AUTUMN IN NEW YORK

Saturday in November.
A cold day today after a rainy and moody Friday night.
Call me absurd, but I do love the weather. I prefer a comfy clime, but also enjoy the blast of energy each new season brings.
And in truth love the initial cold snaps and the warm sweaters and crisp air.
Went out today for groceries in my neighborhood and had to wear the scarf and gloves and knit hat. BRISK for sure.
We took my partner Jeff to the hospital on Thursday afternoon for a bunion operation. Lenox Hill on 77th and Lex.
He was scheduled for a 2:30 surgery but it was delayed till 4 PM. Poor guy was so streesed with anxiety he just slept in the prep room in one of those recliners and I went to Butterfield's for a sandwich and the MOST delicious rasberry crumble...then hit Starbucks for a coffe to go with it. By the time I got back they were ready to take him to surgery. My girlfriend Annie works in Lenox Hill in the Black Hall building and came by to say hello. The anesthesiologist was full of good humor and Jeff was in good hands with him and the surgeon Dr. Karen Schneider. She was recomended by our good friend Susan who had foot surgery a few months back.
It was a long day and he finally was in recovery by 6:30 or so and was ready to leave by around 9:15.
Susan, and her terrific husband, Stephen picked us up and took us home in thier spacious SUV. We got to our street and 8th Avenue and were stalled for more than 20 minutes behind an on call fire truck. SO we finally got in the house and settled by 10:30 or so. A VERY LONG AND STRESSFUL DAY!
Percoset and Kelfex have kept him steady..but I made homemade Chicken soup with ALL the fixings and that is nourishing him.
Six to 8 weeks of this may drive me to the edge of BABY JANE Hudsondom, but so far it is fine.
I got all the reviews sent to my by my friend Jim who sends them when a show opens. I am so grateful for that.
YOUNG FRANKENSTEIN was generally reviewed in the way we thought it would. NOT GOOD ENOUGH...but fun.
Our friend Mark answered my query with his take on why we have no major stars as we once had.
He blamed it on the AIDS epidemic taking who knows how many budding geniuses including Michael Bennett.
I cannot deny that is a major factor in shaping the artistic landscape, but I think it is just one of the elements.
I believe the English invasion had a lot to do with things as they are.
And Ironically our own Hal Prince who I would consider one of thee first and foremost pillars and standards of theatre in New York if not universally, is partly to blame.
In 1979 after his many years of collaborating with great artistic success with Sondheim he brought to these shores his London Hit EVITA.
I had the joy and pride to be part of that production.
It was intersting to see how they, meaning the creative team approached their already successful show in the Broadway atmosphere.
How Hal was said to want the show to be the Star. Rumor had it that he really was not happy when a leading person held sway over a productions hit or miss run.
We had a great production and previewed it in Los Angles and then San Francisco.
We got to NY and opened in September (27th I believe) of 1979 at the Broadway theatre. I was with it for a couple of months and was asked to go to Los Angeles and open the West coast company of EVITA as Magaldi the role I understudied in NY.
I was in LA by Dec 6th and by Dec 10th in rehearsal. Ruth Mitchell, Hal's second in command was doing the initial staging and asked me to help stage the Aristocrats as I had done that number in the NY company. So I did. It was fun and took the boredom out of the initial rehearsal period.
Anyway..All that aside over the years the English took a strong hold of the NY theatre. Andrew Llyod Webber made his mark and PHANTOM is still making Hal and Andrew a hefty coin of the realm.
SO Hal with EVITA's success really was a vanguard for the beachead of the English Invasion.
When Cameron Mackintosh came a courtin and LES MIS took the stage by storm it was clear that the American Producers and Equity were willing to bend over in all directions to let these newcomers change the face of the business and the way in which business was done. Cameron threatened to NOT bring LES MIS in unless he , THE PRODUCER held the Advance..up till then the Theatre owners held it I beleive.SO he was in control before he even had a hit show. Equity and the League could have told him: "OK Don't Bring your show" but they folded.
Then we got the mass amount of Mega Musicals with MISS SAIGON and CATS and all of those type productions. They kept a lot os people employend but they changed the temperament of our American theatre structure.
The MIDDLE MANAGEMENT became a new wall to climb along with the Casting Directors obstacle course..
They became a necessity as these shows were a huge undertaking and had recasting and also sending out of major tours while the Broadway show was running. This practice wasn't in solid stead until Cats I believe. Although even CHORUS LINE had multiple companies during the Broadway run as did EVITA a few yers later.
But it was the CATS & LES MIS that created a middle management powerful enough to block the artist from the producer and sometimes even the casting people and the director.
It created ill will and strange misinterpretations of rules and regulations.
And many were competing for the head honcho position in management while the show was running and the actors became a second thought and the shows wound up being populated sometimes with lesser talents than they should.
Nowadays we have extremely talented performers..IF you notice the performers are seldom taken to task by critics. It is usually the production and direction etc..
But the Actor has his ass out there in front of the people and is a Prime target for sometimes nasty crtical assumptions.
I always wanted the PLAYBILL to have the disclainmer:
"THE CHOICES MADE IN THESE PERFORMANCES ARE NOT NECESSARILY THOSE OF THE ACTOR>"
But even with all these really talented people the theratre continues to hire TELEVISION or FILM "names" to "SELL TICKETS!" A practical but sometimes detrimental idea.. The Name will take a huge chunck of profit and not necessarily add anything special and once their limited contract is up...then what and who?
But we have so few Angela Lansbury's, who in her prime was an untouchable STAR of Broadway. They seem to hire talented folk like David Hyde Pierce from TV land and luckily he is a stageworthy star not just a name but that isn't always the case.
And who decides WHO exactly is a real "name" and who will actually attract the audiences?
Marketing concerns..demographics? The producer's mother???WHO?
In todays artistic fields, and I include all areas, the hiring process is screwered. A good friend who has been on a constant Job Search for too many years, gave a very intersting overview. He is about 40 but looks younger and is in great shape and presents a more vital personage that one would expect of someone in that age group.
So what his joourney through the job market in NY has shown is that they will hire inexperienced and unsuited people who will take a very low unlivable wage!
End of story. When he told one Human Resource person that the salary was not good enough they were insulted. No Kidding. THEY were insulted..He said they thought he should be grateful for pittance.
Work cheap and you'll get a job. Even if you are too young and too inexpeienced. SO those are the people making major decisions in all areas of business nowadays. But it is also those kids who are in high end positions in the arts and making an odd playgound even stranger.
Also the FEAR of something NOT working causes shows to be put together in corners in workshops that aren't always available to audition prospects outside the"A" list.
This in practice might keep the show critically safe and in the loop of its own creators, but then it limits the general actor from getting into anything new and working with people that might intrigue or inspire him.
The bottom line is now getting more important than THE CHORUS LINE.
A good show with good performers should be all you need.
Ironically the addage that Hal Price wanted..No Star Bigger than the SHOW itself is being eroded in that there are too many "stars" with a small "S" and very rarely is the audience privileged to DISCOVER a natuaral ball of fire!
It is an odd business and one wants their $100-$200-$300--now $450 dollars worth!
There are still stories amongst the actors of walking into an open call and getting a job..But yerars back that open call was in a Broadway Theatre in front of the likes of Hal Prince or Tommy Tune. Not what most of those calls are now with a secondary office person from a high end casting place being given the "chore" of sitting through hours of hopefuls spewing 8 or 16 bars of music.
We have a lot of talent and thank God a great deal of it is in the canyons of NY. But it is so expensive to live or exist here now that I doubt a budding James Dean or a Brando or Mary Martin can manage without a substantial trust fund.
These practices have also managed to permeate the genral corporate world and has eaten away at the general work ethic.
I don't know what the future might bring, but with the Stagehand strike and the Writer's strike I think the Producers realize their Bottom line is not the only bottom in the playground.
Audiences are the consumers but the actor is the ingredient that makes the Product, a show, live and breathe. All the technical elements are useless without that ONE ingredient.
I wish actors would be bold and strike as well.When and if the time and place call for it. We had a greatr chance in 1994 when LES MIS fired the NY company and manipulated the system by bringing in the road company. There were a lot of elements I cannot disclose here that were also factors in that mess. I watched the whole thing unfold as we played in SUNSET BLVD at the Minskoff theatre.
The Actor's Union should have called a strike and as it was a holiday time we would have had the producers over the proverbial barrel. But they wimped out for dumb reasons and we have gone downhill from there.
Anyway..the theatre will live on as it is part of the culture and a strong thread in the fabric that makes up the multi million dollar business of show here in NY.
I am going on and on..
What else is one to do on a cold Saturday night.
We watched RATATOUILLE last night and loved it.
Jeff is moaning in pain in the living room and I am wearing my fingers to a pulp on this worn out keyboard.
It has actually warmed me up.
Stay Warm..but be Cool!
XXX
Keybored