My Best Summer Stock Job Ever
- Posted on 11th April 2017
- in Entertainment, entertainment books, Hollywood memoirs, Summer Stock
- by Ben
This
summer stock
story is an edited excerpt from Three Stages.
In 1966, after I survived the NYC area run of Marat-Sade (a whole other horror story) it was time for summer stock. I loved doing summer stock. I went to many auditions but the one that counted was for the then seventy-eight year old Charles F. Coughlin, director of the Gretna Playhouse in Mount Gretna, PA.
I was auditioning for the roles of Lieutenant Cable in South Pacific (I had always wanted to play him) and Conrad Birdie. Mr. Coughlin, on the other hand, was looking for members of his resident company to do three straight comedies and three musicals. I sang Younger Than Springtime and One Last Kiss. On the spot, without my reading for him, he offered me the entire fourteen week season (two weeks rehearsal followed by a two week run of six shows) including the two roles I wanted. The money was not great but the accommodations were inexpensive and the idea of doing plays and musicals as well as being in one place for the whole season (not to mention the luxury of two weeks run per show) appealed to me so I took the offer. It was one of the best decisions of my life.
Once we had developed a relationship, I asked Mr. Coughlin how he could hire an actor for the season without even hearing them read a line of dialogue. He replied that having been in the business as long as he had he knew within thirty seconds of meeting an actor if he was any good.
Mount Gretna is a tiny, pastoral community in the rolling hills about ten miles south of Lebanon and twenty miles northwest of Lancaster. Sociologically it’s about as far from New York City as you can get while remaining in the USA. The theatre was the oldest Equity Stock company in the country and the building itself was a relic of the old Chautauqua Circuit.
There was a resident company of five or six, all pretty good actors and it was a congenial group. The first three shows were plays; Boeing Boeing, The Impossible Years and another comic murder mystery – in which I played a priest! – the name of which I have forgotten.
Bartholomew Smutz
Boing Boing
Doing these silly plays was lots of fun and a real learning experience. Charlie knew more about low comedy than anyone this side of Joey Faye. He had done it on Broadway before I was born.
One night Marie Antoinette, her real name, (Kim in the Bye, Bye Birdie) who had a kitchen and brought her own groceries from New York, asked me over for a macrobiotic dinner before the show. I didn’t care too much for the “cuisine”. It tasted like ground up place mats to me and was very salty. Hence I drank a lot of apple juice with the meal. What happens in ones’ innards after such a repast is not salubrious especially if one has to wear a skintight costume and shake ones’ bootie all over the stage two hours afterward.
To say that I was bloated with gas would be a gross understatement. By show time I could hardly walk. I did everything I could think of to release some gas – jogged around in the trees, did jumping jacks – nothing worked. How I survived the first act and all the gyrating in that tight gold lamé costume I’ll never know. By midway through the act the entire cast was aware of my discomfort and some were unsympathetically amused.
Conrad Birdie
Late in Act I Birdie comes to breakfast, disheveled and grumpy in a leopard skin robe. With Kim close behind him, he briefly peruses the elaborate buffet, pulls a can of beer out of his pocket, takes a swig, belches loudly, says. “Call me for lunch.” and exits. By the time we got to this scene I was in agony. I felt as though my guts were about to explode.
As I reached over to lift the lid of a chafing dish a tiny piccolo fart escaped. I was praying that no one heard it. Alas, Marie let out a tiny giggle. That was all it took. I broke helplessly into laughter. I later learned that Marie was the only one who had been aware of my colonic high note but breakups on stage are contagious and within fifteen seconds the entire company, including the small orchestra were roaring. The audience, without a clue as to what was so funny, were carried along with the merriment. After a moment or three I pulled out the beer, popped the top and took a drink but I was still so convulsed I could neither burp nor talk so I simply strolled off stage leaving the wrecked scene behind me.
For more funny tales of summer stock in particular and showbiz in general, click here to get Three Stages.
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