Showstopper (2 page)

    Daisy and I both felt we had something to prove in the original reading of
Merrily
. Both of us could potentially be dismissed as nepotistic shoo-ins, simply because the director was Daisy’s dad, I was Daisy’s friend, and both Daisy and I were close to the casting director’s daughter, Rachel Dretzin (also a classmate.) There is no question that I got in the door because of my personal ties. But once the game was on and a show was being assembled, Daisy and I were evaluated and tested—exhaustively—along with everyone else.
“Where is the Moment?”
    The staged reading on the
Evita
stage felt like the birth of something seismic.  We held our scripts in a semicircle, felt the theater lights on our faces, waited carefully for cues. Sondheim played the few dazzling songs that were finished, and the producers and creators laughed at Furth’s jokes.

Playing Evelyn, wife of writer Charley Kringas, one of the lead characters,, I managed to bring down the house twice: once, when I was weeping at a wedding (progressively loudly and uncontrollably,) and at the end of the show when I delivered my one line: “Oh! You’re with
guys!
” My hunch is that one line won me the part. It’s therefore pitiful that I never nailed its comedic sweet spot the same way ever again. And once the show was in previews, I lost the line entirely. It was cut, along with my entire role—though I remained an ensemble player—in those final weeks when the chiefs were grappling with how to fix things.

But that’s getting ahead of the story.

The scene with my “big” funny line was the last before the finale. Frank, Mary, and Charley are on the roof of Charley’s Manhattan apartment building, watching for signs of Sputnik—the Russians’ first earth-orbiting satellite. Right as the moment climaxes, I burst through the roof door in my curlers and bathrobe looking for my roommate, Mary, discover her with these strange men and deliver that line that was never that funny again: “Oh! You’re with
guys!
”

Okay, it doesn’t sound so hilarious now, but trust me, it stopped the show. Somehow the theater gods converged on that particular day and made that moment sing.

“Tend your dream …”
    Once
Merrily
got the green light and regular auditions began for Broadway, there was already a buzz around Sondheim’s Next Great Work. ABC News had a camera crew ready at the sterile Minskoff Studios, documenting every phase of how a Prince/Sondheim concoction comes to life. ABC’s co-producer was Alexander Bernstein, son of Leonard, who grew close to our cast because he essentially lived with us for so long. (Sadly, the footage is lost somewhere in the archives of ABC News—no one to date has been able to exhume it.)

The auditions felt epic. There were call-backs and more call-backs. I sang my audition song, “Singin’ in the Rain,” too many times to count. (Jason Alexander’s audition staple was “Feelin’ Good,” and Daisy’s standard was “Someone to Watch Over Me.”) I danced routine after routine, feeling grateful for Miss Rosenberg’s ballet classes at the YMCA and Luigi’s jazz classes on the Upper West Side. I wasn’t the pinnacle of grace, but I was coordinated and could pick up a combination.
Merrily
’s first choreographer, Ron Field, wasn’t looking for the next Ann Reinking; it mattered more that we appeared young and “real,” not like trained Broadway gypsies.

As I recall, the creative team had trouble casting the part of the female buddy, Mary Flynn. She had to be hard-bitten but lovable, a bitter alcoholic and a droll den mother. Preferably under the age of twenty.  Julia Rosenblum, another close Dalton friend, was in the running early on. She had the acting chops and the vinegary cynicism to pull it off, but not the voice. I remember the producers paid for her singing lessons for a while to see if she could get there, but it didn’t pan out. Julia mourned the missed chance for years afterward.

“Dreams that will explode”
    I’ll never forget the last long day of auditions: December 2, 1980. As the evening wore on, people kept being let go (“Thank you so much—we’ll be in touch …”), and our final group was conspicuously shrinking. We sat on the floor, leaned against walls, exchanged tense, knowing, can-you-believe-we’re-still-here? looks. Afraid to jinx it, we remained subdued and stressed; but there were uplifting signs that the end was near.

Finally they called the survivors into the studio.

Hal Prince said, “I have good news and bad news. The good news is that you’re all in the show.”

We went crazy.

“The bad news is that we’re not opening till the fall.”

That was nine months away.

I could have cared less. The impossible was happening.

Hal continued: “Everybody, listen. This is important: Please don’t grow.”

Sondheim added, “And learn how to sing
fast.”
(I was sure he meant me.)

Choreographer Ron Field chimed in, “And take dance lessons!”

I remember a feeling of delirium, like I was shorting out. If one looks back on five “perfect” moments in life, this unquestionably ranks, along with getting admitted to college, getting engaged, and giving birth. Those are the peaks of pure, unalloyed rapture.

    In the months between the last audition and the first rehearsal, our cast drew together — at picnics and what were dubbed “Merrily Waiting Parties,” and over burgers at the theater haunt Joe Allen’s. We were impatient to be together and already in love with the idea of ourselves as a family.  

In the midst of real life (which for me was tenth-grade classes), there were occasional costume measurements, singing lessons, and dance classes—tantalizing nibbles of what lay ahead.

David Shine (an affable member of our ensemble) became our unofficial chronicler, publishing the pithy
Merrily Press
—a regular newsletter which updated us on birthdays, dance-class schedules, stage-name changes (“David Margolis is now David Cady”), moving dates (“Jason Alexander is selling a full single bed—box spring, mattress, and frame, a stereo and 2 speakers”), and wedding engagements (also Jason). Annie Morrison—our spicy Mary Flynn– started a “recipe corner” in the newsletter, which featured, for example, her signature gazpacho and a pronouncement borrowed from
Sweeney Todd
: “God, That’s Good!”

The
Merrily Press
kept a running countdown of how many weeks remained till we started rehearsals. The first issue, February 2, 1981 announced, “only 30 weeks to go.”

“And before you know where you are, there you are.”
    Rehearsals finally began in September, 1981 at 890 Studios—sunny, spacious rooms with wide windows, located on lower Broadway. Michael Bennett was rehearsing the first production of
Dreamgirls
in the same place—I remember eyeing leggy African-American chorus members in the elevator and hubristically thinking to myself,
They must be wishing they were in our shoes, in the next Sondheim show
. Little did I know they’d be the hit and we would close after sixteen performances.

Rehearsals, especially after waiting as long as we did for them to start, were a kind of nirvana. Our giddy disbelief never subsided. Every day we harbored the irrational fear that we could wake up and find none of this was actually happening, so our ardor for one another was also born of an anxiety:
We might have missed this
. We could so easily not have been chosen. Instead, we found ourselves members of The Sondheim Club—exclusive and handpicked. No wonder we constantly affirmed our aren’t-we-close?-ness.

There were boozy parties thrown by those who had apartments, usually on the Upper West Side or in Hell’s Kitchen—parties where women developed intense crushes on soon-to-be-uncloseted gay men, and there were group lunches at McDonald’s near 890 Studios during rehearsal breaks. We hugged each other a lot and helped each other memorize songs and dance steps.

We didn’t just
adore
each other; we adored
Hal. Our director became a father figure, though he’d never been known as the cuddly type. He was protective, cheerleading. The whole atmosphere felt familial because it literally was: the first time Hal was directing his only daughter. Daisy behaved like any other member of the cast (she played Frank’s young, third wife, Meg, with a scene and a solo), but everyone sucked up to her anyway. It was lost on no one that she was in the innermost circle. Ultimately her connections were irrelevant because she was one of the strongest singers on the team.

The other paternal presence was the musical director, Paul Gemignani. Having led the orchestra pits of
A Little Night Music
,
Sweeney Todd
, and other Prince/Sondheim triumphs, Paul was known for his low-key wit and quiet authority. He knew how to achieve “what Steve wanted” and people fawned, flirted, and sought his approval. Paul had the girth of a linebacker and the gentleness of a doe. A man of very few words, with just a wink or a wince he could make us laugh or want to bury our heads. He’d sit on a stool in cowboy boots, facing our cast, inscrutable behind his tinted sunglasses and reddish beard.  The accordion-bound pages of Sondheim’s stanzas sat on a music stand before him and he pointed firmly at us to cue our entrances.

We made a mighty sound in unison, but the most impressive voices emerged early on: Liz Callaway—who understudied Mary—was one of those ego-less singers who made us all marvel. Jim Walton’s voice was bright—he started in our ensemble and ultimately replaced the leading man, Jim Weissenbach, as Frank. Lonny Price, who played Charley from the start, had one of my favorite voices: stout despite his boyish frame. Charley was, in many ways, the heartbeat of the show—both in libretto and reality: His Jewishy warmth and sustained intensity anchored Frank and Mary, and all of us.

Jason Alexander was the other standout, the only
Merrily
cast member to later become officially famous. (He entered the pantheon of TV history as George Costanza on
Seinfeld
.) Jason exemplified what Hal and Steve were aiming for: a middle-aged man in a kid’s body. At the age of 21, Jason could be a credible 65, but also a conceivable 18. His voice was also terrific and his comic timing spot-on. (
He
never had any lines confiscated.)

Jason played Joe Josephson, the producer who first tells the nascent songwriting team of Shepard and Kringas that they should “write more, work hard—Leave your name with the girl. / Less avante-garde—Leave your name with the girl.” Joe stood in for all the roadblocks Charley and Frank surmounted early in their careers, and presumably Hal and Steve’s too. The show was never explicitly autobiographical, but clearly its creators knew from idealism, striving, and concessions. The fact that Frank ends up writing for Hollywood films instead of the brainier shows that made him and Charley famous in the first place, the fact that he neglected his oldest soulmates, was a cautionary tale for me. Does everyone, I wondered (at the age of sixteen), end up choosing the moneyed path, dumping first spouses and old friends, drowning their sacrifices in bourbon?

    When Sondheim came to rehearsals, he was, not surprisingly, the center of gravity in the room. Which is not to say he was garrulous. On the contrary, he said very little, and then usually to Hal or to Paul. He wasn’t unfriendly in the least, just remote, not a glad-hander. The focus was entirely the work. And no real “friendship” between Steve and the actors was ever likely; we were acolytes, not equals, poised to kiss the hem of his garments. Nevertheless, I ended up feeling connected to Steve; we all did—maybe because we’d been entrusted to introduce his new music. His confidence alone made us feel tethered.

One time Steve invited the cast to his natty, book-lined townhouse in Murray Hill. It was like getting a glimpse of a master’s lair. I saw the actual sofa where he scribbled lyrics on a legal pad, the piano where he composed, and, most enchanted, his famous room of antique games—a collection that he clearly treasured and that betrayed his sense of play.

“Some roads are rough …”
    I’m not sure when
Merrily
moved from promising to plagued. Despite my rosy-colored glasses, I could feel that somehow the play didn’t support the score; Furth’s dialogue lacked the nuance of Sondheim’s lyrics, there were too many characters to keep straight, the pathos wasn’t registering. Rehearsals began to get less jubilant, more sober. As we neared the opening date, things started being replaced: leading man, choreographer, songs, sets, dialogue, costumes. The theater press began to circle like hawks; word was
Merrily
was in trouble.

Those of us in the bubble chose to view every change as an upgrade: We hadn’t loved choreographer Ron Field (
Cabaret
), with his quick temper and gold chains, so we welcomed Larry Fuller, who had brilliantly molded
Evita
’s Argentinian aristocracy into one snooty blob.

Similarly, we weren’t fans of our first Frank, Jim Weissenbach (who happened to be the son of Hal’s college roommate), because he was aloof offstage and awkward on. His substitute, Jim Walton, was one of the kindest, most handsome members of our ensemble. (And good looks weren’t a given in our motley crew.)

The costume overhaul (costly wardrobes which were summarily scrapped) was a major forfeiture for me. One minute I had ten glorious outfits with sequins and feathers, the next minute I had a T-shirt with one word on it: “His Assistant.” Our new T-shirts announced our relationships to each other onstage—a sure sign that the play had been confusing people.  (Admittedly, it was a kick when
Merrily
groupies at the stage door showed up in sweatshirts reading, “The Audience.”) I said goodbye to lavish ensembles which were conceived to flag the era of the moment: bell-bottom pants, strappy silver heels, and innovations such as the “Dead Body Stole”—a camouflage-fabric evening wrap in the shape of a Vietnam casualty.

The other renovations blur in my memory—I don’t recall the chronology, but individual moments are clear: