rehearsal.

The opening night of Bride of Sirocco, the risers weren't finished (remember that we reconfigured the stage for each show?) and the audience had to climb over wood to get to their seats.

One day when the staff was extremely stressed out, I was nagging Harry about the expenses of the Resident Acting Company and really haranguing him (Harry says I was being a son-of-a-bitch, and he's right). Harry was walking down the stairs to the lobby and poured a pint of milk on me. To get revenge, I didn't wipe off the milk all day. I sat in the office doing my work as the milk dried and started to stink. Harry felt really, really bad.

And one day when we were especially stressed, there was a violent thunderstorm and Karen Hopkins, Bob Schulte, and I went outside to

and proceeded to get drenched. Just then Harry was coming up the alley and was shocked to see his staff standing soaked through to their underwear.

Remember Metro: The Disaster Musical? Rhett had a prominent role. It was a great show at Dramathon and Harry and I wanted Bob Higgins and Mike Meth to expand it to a full evening but Mike refused. Anyone who hadn't been cast in any other Dramathon play was automatically cast in Metro. Bob and Mike were surprised to see Juan Valentin cast though his English was his third language after Spanish and tap dancing. We also cast Paul and Madeline Potter, two very eccentric people and she went on to have an actual career to our surprise.

In the early days of New Playwrights when it was part of the ASTA Theatre, we had a board member, Jared Matesky (all the board were actors and writers). Jared, who was not petite, ate all of a fellow board member's groceries and fell asleep on the board room table during the meeting.

I decided to take one of the worst plays ever written, Harry's Reaching to Darkness, and stage it for Dramathon. When Harry looked over the cast list he saw "Pianist – Kathryn Plowitz" in the program. Harry said to me, "But it's not a musical." I said, "Shut up and come see the show." Kathy provided random underscoring for the proceedings and an improvised title song although she had no idea how to play the piano. We used the Nightmare revolve but every time it turned people moved their stool and music stands so they remained facing the audience. Anytime they entered or exited they carried their stool, script, and stand.

The entire time I was at New Playwrights, I thought Katie Helene was a name like Bobby Jo, or Billy Bob. I had no idea "Helene" was her last name.

How about when during the final blackout of Pinnacle during one performance when the lights came up for the curtain call Barb Rappaport was discovered having run into the wall missing the doorway. From then on Dana was assigned to lead Barb off during the blackout.

At the opening of Nightmare we had Flora Angeletti play the theme from Close Encounters on her toy piano when she was demonstrating the main theme of her concerto. No one in the audience laughed as they hadn't seen the movie yet. But as performances went on more and more people caught on and the laugh built over the run.

Harry put confetti into the envelopes of the opening night press invitations to Pilgrimage.  Critics were all pissed off when they got confetti all over their desks. Dick Coe's review didn't run and Harry and I went to his office at the Post and asked him when his review was going to appear. He said, "Never. I didn't like it and I don't want to do that to you and your theatre."

Anyone remember that Louis Black had a production (Feast) and a reading (Crossing the Crab Nebula) at New Playwrights?

We moved the new and improved Bride of Sircocco into the West End Theatre right after the shows Women Behind Bars and Let My People Come had played there. The audiences came expecting some sleezy evening's entertainment. At the start of the show we had the cast come out and announce "Let My People Take My Clothes Off."  Harry demands that I credit him for helping me jog my memory.  That's it for now.

Ken

5/21/2008 6:30:39 AM – TG FINKBINDER

Mr. Bloom reminisces: The end of Eddie's Catchy Tunes wasn't written by the first preview. The show just jumped to the end of the shows, the whole Trixielocita (sp?) scene wasn't written. After the show, we had an emergency meeting with Harry, Russell, Timmy, Robbie, and I and we decided to have Dana's character thrown into a volcano. So, Russell stayed up all night painting a volcano, I had Robbie call Peter Zakatansky, the costumer, to order up grass skirts for the entire cast. They put the song and scene in the next night (which I think was opening night but Harry disagrees) with little or no rehearsal.

Mr. Finkbinder avers Mr. Bagdasian’s assertion:  I believe on this rare occasion, Mr. Bagdasian is correct regarding when those skirts and that song were first implemented.  I think it was JUST before opening night.  :  --  )

5/21/2008 10:07:17 AM – BARBARA RAPPAPORT

Anybody remember the big snowstorm when we decided to have our cast party anyway?  I think it was a Mark Stein play and we were at L'Enfant Plaza because the fire dept. was insisting we fix the doors at

.  Coleen had donated the house where she was house sitting.  Anyway, the storm was so bad we were stuck there overnight .  or was it two days?  anyway, one night I was forced to sleep with Harry and Ken but found myself on the floor -- they were no gentlemen? Sheldon, [Barby’s husband]  smart fellow, had found a more comfortable perch.  It turned out to be the house of Kissinger's secretary.  She was a bit upset when she found a bra (not hers) in her bed.

5/21/2008 11:01:06 AM – RUSSELL METHENY

At 3 Am or real late, painting clouds and/or, I don't know, rigging some damn pallets to revolve around a disk,
Tim, looking like he's sleep walking, comes in, says,"Oh hi thought you'd be here listen to this", and starts playing
(I assumed) the non existent Eleven O Clock title song for "Eddies Catchy Tunes.' Within seconds I am moved to tears, and call Harry on the phone (one that is hard wired with push buttons). I'm hoping Robbie won't answer. Harry is pissed (so what). I tell him to get his butt over to hear this 'Tune.' He does. We were speachless. Tim playing and singing, looking like the adorable little boy in a mans body, sweaty and without weeks of sleep, tossing off what was the thrilling ensemble tune of the show. I'm sure the neighbors were pissed hearing a piano pouring out this brilliant, joyfull Grundmann invention from the heart (fu#@k em).
A few hours later the whole cast was crammed around the piano, shaking the rafters of the theatre with this
stunning 'catchy  tune'.......... thank you Timmy, and Harry, the whole damn brilliant cast, musicians, the crew, and  most of all, Ken. That made my day which lives forever in my heart.
Barbara Rappaport: HAHAHAHAHHAHHAHAHHA, a bra in Kissinger's secretary's bed. NICE. It may have been Flora Angeletti's.

5/21/200812:01:44 PM – ERNIE JOSELOVITZ

Well, to add a few here:

I vividly recall a performance of the Edgar Cayce play, TJ Finkbinder was right in the middle of a line and every light in the theatre went out.  We scrambled around the office for a very very long three minutes, only to find that a plug had been kicked out.  Once replaced, lights flashed, and.... TJ just continued the next word of the line as if nothing had happened. (The audience went nuts.)

I typed alot of fundraising letters for Karen Brooks Hopkins when she was our first fundraiser.  Once, a check for $100 donation arrived from Bank of America; Karen cursed like a sailor at her desk; I recall the cleanest line being "F    ckers spend that much on light bulbs in a week!"  Then she turned to me, and said, "Write them back.  'Dear So and so: I am so pleased to received your generous donation of $100, and would like to invite you to our next opening night party....".  She never accepted a "no", I remember, no matter what the rejection letter from a possible donor might be.  If it said, like, "we can't at this time" she'd write back as if what they meant was that when we apply at some other time we'd be guaranteed a donation, or "not for this purpose" would mean that they'd tell her for WHAT purpose and she'd take their money for that.  She was, from the very start, a master at it.

Ernie Jos

5/21/200812:05:21 PM – BARI BIERN

>>Anyone remember that Louis Black had a production (Feast) and a reading (Crossing the Crab Nebula) at New Playwrights?<<

I was in the NPT production of Louis Black's Feast (he came to our cast party at Alan Wiener's house).  In an interesting sidebar, I later became close friends with the late great Gayle Behrman Jaster who, I learned, had actually created my role in the original production of Feast at UNC Chapel Hill.  Gayle's youngest child, Wyatt, is our godson.

I was also in Metro--the Disaster Musical.  I was a blind rock star and Rhett was my seeing eye dog.

Jimmy Humphrey and I attended the preview of Eddie's Catchy Tunes having no idea that the script wasn't finished.

The show was just chugging along and then it just.....stopped.  

"My life, Rosetta, can I tell you?"

Bari

5/21/20089:14:22 PM – JAY MORSE

Talk about a memory jog - I do believe that I was in FEAST as (per usual) the Dad to Bari's Mom - but I don't recall it as being a full production(?) Maybe it was paired with something else because it was short(?)  I think it was the first thing I ever did at NPT and Bob Small directed.  Mainly I remember standing on a box and giving a speech about "the keys to the family car" which I was about to bestow on my son.  This always got a big laugh.  You're telling me this play was written by Lewis Black of Daily Show renown?  Who knew?  not me out here in California.  The Memorython  continues... cheers, Jay
P.S.  Harry - don't forget the 16mm movies I got for us to show from my day job as film librarian at Swank Motion Pictures - 16 mm first run stuff - although I was always kidded about the "Swank" name and the kind of movies that implied.  The guy's name really was P. Ray Swank and he had a nationwide 16 mm film rental business, mainly to schools and colleges, but we were glad to get them for FREE!!! Did we ever make any money off that? 

5/21/20081:25:42 PM – BARI BIERN

From Ken Bloom....The end of Eddie's Catchy Tunes wasn't written by the first preview.

Bari wrote:

As a matter of fact, we found ourselves in a similar situation on opening night of Timmy's Lives of the Great Composers.  We were literally handed the final two pages of the script five minutes before the curtain went up.

I remember quickly scanning the pages and thinking, "Yeah--I can do this!" before tossing them on the backstage dressing table and running to places.  Needless to say, this was great training for working with the Capitol Steps!

As I always used to say, acting at New Playwrights was like sledding at top speed down the steepest hill in town--blindfolded!

Bari

5/21/200810:45:43 PM – DOUG STEINBERG

These e-mails -- it's really a blast to see that none of us has grown up.  All these fond reminiscences tell me that working for you and NPT was when we were most alive -- naive, maybe, but living life fully as dreamers.  Aside from love, kids, a few good friends, and laughing hard every so often, most of the stuff since has pretty much been a downhill climb.  No regrets, I'm just saying, Bush is in The White House, how'd that happen? 

Doug

5/21/200811:22:23 PM – BARBARA RAPPAPORT

Harry--you must remember the play at asta (which was cancelled the night we were supposed to open ) where at the  end everyone gets flushed down the  toilet.  I kept telling debbie in our darkest rehearsal days not to worry Harry would cancel us if we really stank up the place.  All this while sipping sherry!!  who knew it would turn out to be one of our biggest hits.  And, if you are going to talk about my favorite tune -of course—“I'm an old blind nun --------- wait for laughter to die down—“and it ain't much fun.”

Ah, memories!  Love to all you guys who gave me some of the most wonderful, fun times of my so-called acting career.  Barbie Rappaport

5/22/20088:28:37 P.M. – JIM MOHER

Hey all.

I've been LOL for over an hour while putting these emails into folders for Tanis.  This is Tanis' husband, Jim, and we just celebrated our 30th wedding anniversary on May 13th.  We went to Fells Point and wined and dined for 3 days.  Anywhoo...the more I read, the more I recall...this is Chapter 1. 

About 31 years ago we attended the wedding of John Healey and Pat Casey in Brattleborough, VT.  John played the part of Sparky Doubleton in Out To Lunch.  It was October (Peeper's weekend in VT) and our first stop was to pick up Jeff, the best man, at Timberlakes, where he was a bartender.

We drove all the way to Brattleborough, stopping at 16.5 bars on the way, in about 12 hours.  I can recall 11.5 hours of the journey.

Chapter 2 will be about the road tours of Red Shoes Walkin' and the shortened life of Bob Corbett< who hung himself in a jail cell with a copy of his Who's Who entry in his pants' pocket.

Blah, blah, blah

Jim Moher

Thursday, May 22, 20089:47 PM – HARRY chimes in again …

Back to what Jim Moher wrote ... happy Anniversary you two!
Ah yes, Bob Corbet ... one of the prodcers when we moved "The Bride of Sirocco" to the West End Theatre ... a.k.a. the booking manager for "Red Shoes Walkin'" (for those late tuning in ... "Red Shoes Walkin'" was a very funny cabaret act featuring Jan Frederick Shiffman, Tanis Roach, Dana Vance and David Johnson performing Tim Grundmann sketches and songs ... for which Tim was accompianis ... Jim Moher was their road manager) ... wasn't Bob Corbet also "the Star Wars box office bandit" throughout the midwest?  Please fill us in.
I look forward to your next post, Jim
Regards to all
HarryB

5/23/2008 9:27:40 AM – JOHN HEALEY

Timberlakes was right up there because of Jeff.  Nothing better than being friends with the bartender, especially a good one like Jeff.  I also liked the Trio because one pour could be nursed into three drinks with the small bottle of soda/tonic they would give you.

Congratulations Jim and Tanis on celebrating 30 years!  By the way, the year was 1980.  It is the one date that Pat makes sure I do not forget.

John Healey

5/23/2008 11:39:34 AM – JIM BRADY

My oh my. My memory banks are exploding. Louis Scheeder was about the only producer who came to see our shows(until Joe Papp).  Just before the acting company was formed, he came to see a reading we did about Ambrose Bierce which we performed at the Philip's Gallery. My dressing room was the room in which "The Boating Party" was hanging. As I was changing my pants, I thought, "How cool. I am standing here in my underwear in front of a Renoir." We performed in the music room and afterwards, Louis stopped by to say hello and asked me to come audition at The Folger. He said he might have something for me. I was thrilled and told him I had just committed to being a part of the acting company at NPTW. He said fine, come see me when you are through there. Almost three years later when the company was disbanded, I called and auditioned for him and worked for him for almost three years.

At Asta, I was in a play called "Pilgrimage." The lead was played by an English man who, in real life, was a doctor in the OlneyHospital's emergency room. His parents flew over from England to see their son in his first professional acting role. The night they came to see him, they were the only two people in the audience. I still feel sad when I think of him and how he looked before we did the show.

On 20th street, in that infested, smelly basement, we did the show called "The Return of Cap't D.B. Amatucci" by T.J. Camp. Harry had been trying to get us recognized by the Post for I do not know how long. Finally, Richard Coe agreed to show up and did. He sat there with 22 other people and I was soooo tempted to bend over and look at what he was writing on his yellow legal pad. He was that close to our so called stage. He loved the evening and opened the door to the mainstream theatre audiences. After that, we could do very little wrong in his eyes. He even gave a good review to "House of Bedlam."

Jim

5/25/200812:44:42 PM – ERNIE JOSELOVITZ

FORWARD THESE TO THE GROUP, HARRY:

Staunton: [Virginia – the “playwrights’ retreats”]   I think I went to two summer workshop sessions at Staunton, which was run by Bobbi and Kathleen and Paul.  My most vivid memory is the food, which was always a casserole of some sort, usually involving cucumbers or squash.  This quickly became something well beyond annoying (along with the daily morning "let's hold hands and have good thoughts" thing).  There was a Bob's Big Boy within walking distance, and after a short while most of us made our way there just about every day for a real meal.

I particularly remember one year the NPT people were in some bungalow and had a cook, what we now would call an African-American, then referred to as BIG MAMA, who fed us luxuriously with wonderful unhealthy southern cooking.  We invited Fred Strothers, out of sheer pity, on the night she was scheduled to make fried chicken.  Fred sat down, and she put that plateful in front of him, and he put his whole face into it, in utter bliss. 

I also remember that we played cards alot, and there was alot of cheating, the summer we had Madeline  with us: she was the older African-American woman who'd won some award from ACTF to go to Hollywood to write a pilot for ALL IN THE FAMILY producer.  [HB correction – it was Christine Houston – look her up on IMDB.com] She'd restarted college at a Jr. College in Chicago, had a large family and worked graveyard shift in its Metro during which she'd read one play every night for two years.  She'd written a play for all the students at the college who hadn't gotten parts in the mainstage play there - about 23 of them - about a bunch of families in Chicago, something like ROOM 422 or something.  [HB adds – the play was titled “227” as was the subsequent TV show]  Well, she cheated at cards, and I didn't mind at all, and went on the Hollywood for a long career as a TV writer, all of which was well-deserved.

The one-act festivals: we'd get together all our readers on a Sunday, Robbie would make a big pot of chili, and we'd read these scripts from dawn to dusk, until we'd narrowed them down to about a dozen.  One year, I got hold of a play about a pedophile and a little girl on a park bench, called something like 'WANNA PLAY WITH MY LITTLE MOUSE", a truly disgusting play which was hilarious.  It got passed around, every one of the readers would start out in utter shock and end up laughing like hell.  We did not know what to do with that play.  Finally decided there was no way we could produce it, but it was a close call.

Once, we got a play from a fella, a gently folky funny play we all liked very much.  Did a reading of it.  Sat down in the basement with the guy, found out he'd sent it after it had been sitting in his desk drawer for ten years.  Told him he needed to shorten it here and there.  He refused to change one word of it.  We told him, look, we'll do one more reading of it with those revisions then produce it.  No, he wouldn't change one word.  Harry tried persuasion for at least an hours.  I think the guy thought he had a masterpiece and someone else would do it for big bucks, which of course never happened.  And we never saw him again.

Ernie Jos

5/25/20089:09:05 PM – HARRY RESPONDED (and later cleaned it up …)

Ern -

great memories ... the play you are referring to was hysterical - I remember it.  [Harry later added this comment:  it was called “The Story Teller” …] Buzz Roddy played the male protagonist ... let me tell ya - the playwright just wasn’t interested in a production and that floored me.  I also remember that Bari and Scott HATED the play and couldn't believe we thought it was so funny.  Buzz later confessed to me that the playwright’s daughter and he had dated years prior and that the playwright just didn’t like Buzz … was that why we were never allowed to produce the play?  To which I am sure Bari is saying “damn good thing, too!”

Regards

HarryB