Broadway Tails (20 page)

A week later Susan called me—she had returned from a production meeting. The show was scenically larger than anything the New York City Ballet was used to, and there were concerns. Halfway through the meeting, she proudly told them that she had worked with me to create a whole choreographic part for a dog. Susan then told me they were adamant—there had never been a dog in the ballet, and they were already over budget and they would not approve it.

She said, “Bill, I’m afraid the New York City Ballet will not pay you to do
Double Feature
.” Although I was disappointed I wouldn’t be able to work with her, I thanked her for her support and her kindness. She replied, “They won’t pay your fee, so I will.”

I was speechless. No director should have to pay out of her own pocket for elements of a show she’s creating. I said, “I should be paying
you
for the opportunity to be in this project.” She said that Pi’s performance was an important part of her vision, and it was her choice. I was a professional, she thought I should be compensated like one, and she wanted to do it. Now that’s a sign of pure class. I could only agree.

We continued with our every-other-week rehearsals, and in December 2004, we had the real boy come in, principal dancer Tom Gold. He was a well-respected member of the company, but best of all, he was a dog lover. He had heard such wonderful things from Susan that he couldn’t wait to work with us. Tom immediately got how easily Pi could be overstimulated, and they came together perfectly under Susan’s direction. We had to take a break because the ballet company went into their Christmas schedule, so we didn’t see Tom or the company until February 2004.

On Broadway, rehearsing, teching, and putting a show up on its feet is usually a four- to eight-week process. Here, Susan had three days. On the first day, there would be rehearsal in the New York City Ballet room with the entire company. The next day was the one chance we’d have to put the whole production together onstage. The first performance was the day after that. But these were experienced dancers—they could watch Susan’s choreography and do it almost immediately.

I almost didn’t make it to the first rehearsal. When I arrived at the New York City Ballet that morning, security stopped me and wouldn’t let me in. They kept saying, “Sorry, sir, no dogs allowed.” I called Scott on my cell, and he came down to get us in. Even though he was assistant director and extremely busy, Scott volunteered to help me throughout the run.

My main concern was getting Pi used to the company of fifty dancers. I wanted to make sure Pi wouldn’t get overexcited with all the dancers chasing him. My plan was to have a speech for the company, tell them what the parameters were, and then start rehearsing. I walked into the room, put my bag down, took my coat off, and heard the ballet master say, “Quiet.” I was introduced, and when I walked to the center of the room and turned to speak, it was like I was frozen in time. There I was in the middle of one of the world’s most famous ballet troupes, surrounded by some of the world’s most beautiful and talented dancers. For a moment, all I could do was marvel. The moment was broken when Pi started barking at all the girls. That made everyone laugh and released the tension in the room, allowing me to give my speech.

The first couple of times we ran the scene, Pi thought it was a free-for-all and chased everybody around the room. By the third time, he was locked in on me and he did it properly. He was flawless after that with Tom. We did the other behaviors, and it showed me that he would listen to Tom in any space where we would do this routine. The next day of rehearsal was onstage. I remember walking Pi onto the stage at the New York State Theater. I hadn’t been on that stage in twenty-four years, since Richard Burton
was there with
Camelot
. Pi couldn’t have cared less about the space—he was ready to go to work. The lights and the scenery were no problem. I asked where my dressing room was, and the production manager said there were no rooms available. It seemed silly, they knew we were coming, but no provisions were made. The ballet still wasn’t happy I was there.

I called Susan and Scott backstage. The production manager said I could wait in the loading dock, a large unheated space with a garage door that separated it from the street. I turned to Susan and said, “Pi would fall apart in this space.” Getting annoyed that she was wasting time, Susan left and spoke to someone. At last I was led to a storage closet in the basement of the theater. It was an 8-foot-wide room with shelves on either side and no speaker for me to hear the show. There wasn’t even a chair or heat. When I asked how I was going to hear my cues, Scott interrupted and said he would come down to get me at the appropriate times. Not the warmest reception for my work, but I was there for Susan, not for the ballet.

Susan had picked music by Irving Berlin for the first act and by Walter Donaldson for the second. It had to be reorchestrated because unlike Broadway, where there are twenty to twenty-five musicians in the pit, the New York City Ballet has a seventy-six-piece orchestra. It was stunning to listen to. Pi had a hard time ignoring them, but Tom kept him on track. We made it through the costumes, the lights, and even through the timpani. The last thing I had to worry about was the audience. This was a highly anticipated event, for both the ballet world and the Broadway world. The run had already sold out.

On opening night, Pi came out and did his first jumping cue, unaware of the audience. I was thrilled. His second cue was the kissing bit. He ran out to kiss Tom, but when the audience saw him and laughed, Pi turned with this look of wonderment, and I thought he was going to leap over the orchestra pit. At that moment the lights went to black and Tom tapped him on the butt and he followed Tom offstage. That was a close call. The
third cue was when he chased Tom across the stage in his dress with the newspaper in his mouth. Now, imagine the opening-night audience for the New York City Ballet’s celebration of Balanchine’s centennial seeing a dog in a wedding dress running across the stage. This time, the laughter was huge. So huge that Pi stopped three feet away from where I waited in the wings and turned to the audience. I called to him, but he couldn’t hear me over the applause. As I looked past him, I saw thirty-five dancers running toward us. I did what anyone would do at that moment. I reached out from the wings and grabbed him and dragged him to safety—which got an even bigger laugh. In fact, one of the reviews talked about the hands that came out and pulled the dog offstage. It was like some old vaudeville bit.

By the end Pi was so excited with what he had done, all he wanted to do was run and grab and chew something up, which is exactly what he did with Tom’s hat. Pi went out and did that cue as the curtain came down to thunderous applause. We had made it through with no nips and no accidents, in spite of the fact that the ballet company didn’t want us there. At the end Susan was so gracious. She thanked me for everything I had done, and I could only feel privileged to have worked with her. The show was a huge success. The dance review in the
New York Times
mentioned Pi: “There are two showstoppers. One is a routine by a Boston terrier.” Later in that review, they talked about Tom Gold’s star performance and they said, “One can’t give away the duet with the Boston terrier.” The ballet world had a new star—much to their dismay.

We did the run and once a ballet is created, it cannot be changed. One year later, the New York City Ballet did
Double Feature
again in their repertory, and this time they had to hire me. Of course, we still got the storage closet as a dressing room. It continues to run every other year and is a huge crowd pleaser. Scott comes to assist us backstage at every production. At the end of our second run, Susan came back and thanked me again. She said she was going to be directing the film version of
The Producers
, and she wanted Pi to be in it.

True to her word, I got a call from the props guy in the film, saying the director kept talking about this dog named Pi and if I knew where I could find him. Unfortunately, we were given the wrong time, so I arrived after the scene had been filmed. Susan found me, apologized, and promised to put Pi in another scene. The scene never made it to the film, but you can see it in the outtakes on the DVD.

In October 2003, during rehearsals for
Double Feature
, I received a call from a general management office I had never worked with before. They were representing a new musical called
Masada
, set in the Warsaw ghetto during the Nazi occupation. They needed two German shepherds as guard dogs. The manager mentioned they were also representing the Broadway transfer of the London musical hit,
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
. Because it was a direct transfer, it would come to Broadway without an out-of-town tryout. They would need ten dogs to run onstage and jump on one actor, then run off. But that was next year. My first time with this management office and they were offering me one Broadway show, with the possibility of another! Not bad.

Masada
never opened. In the meantime, I sent a proposal about getting the ten dogs for
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
. In my proposal I explained that housing and transportation would be costly, but it could be done. Almost a year passed before I heard from the manager. I received an e-mail from him with more details from the London production. He said to save money, they would go with eight dogs. In the first act, four dogs would enter from each side of the stage, then jump on one actor in a number called “Toot Sweet.” Two handlers in costume were onstage to gather up the dogs as the curtain fell and get them offstage. There was also a cross for one dog about twenty minutes later, and we could go home when we were done. He wanted to know what the costs would be. He kept emphasizing that it was very simple, just one big trick, no more than twenty minutes. Economy was the key because this was such an expensive show.

I thought again about practical problems like housing and transportation. It’s easy to find an apartment in New York with two dogs—but what landlord in his right mind would rent to someone with eight dogs? Even renting a house within driving distance of New York City would be problematic. Then there’s transportation. We always drove our animals. Two dogs can fit into a cab or a car no problem, but we would need at least two vans and two handlers, each responsible for four dogs. The costs were rising fast. When the managers kept saying there were no special tricks, I explained that the dogs would need the same basic training whether they were onstage one minute or an hour—and housing, transportation, and trainer salaries would be the same, too. I also pointed out that on Broadway, my non-union handlers would not be allowed onstage, so the dogs would have to be controlled by Equity actors. My estimate of expenses was about $3,500 a week—without my fee. They said they would consider all the options and call me. In the meantime, I asked if I could meet the director to get more information. It just so happened he was coming to New York a week later, and a meeting was set up.

It was a very polite meeting. The director told me he had two sets of dogs in London and they alternated because it was so taxing on them. “They pretty much did whatever they wanted,” he said. I said I would not allow that. The budget here only allowed for one set of dogs, and they would be trained for their own safety. He looked at me a little incredulously and said, “Can you do that?” I explained that I had been doing exactly that for twenty-five years, at which point he asked me what shows I had worked on. He had no idea who I was. He became very interested in my training ability and the idea that he might have more control over the dogs. When I asked what kinds of dogs he would like, he said, “I have a choice?” In London he had to take what he was given. He said he would like dogs, from very small to very large, that looked like they came from all parts of the English countryside. When I explained
I would need rehearsal time with the actors, since the handlers wouldn’t be allowed onstage, he wasn’t sure he could promise me that.

Then I said we needed an actor who was a dog lover. Unfortunately, he said he had already cast the role. My heart sank because I feared that they hadn’t warned the actor about the dog stuff. Then he told me they were going to offer the role to an actor named Ken Kantor, and at that moment, I knew the show might work. Ken is a giant of a man, tall and very broad-shouldered. Dorothy had worked with him in summer stock when she was young, and I had done two shows with him. A fine actor and singer, he’d always loved dogs.

I was asked to come in two weeks before the first performance when the cast moved to the theater. Back when I was offered the job, I quickly started forming the dog group. My thoughts were to look for older, established breeds that you might have seen in Europe at the turn of the century. I decided we could get away with one mutt, and that could be a Sandy dog I had named Bard. The second dog we could use was Barney, my well-trained mini poodle. So I had my first two dogs, right in my backyard. Now I needed six more. The first dog I adopted without hesitation was Harriet, a pit bull from the Humane Society of New York. She could play the big, mean street dog. Also at the Humane Society, we had just gotten in a Cavalier King Charles spaniel puppy named Lady. She was better with dogs than with people, and I decided she could work.

I had become friends with Joanne Genelle, one of the actresses from the show
Paper Doll
. She was my age and ready to get out of performing. She and her husband had just moved to a house in upstate New York, and she had started volunteering on the board of a local animal shelter. She told me immediately of a two-year-old male beagle named Patches who, she said, was just a dream—sweet, easy to train, very loving. The other dog that came to her mind was a nine-year-old cocker spaniel who’d been dumped there because his owners went into a nursing home and no one in their family would take him in. His name was Sidney. I made an appointment to drive up and meet those two dogs. They both were very good and I adopted them.

In December 2004, the public relations firm called to say they wanted to do a dog audition for the press. I explained to them that many well-meaning pet owners would probably come and be very disappointed when their dogs couldn’t be in the show. I told them the story of
Nick & Nora
—before I came on as trainer, they had a similar contest and ended up being sued for fraud when the owner found out his dog wouldn’t actually be in the show. I also told them about
Alice in Wonderland
and the fake pig audition we’d set up and how successful that was. Unfortunately, the press office said they had to do this event, and they had to move forward. I politely refused to participate and said good luck. About a day later it hit me—I called them back and said, “I need two more dogs. How about we hold an open audition, but for shelter dogs only, and if there are any good dogs, I’ll adopt them.” “Brilliant,” they said. The Hilton Theater made an arrangement with the Hilton Hotel to donate one of their ballrooms for the event. The press department promoted it with ten days’ notice. Ken Kantor, my wife Dorothy, and I were the judges.

The hotel set up a small stage. Each shelter got to bring their contestant up, introduce themselves, and give the history of the dog. I then gave the dog a quick temperament test and talked to the judges. We had about thirty-five dogs, which we got down to ten. Then I had Ken meet these ten. I also had Bard, my Sandy dog, come up to meet them. The dogs that were not friendly with Bard left, and we were down to five.

What I thought was just going to be a big photo opportunity became a real-life drama. At that point we were going on almost two hours, which is very long for a press event, but not one camera left. Of the last five dogs, one had caught my eye immediately. He was a beautiful collie who looked just like my first dog, Rexie. I wanted a collie as an adult, but never got a show for one. This dog, named Argyle, was from Herding Dog Rescue of Long Island. His previous family gave him that name because he ate socks. After his second surgery as a puppy to remove socks, the family decided to keep him in the basement for the next seven months of his life. They finally agreed to release him to the rescue group. After hearing this story, I expected a shy, ten-month-old
pup, but this dog jumped on me and started licking my face. He was doing exactly what he needed to do for the show with people cheering in a room full of cameras.

One of the other five dogs was named Fred. Abandoned as a small puppy, he had been raised at the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals. They said he had housebreaking issues, but I could work on that. He also ran up to me and jumped all over me. The other three dogs were also good, so this was a hard decision to make. The moment came. I picked the dogs that had followed Bard and not challenged him, and the winners were Argyle and Fred. The room erupted with cheers, tears, and hugs. Quickly we got all the dogs onstage for a group photo. My dream of letting the world know shelter dogs are worthwhile was coming true. By the time the interviews were over, I was hoarse. It would take a couple of days before we got the dogs, but less than two months before the opening, I had our dogs.

In the weeks after this audition, news of it went all around the world. I got articles from as far away as South Africa and Japan. It had been a smashing success. Later, one producer congratulated me, saying the event had garnered over $250,000 in free advertising for the show. I was just glad it had focused on shelter dogs.

I began looking for a commercial space to live in, sort of an artist’s loft. I knew of many cheap ones in Brooklyn. I was finding the places we could afford, though, were only in bad areas and not fit for man or beast. Then I stumbled upon a newly renovated storefront that had been an old plumbing garage. The owner put two beautiful wrought-iron doors on the front that you could drive a vehicle through, and put in new walls, new tiles, a
beautiful kitchen, new heating, and air-conditioning. The basement was also renovated, and there was a bathroom downstairs and one upstairs. It was affordable, and fortunately, the owner loved dogs. At first I was afraid to take it, just in case the show closed, because it required a one-year lease. I would build a temporary bedroom on the first floor for the second trainer.

As for the transportation, vans were our regular mode of transportation or our small station wagon. The number of the dogs would mean two vans, and I thought that would just get too complicated. Dorothy found me a box truck for sale on the Internet. It was 12 feet long by 8 feet wide. I looked at it and knew I could build cages and make it work. The cost of that vehicle was $25,000. Between the lease and the truck, I wouldn’t break even for one year—not a real good risk to take. Years ago, after my third flop, I decided to always break even by opening night. Dorothy and I talked about it, and we decided we should go for it. As we were in the final stretch getting ready for rehearsals, we started putting all the pieces together.

I lived at the apartment myself for the first two weeks. Spending that time alone with my new pack, away from the farm, really bonded us. I got to see who they were—who was timid, who was smart, who would train the best. Harriet, Bard, Barney, Argyle, and Fred trained very well. Patches, Lady, and Sidney took the longest to train. But in that month, they all started to come together.