Permission is granted to make one printed copy for personal/non-commercial use only.
Permission is granted to make one copy and one backup copy on electronic storage media, for personal/non-commercial use only, as long as these electronically stored copies are accessible to a single personal computer only, and are not accesible from a network of any kind, including the Internet and World Wide Web.
Any reproduction of this material must include this copyright notice.
Written permission from the author is required for further reproduction, by any method.
This year, after almost a decade in the dark, I returned to the stage. I did two shows, both at the Glendale Centre Theatre: The Unsinkable Molly Brown and Guys and Dolls. Each show ran eight weeks, five shows a week: four evening performances and a Saturday matinee. So counting rehearsals and performances I spent six months out of this year doing shows. When I make a comeback I don't kid around.
When I got back from Denver after Christmas last year I picked up a Dramalog. I didn't look at it until Friday. There was an audition in Glendale for Unsinkable Molly Brown, Friday night and Saturday. I dithered and dithered. Should I call? I had to call. With Barb gone I'd spent the last four months finding out just how alone I was in L.A. I had to do something or I'd go crazy. Okay, I was already crazy. It was time to do something about it. But I hadn't been in a play since I was in Denver, and that was Promises Promises at Green Mountain, the musical from hell. The last good show I was in, with a good part, must have been A Funny Thing Happened On The Way To The Forum. When was that? 1983? 1984?
The Glendale Centre Theatre. I'd never heard of it. But Glendale was close, one city over from Burbank, which is one city from me. Okay, I'd found a musical, and it was close to home. But I dithered. Maybe I should wait and find an audition that I would have more time to prepare for. I needed time to get ready. --- That kind of thinking wasn't going to get me anywhere. So I called, and got a recording. It was after six o:clock. I was too late. Saturday morning I tried again. I wasn't too late. I got an audition appointment in spite of myself.
I am not good at auditions. No, let's be fair. Back in Englewood I got parts from auditioning, even from directors who had never seen me before (The Scarecrow in The Wizard of Oz and Cornelius in Hello Dolly). Then I moved on to the Lakewood Players. I never once got a principal part from an audition at Lakewood, but I played Japheth in Two by Two, Pilate in J.C. Superstar, and Senex in Forum. It seems I had lost the knack of making a good first impression. Now I was proposing to walk into a theater in the Los Angleles metro area, home to God knows how much acting talent, and, after an eight year layoff, audition with virtually no preparation. I was nervous.
It showed.
The theater was beautiful. The lobby had a big wooden bar (candy and soda only, the owners are Mormon), a big stuffed couch with matching chairs, bookshelves, and a harpsichord. Auditions were upstairs. Folding chairs lined one side of a long hallway running the length of the theater. There was a small table at the end of the hall where I checked in and filled out an audition card. They took polaroids of us three at a time, holding numbered placards at our chests. Kind of a group mug shot. I sat in a chair and waited. My turn came all too soon.
I walked into a medium sized room with a piano and a table. An accompanyist sat at the piano and the Inquisition sat behind the table, with pads of paper and pencils. I would rather get up on stage in front of seven hundred people than face four with pencils across a table. I sang It Only Takes A Moment from Dolly, because I know it and I've got the score. Did I say I was nervous? Every time I raised my arms to try to put a little body expression into it my hands shook. Was it obvious? One of the inquisitors asked me if I was nervous. At least they didn't put it down to me being entirely unfit to be onstage. I told them I hadn't done a show for eight years. Giving excuses during an autdition. What had I come to? They were very understanding. My hands showed the nerves but my voice didn't. I escaped out into the hall where I was asked if I could come back that night for dance auditions and call backs. Of course I could.
That night when I came back the first thing on the schedule was dance tryouts. For a singer/actor dance auditions are an ordeal. Dance auditions in L.A. are even worse. First off, there are people here who can really dance. Lucky for the rest of us there are the rest of us, who pretend to be able to dance. The routine wasn't easy but the choreographer gave us a lot of time to learn it. I survived it without major blunder but also without, I'm sure, looking anything like a real dancer. I'm really not a bad dancer. I dance well enough as a character. As Cornelius and the Scarecrow I think I danced very well. It's dancing as Gregg at an audition that I have to work on.
Next came some singing. I learned part of Dolce Far Niente, a very pretty song sung by the Prince. I sang well. I went home thinking I had a good chance to get the Prince. A few days later I got a call and was offered the part of Christmas Morgan, the Leadville barkeep. Christmas is a good part with a lot of dialog in the first act, but he doesn't sing. I choked back my disappointment and accepted. With my beard and long hair I looked like a Christmas and not very much like a prince.
Earthquake! At this momentous time in my life the earth shook. Before even one rehearsal. But the show must go on. In defiance of the curfew the cast made its way to Glendale and I was rehearsing a play for the first time in eight years. I worked hard to make up for the rust in my acting joints. I made sure that I was off book the next rehearsal after blocking a scene. It payed off. After a week the actor playing the Prince dropped out of the show and I was asked to play the Prince as well as Christmas. Here I was, my first show in Los Angeles, playing not one, but two parts. Christmas in the first act and The Prince in the second. I had almost as much stage time as Molly and Johnny.
Next came the transformation. I shaved off my beard leaving just the mustache. The cast could hardly recognize me. Then I had my hair cut short. The cast could hardly recognize me. For awhile I was changing my appearance so often nobody knew what I looked like. I didn't know what I looked like. My hair hadn't been that short since grade school. I made a false beard for Christmas and used lots of hairspray to stand my hair up. Then came a quick change at the end of the first act where I pulled off the beard, put on sideburns, and slicked my hair down flat with water for a brief stint as a Denver snob. I spent all of intermission redoing my makeup entirely to become the suave Prince. (Remember, it was just an act.) I was home again.
The Molly Brown cast was something special --- very close backstage, hugging all over the place. The 450 seat theater was full almost every night. Every Friday and Saturday night we went out and at least half the cast and crew showed up every time. It was heaven. I held a Sunday barbecue and treated these starving L.A. actors to some Colorado cooking. After the run Bill Clark, the Monseignieur, had us all out to his place on the Colorado river. I still hang around a lot with Patricia, the girl that played Molly. It is well understood that we are just friends, but it is friends like her that have made life in L.A. bearable.
After Molly Brown I took a couple of months off, fitting in a business trip to Michigan and a vacation in Denver. Then, at the end of June, I tried out for Guys and Dolls, once again at the Glendale Centre Theatre. My Molly Brown luck didn't hold. I was cast as Harry the Horse, a small part with some good laughs. It was a good cast but it was not as close as Molly Brown's. On Friday and Saturday nights there was never the feeling that the cast should go out and do something as a group. Everybody seemed to splinter off and go their own way. I missed the Friday and Saturday night post show excursions tremendously. I also missed the hugging, but for me, with this cast, there wasn't enough of that. I might have tried too hard the first week and put some of the girls off. It might have been that a good proportion of this cast was under twenty-four and at thirty-nine I'm just too old. Physical contact with other people is not something I'm naturally comfortable with. It's something I've had to work on. It doesn't take much to throw me off, so maybe it was all my imagination. This is not to say that it was a bad cast. It was a very good cast full of wonderful people and I hope I can keep in touch with them. And it was a great show. I never realized just how good the book for Guys and Dolls is. The laughs never stop.
I cohosted two barbecues for Guys and Dolls (trying too hard again) with Dave Carter, the downstairs stage manager, and Patricia (Molly Brown). Dave rents a room in a big house on the side of the hill in Glendale with a pool that looks out over the valley down into L.A. Next to the cabin this is one of the best places in the world to give a barbecue. For barbecue #1 I stayed up all night marinading and making sauces. The curried chicken skewers were the big hit of the party. I made way too much food so the leftovers went into my freezer until Dave and I could arrange a second party.
Molly Brown and Guys and Dolls saved me. I am no longer all alone in Los Angeles.
Gregg Writes
| 1989 | Besieged | Claire de Lune |
|---|
| 1992 | Flood --- Riot --- Earthquake! |
|---|
| 1993 | * Gregg and the Trail Bike * | A Stabbing | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Under a Full Moon | Burt Rutan | I Meet a Bear | |
| 1994 | * 7.2! * | A Star Is Born | * My Car Is Stolen * |
|---|
| 1995 | This Year I Flew Like A Bird |
|---|
Contact me by e-mail. You are A Star Is Born! reader