I've always been drawn to the stage. I was in dance recitals in high school and appeared on some early TV shows as a dancer in the 50's.
I
formed a trio in 1951 and we performed in clubs around the New York
area for several years. I headed off to the Caribbean in 1953 where
I danced, played piano and sang in Clubs in Santa Domingo, Virgin
Isles,
When I returned to New York in 1965, I spent two years performing in Julius Monk's Plaza-9 revues. A wonderful job! Everybody who was anybody came to the shows. A very posh and sophisticated venue that I shall never forget. From the Plaza, I went on tour across the east coast with Shirley Booth in a play called "Desk Set."
I was lucky enough to spend the next ten years on and off Broadway. Some shows lasted two days, some closed overnight and a few had decent runs. It's heartbreaking to rehearse for a month or so, make new friends, go through the excitement of an opening night and then close the next day. The worst is having to go back to the theatre one more time, to clean out your dressing room and say goodbye to it all. Of course, there's the other side. Great reviews, great opening parties and then running the show for months, sometimes years to responsive audiences. I always had good roles and here's a few of my favorites you might have seen: "Happy End".by Kurt Weill and Bertol Brecht. I played 'Major Stone' to Meryl Streep's 'Hallelujah Lil'. Opposite Meryl was Christopher Lloyd who broke his foot in previews and was replaced by Bob Gunton. "Ballroom"
at the Majestic Theatre, with Dorothy Louden, directed by Michael
Bennett, with music by Billy Goldenberg and lyrics by Alan and Marilyn
Bergman. This show had one of the most adventurous and interesting
casts I have ever worked with. We were all dancers with speaking
roles. Our oldest was 73, our youngest was 52 and no one
A third show that ran for awhile and was so much fun was "Something's Afoot" at the Lyceum Theatre, directed by Tony Tanner. It was a mad-cap British mystery musical, somewhat in the line of Ten Little Indians. Everyone had a big showstopping number and then they were killed. The butler was the first to go. He walked down the stairs, announced "dinner is served" and the stairs blew up. Short part.
How good was I? Read the reviews… Click here to read the reviews
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