In the spring of '76 I finally got my first big break. (Or at least it felt like it at the time.) Long Beach Civic Light Opera was kind of a big thing in LA at the time and I was cast in a production of "Sweet Charity" along with my friend Jimmy Maxwell and sister Jeanne Alison (yes, not too many people know that she's always been a very talented dancer!)
I'm not really sure what I was doing at the time to be able to afford a full-time non-paying theatre job. Maybe working another jaunt at Polly's Pies.. or still doing America On Parade? I really should have kept better records. But Long Beach was about an hour drive from Hacienda Heights down the 605 freeway and we rehearsed every night for many weeks, which makes me kind of laugh now that I only feel comfortable taking side streets...
But back to the show.
It was a star-studded cast! Or at least the most star-studded I'd ever worked with. Toni Kaye, Brenda Thompson (Charity) and Lise Mills were the three female leads and I was so in awe of them! Toni had been one of the original Ernie Flatt dancers on the Carol Burnett Show and had also had a leading dance role in the movie "Funny Lady." I'm not sure what Brenda had done but she was dating Ken Berry (also from the Carol Burnett Show and Mayberry RFD) and so we saw him all the time. Lisa was one of the prima dancers at Disneyland and had done alot of other stuff too.
Toni, Brenda and Lise
Dom Salinero (what a mean ole geez!) was the choreographer, but he was really good! He made us work! And somehow during the audition must have impressed him enough to have been blessed with the lead dance role in "The Rich Man's Frug" which I'm not sure was a blessing or a curse.. But since this took place nearly 40 years ago I can now probably say it was a blessing, although it was a killer for sure! The six minute dance number, which stuck very closely to Fosse's original, consisted of three sections "The Aloof", "The HeavyWeight" and "The Big Finish." And by the end of that thing the only thing that wasn't drenched in sweat was my... well, ok, pretty much every inch of me was drenched in sweat! But grateful sweat...
Again, due to my unfortunate luck of having had a theatre career prior to the big video boom, I guess this rendition will have to do...
The Frug "Fosse" - 1986
(And if you're a serious Fosse fan like me... please take a moment (or six) to take in the incredible underworldly movie version! Just wow.
Anyway, I have to say that it was the closest I'd come to professional theatre at that point... and to this day I still hold it in pretty high regard.
Rehearsal shot
Photo Shoot for Program
In front of the marquee...
Dress Rehearsing "Big Spender"
I remember one night, a night or two nights before dress rehearsal... (because we'd been given the assignment of finding our own costumes for "The Rhythm of Life" number)... Jimmy came back to our house late after rehearsal, where we poured through all the "dress up clothes" my mom had hanging in a closet. So much fun!
In the end, I went as a hippy of sorts, Jimmy as a one-eyed Submissive (lol) and my little sister Alison outdid us both with her rendition of a pregnant Girl Scout...
It was a great show with so many great memories of all those quick changes!.. and attaching hair pieces securely enough that they wouldn't go flying out into the audiance when you twirled them around **see above Frug**
But I think the most fortuitous part of this experience (which actually happened sometime during the rehearsal process) was being given a heads up from Toni Kaye about an audition coming up for the movie "New York, New York" starring Liza Minelli and Robert DiNero. Yes, really.
But that's another story entirely...
Posing outside the theatre with attitude...
No comments:
Post a Comment