Norman Snow

Speaker Result, sort of this is basically kind of good that John Houseman came to Little Rock and sort of found me, I was in high school in North Little Rock, Arkansas.

Speaker And I had been an athlete. And, you know, then the student plays and things and had gotten interested in the theater. At the same time, there happened to be a fine arts college in Little Rock, which had just come into existence for three or four years. And they were totally financed.

Speaker I won’t say totally, but primarily by Winthrop Rockefeller. He was the governor of Arkansas at the time. This is all a way of getting that they started doing. And I was involved with him sometimes doing their student productions or just hanging around. And they they were a fine arts college. I was still in high school and they thought I had some talent. So they were always the professors there, Dougal MacArthur, who went on to be the head of the drama department. And how did the acting department at Cal Arts when they first formed it? But this time he was the head of the school and they were they started doing a political drama about that. They were writing themselves about the Arkansas prison system. It became like a big controversial subject. Winthrop Rockefeller withdrew his money, closed the school. So they had this class or of about 40 students who had nowhere to go to school. They heard that Juilliard was opening. They call them and said, we have all of these students who have nowhere to go. They’re really talented. We think they’ve gotten some national review. And so they convinced John Houseman and and Michael Kahn on their way to the Dallas regional auditions to stop the plane, to make a landing. They just took it. They’ve got off the plane in Memphis and took a little short plane into Little Rock, ran over to the art center. So all these students do. MacArthur called me the night before and said, there’s a man coming to town tomorrow whom I think you really should meet. And I said, Who is that, John? How’s that is? And I said, I’m really busy. You do good. I’m I’m doing my senior play. I I’m in. And he said to me that basically I will never speak to you again unless you come over to my house. Right now, I’m going to give you two things. We’re going to we’re gonna give you something that everybody in the world is doing. You’re going to do the most prototypical Shakespearean soliloquy. You’re gonna do once more into the breach. You’re gonna read the final speech of The Glass Menagerie tomorrow for John Houseman. Okay, Giovanni. Silus, I got him. Came back next day. I went to in the afternoon. I got out of school and I went over to meet to John Houseman and I auditioned. And three weeks later they said, we want you. I said, I don’t have any money. And they said, let’s see about that. And then they came back and said, We’ll give you all the money. Come.

Speaker Like what?

Speaker What were the love her husband, Colin, like at that time?

Speaker When you walk into the middle, are you ever. What did you think of them?

Speaker They were basically very, very polite. And and I. All I know is that my improvisations seem to wildly amuse Michael Kahn. I don’t know why, but he he was just tickled. And I had a good feeling about meeting him because I didn’t have an application or anything. I wasn’t really supposed to be part of this audition. I was just a little addendum at the end, sort of said, we have this one of the person who hasn’t filled out any forms. You don’t know who he is. He doesn’t have a resume. He doesn’t. He’s in high school. And then John got up from his chair in the back, the audience, and walked down very slowly. So it’s remarkable what you’ve done with your voice, which you can do with your voice. How old are you? And I said I was 17. He was 17. You’re a baby. Please write your name and number down on this piece of paper so we could get in touch with you. So he was just kind and fatherly. I. I didn’t know anything was going to come of this, but it was really just, you know, the finger coming down and touching you and taking him out a little rock. The next year you’re plunked in the middle of Manhattan.

Speaker And tell me, you know, I was just questioning what what what little you do know how how how John and Michael and Michelle, how is this you know, where did it really come from? Juilliard.

Speaker I mean, like I say, I only know what kind of thumbnail set of facts about the fact that Juilliard, of course, was this great established school for musicians and they were constructing or planning for Lincoln Center. They wanted Lincoln Center to have one educational institution, a conservatory of Fine Arts. So they’re looking around. And, of course, Juilliard came to mind, but they did not have a dance department or drama department. And I don’t believe they had a fully. I’m not sure about this a fully realized opera program at that time. And they said, well, we’ll give you this building. We will give you, if you will, add the American Opera Center, which what came to be a dance department, the drama department. Those things were phased in over 10 years before we actually went in two or eight years. And I don’t I’m not sure of the dates, but I know that the dance department came into being in the early 60s, run 64, I believe.

Speaker Do you do you remember that you came in if you want.

Speaker Really? I don’t know. Anyway, so they added the drama department and it was a condition that they beautiful performing arts conservatory. And we. So that’s one end that it’s finally came about. I’m I’m not certain how John was chosen and and how Michelle. Other than Michelle’s success and fame from Strasbourg, all the Canadian theatre school to finally Juilliard.

Speaker And what was it like that first year you say pull on exhibit boy?

Speaker Sure.

Speaker Was it like the first year they plunked down the middle of Manhattan, 17, maybe 18 by the time you got there?

Speaker I turned 18 during the first year, but it was just it was a horrible experience for for the most part. I mean, mixed in with everything else. I mean, just being a baby, going away to school. I mean, I was born and raised in North Little Rock, Arkansas, and general suburbia went to a wonderful, giant high school in which, you know, had millions of friends and who were all kind of like me or not. But I to go to New York and I basically I didn’t have a lot of money, so I was like trying to save it. I, I my housing was Julia. It had a list of rooms that you could rent in people’s homes. And so I went down the list and found the cheapest one I could find, which was eight dollars a week, which got me a tiny little room in a retired Ziegfeld Follies girl’s apartment, which with two other boarders, an old man, older man.

Speaker And it was about seventy five.

Speaker Cecil, who this his family had basically put him there and they would just send her some money every once while to take care of him. A longshoreman who only stayed there the nights that he has his girlfriend kicked him out when he was too drunk. And so he would come there and turn on the radio at full blast and pass out. And we couldn’t wake him up. So we couldn’t sleep. And cost me eight dollars a week. And I put this person in this apartment that was just up the street from the building Claremont Avenue, which was filthy rat and cockroach infested. It was it was truly horrible. And New York City was a big, ugly, dirty, mean place to me for a very long time. Of course, as anyone who’s gone to live there and lived there long enough, not anyone, but most people, you know, as I did fall totally in love with it and can’t imagine living anywhere else. Although here I am, Los Angeles. But I stayed there for 20 years. So that was the New York part of it, which was awful. The school part of it was was terrifying. I knew what I was getting myself into. My teachers were nice, but they were very demanding and wanted to see, you know, whether any of us were going to make it through. We were told that when you’re told immediately when you walk in that, you know, quite a few of you, probably a third of you will not be here at the end of this year, you will be asked to leave a third US will be gone. Well, that that does a lot about it sort of sets the the tenor of of. Is it going to be me? And there was a fair amount of paranoia. I remember once there were certain students who were called up to John’s office. We knew that in the second year we were going to be taking one of Michelle’s famous courses or part of his training, which was the character masks. I don’t know if you talked with a character coming. And we were told that certain students were called up to John’s office about the comic mask class. And there was a sort of like Russell throughout the heavens that the people who were being called up to John’s office about the character mask class were only the only people who were actually going to be involved in this group. And when it turned out that had nothing to do with it, all they were doing was just trying to get a sort of vast aura, a sample representation about the size of the skulls that they needed to make the masks for those heads. It had nothing to do about who was going to be taking it or not. But that’s one of the one of the times I’m talking about the pressure that that we were under to be thrown into a Shakespearean play. The first thing I mean, which is called the test, in which you’re supposedly not to be given very specific direction. The whole point of is, is that you are to fail and then you are to realize why you failed and why you needed to work on your speech or your movement or your interpreting, when basically at that point I had only seen one Shakespearean play and won the movie. I’d seen Olivier do Othello.

Speaker So you were I did feel pretty lost for quite a long time.

Speaker What did the other what were the other kids like? What was the mix? I mean, we certainly now know in retrospect and certainly we know everybody was there. But for you, what was the relationship like when you’ve got this isolated eight dollar, you know, really felt great dad here, you know, but what what was everybody else like, Patty?

Speaker And people, you know, you know, tremendously wide range of personalities. But.

Speaker But what were they, General?

Speaker I don’t know what they were generally like. They’re very extroverts. I know that we were not popular people. You know, that first year we we were not at the new building. We were in the. We rented rooms in International House, which was across the street from the old building. And so we were basically taking space away from the people who were residents of International House, which was a rooming house. Whole organization with a cafeteria. And they had social programs for graduate students from Columbia and Barnard. And so those people were older than we were. They were 25 and 26. And we were these little loud drama hippie people who were there. And we’re taking their space. And it was pretty true that we were pretty loud and obnoxious and sort of took over the cafeteria when we were there and monopolized sets. Does that not? Yeah, I mean, to those other folks. But we’re we’re just trying to, I think and just be heard. You know, they were. Everyone was pretty young and. You know, I want to say I’m here and I’ll make room for me. And there were lots of big personalities that you probably don’t you. And did.

Speaker And wonderfully talented people, but very demanding, very demanding. Some of them in different ways and demanding of, you know, look at me or I need to be heard. The gist of it was it was a very demanding class.

Speaker And I’m sure that’s part of the reasons it was successful that you had you had a lot of competition for for praise for the parts because there weren’t any auditions. The parts were that were handed out. And all these wonderful plays we did were just done from above, from John and director, or it was basically John deciding who who’s going to be playing these parts. And of course, there’s it’s hard to to realize, especially at that early age, how important it is that it doesn’t it doesn’t necessarily matter how big the part is or that you’re playing the romantic lead or what it was, which we were all young people. But it was tough for a lot of the students. I never get to play. I never get to play the prince or I don’t get to express that part of my part of my ability. But after a couple of years, if you were fortunate enough to to hang around that long. It sort of evened out. And I think I know that I was fortunate. I got to do all kinds of things.

Speaker There was a talk and I read John’s book, Final Dress. I talk about almost creating a program together, things that came and went. What was that all through the first year? In a way you did together with the faculty, or did you not really feel that way?

Speaker Well, I think that’s in hindsight. I mean, I think none of us were aware of that, that some of these classes might come and go. I mean, we were taking it for the first time and it was my first time in a school.

Speaker I was coming right out of high school and starting to get some water, but to drive. But.

Speaker Later, looking back, we could say, yeah, that class disappeared. But while we were doing our thing, well, this must be part of the curriculum. This is part of the Bible, because we all thought that this was all thought out. And later on, you got to realize that we we were kind of guinea pigs and we probably took more classes than anyone will ever take there because we were just taking everything. They just were going on what had been done in it in Montreal and Strasbourg. And at the Old Vic and going, well, let’s let’s see what works and what what doesn’t work as a curriculum. And that was great. But I can’t say that I felt a part of it that the students felt a part of. Well, we’re we’re working it out with them. I mean, you can look back and say, yeah, well, we were, but I didn’t feel that way when I was doing it. I knew that we we worked very, very hard, for whatever that’s worth. We you know, school started it at eight thirty in the morning. And during the first year, we were generally out of class by seven thirty or eight o’clock at night. But that was because they had to give those rooms back to internationals. But the time we got down to Lincoln Center, when we had our own building, we started days in the morning and then you’d have a show at night. Sometimes you wouldn’t get out of there till ten o’clock at night.

Speaker So it was it was a lot of work. And you talk about that. What did you what did you see? What was that like? You really were the ones that are getting to March. Yeah. Floor stage theater for the first time. What was. What did you think first?

Speaker Well, it was beautiful. It was gorgeous. It was something totally different than where we were. It was also it was really good for me any way to get into the same building and with with the other students, not just in the drama department, to have the dance department just on the other side of that door. And then. And then Mr. Balanchine’s school just, you know, another 30 yards beyond that. And to start participating in thing, because the first year we we got to go see concerts, but because they were in one building and we had a very rigorous schedule in the other building across the street, there really wasn’t there wasn’t a great deal of of of interaction between the departments. But when we got downtown, I mean downtown, when we got to Lincoln Center, you were with them all the time. You were eating with them. I mean, not necessarily. They would as a whole Group B, all of your best friends, but there were opportunities to to be involved with them. I, I was fortunate enough, like were three of us, to audition for one of the operas and actually be in the chorus with the whole departments of where they were, the American Opera Center and the musicians working with Tito Bianco. So that was important to me. There was another opera that that John directed and he brought in quite a few of us to to fill out the course of that. It wasn’t a very successful opera, but it was a it was a modern opera about the Hells Angels. So we basically were bikers. And Benjamin Hendrix and I were in in the ballet of that with him. And John gave us a there’s a there’s a lot of time in this. We had these the opera had a couple of muses who were the sort of narrators of it. And they were Barbara Hendrix was wonderful.

Speaker Barbara was playing the muse and they said that the music is lovely when they’re out there singing, but there’s nothing going on on stage. So what? We really don’t have time. So what I would like you and Benjamin to do is just whenever you feel there’s a low that’s happening onstage, just don’t start a fight or something amongst yourself so that we have something to watch while this is going on. And and we started doing that and they found it. Oh, that’s wonderful. Is it? Now, just keep keep looking for those spots when there’s kind of a dull part. And, you know, you and Benjamin, I trust you.

Speaker Make it up whatever you want. So that was that was great. I enjoyed very much being around the musicians. Not that I got to be great friends with them. I mean, I did date of view, but it I find it important and I also because I had a job for several months on a Sunday afternoon, being the the student who was in charge of checking out the reviews. The building was closed on Sunday to checking out the practice rooms to all the musicians. And that was just that was also a great learning experience about how hard they worked. How devious they were. You know, there’s several of them. So you had to sign in. Put your name down and sign out what room you’re going to where there was a piano room or some of them had harps or if some of them had nothing. You were bringing in your bassoon or your whatever you were carrying. But a lot of them. And it was open from noon until, I believe, seven o’clock. So I had to be there for seven o’clock, seven o’clock. I had to go up and make sure everybody was out. Some of them would come and sign the book. And then there was a little hallway stairwell by the thing. And then they’d sneak into the hallway and go back up and try to stay there all night or or at least until they were finished. I don’t know when that was.

Speaker But they yeah. They didn’t want to leave the building.

Speaker Hard working, the hard working musicians, no. Driven. Wonderful, wonderful. Driven. Know, just. I don’t have a I don’t have a piano. I need this.

Speaker Talk, if you can, a little bit about the sort of the sort of substance of classical training, you know what these classes were. I mean, even the same people that you were with, now many are still there.

Speaker A key. My whole life. I know that Liz Smith. I mean, the voice people some some are still been around.

Speaker Marian, tell me what you gay.

Speaker I mean, what were these classes?

Speaker I mean, you obviously I’ve been in class. What did they what? What were the classes like and what were the people like teaching?

Speaker Well, that’s a big question there. A lot of classes, but I can talk about. OK, let’s just talk about movement. Just just the list, the the names of the people that we got to work with or who were teaching the classes. You know, pretty remarkable to think that that we got to study with a Sokolow. I mean, she’s this tremendous Martha Graham trained and then created her own choreographer, acting teacher.

Speaker It was. A very emotional and demanding acting experience to work with on.

Speaker I mean, Ana had she had very specific moments where basically Martha Graham but her her intensity about how you needed to fill each particular piece of movement with emotion was always a was a great. Was a great acting class. She, along with Jane Kosminsky, Liz Keen, Bill Burdick. We almost always also had a pianist or sometimes more than just to be we’d have a percussionist who would accompany the movement. So it was all to do with interpreting between the the teacher, the musicians and the dancers, which were us on the floor. Although we were told we were not to behave like dance, you know, about the uniforms we had to wear the first year, silly. We were told we had to go to Model and de Vega before, which is a sporting goods store on Forty Second Street and buy a black t shirt, black jeans. Something like this, I sort of wore this today because this was part you got to wear a work shirt over this. That’s what you wear to most your class. But to your movement classes, the men had to wear a black t shirt and black swim trunks because they didn’t want because we are the desert. They didn’t want us to feel like dancers. I don’t know. But anyway, that was our uniform that went by the boards about. Well, we had to do it the whole first year. Sometime the second year they just went. I mean, people rebelled and that was just silly. Why? Why not put on a pair of tights? I mean, I didn’t want the boys to be enticed, but they would feel like they were dancers. So we took a lot of movement. I mean, money. Yeah. Kim was a teacher and a friend of mine. And I actually we we lived in the same building when I finally got a nice apartment, like. Right about the time I graduated. So he lived downstairs and I lived there until nineteen eighty nine. So I’ve known him for a long time. And a friend of mine. He’s a, you know, another remarkable linked to two movement, but coming out of this sort of chocolate cup mime style. And, and his work I think was, was very important to how we turned out as actors because it was just another little. Another little perspective on how you can use movement to convey emotion or.

Speaker Or two to develop your character. It’s so I can finish with the movement. We’re talking about other. What was it like?

Speaker Well, you’re acting. Who is. Who is the elusive art teacher? Somewhat. You were your. Who were your teachers?

Speaker Well, Michael. Michael Khan. Who was the head of the acting department at that time. Who’s now the head of the school. And.

Speaker Know he’s. Is it?

Speaker He was a very interesting character for me to first meet, to first work with and then finally to get to know, because when, like I said, we’re going back to the very beginning. When I got off the plane and I’m this big bumpkin from North Little Rock, Arkansas, that I had met him. I mean, he was there at the audition, but there was know not a lot of talk. And he was and he was sitting in the darkened auditorium. So I really didn’t have much of a feeling for him who he was. But the first we to the school and he’s there and he just the way he’s dressed. I mean, you know, he’s he’s Mick Jagger. He was this is the head of drama department. And he was a very, very extreme, eccentric sort of character at the beginning, at least to me. And then you got to Norman. And it was just part of how he wanted the world to perceive him. But he was also a very learned do well-trained classical artist. I mean, he was running the Shakespeare Festival at Stratford. At the same time, he was teaching us and my acting teachers.

Speaker Of course, Marion.

Speaker Marion was a magnificent, wonderful influence on. Well, I don’t know.

Speaker I think everyone, just because of the the care, the individual care she would take with each individual talent. She and she could be reached at any time for any conversation you might have about anything about life. She was a she was a wonderful teacher.

Speaker If you can talk a little bit about the emotional physical toll that the experience takes on, you know, right now I’m following third year young actor who looks like he’s going to.

Speaker So obviously, he’s been overexposed. I mean, a lot of people talk about, you know, you come from a certain kind of world.

Speaker You get there and they’re really trying to like, you know, bring you down a notch. A lot of pressure. But but also, there’s just these personal revelations. A sense of awareness of yourself.

Speaker How are you going to be an actor? How are you? What was the experience like for you in that sense? If you know what?

Speaker Well, I said the first year was was very difficult. Just just getting through it. There were only brief little moments in which you at least personally, I could lift my eyes up and go, oh, I. I think I’m getting something out of this. I think. I think they might ask me back. Maybe next year that I. I think I understand what what what Michael is talking about. And he, through praising me, was saying, yes, we are kind of at this moment at least.

Speaker But as time went on, I.

Speaker There I at least in my particular experience, it definitely got easier. The longer I was there and the more well, just the more that I became friends with. With John Houseman so that I, I, I knew that I could actually talk to him. And it wasn’t he was just trying to, you know, going you’re doing a good job and you’re a good boy. That he was really he had been watching what I was doing and and that he and I understood that I was getting better and that, you know, there were certain areas that I needed to work on, but that I that I could really feel that he was that he was looking right at me. And what I was doing and not just trying to form a company or just trying to be the headmaster that he was he was deeply interested in every one of us and could be reached in a one to one conversation. If you got got past what inhibitions you had about speaking with him, which was, you know, he was he was a initially would be a tough person to approach just because of his his bearing. I once Michael Conn invited me up to Stratford to watch a rehearsal of all of them, those discussions with them.

Speaker They’re getting ready to go into previews. And I have just had a success.

Speaker And someone asked that we were doing. I think it was a typist in the tiger. And he thought it would be interesting for me and good for me if I came up and saw what was gone because he said, we’re having some problems now, too. And so I he said, call me tonight. And Michael was moving his apartment from one apartment to another. And so he said, this is where I’ll be. And so he gave me a number and I called him. I called that number. And who answered the phone? This was like eleven o’clock at night. It doesn’t matter how late you call eleven o’clock at night. And when the phone answered, it was John on the other end of the phone. And I had definitely woken him up at eleven o’clock at night and I was gone. I didn’t know I only was to find out later that Michael had been staying at John’s and that something happened that night and he had to go up early. And John wasn’t supposed to be there. He was supposed to be in New City. And so there was a but. Well, that should be a total workshop environment, that there should be no audience. You shouldn’t. No, you don’t need at this point. You don’t need that information coming back from from a non interested standby, like an audience member who’s going to laugh at what you do or whatever, that it’s basically you need just your just your teachers watching what you do and your other classmates are there to watch what you do, but you shouldn’t show it to the world.

Speaker You might be correct about this. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. Ensemble philosophy. Kate. Yeah. Really? Yeah, you’re right.

Speaker They were I mean, they’re going through the the training, the the ups and downs, the critiques, which I’m sure you’ve discussed a lot, which were I guess they are the same in other drama schools or in other schools. But the critiques, which is what happened after you did a performance, the entire faculty sat in a row chairs on that side of the room and the entire class sat on this side of the room and they went one person at a time and they. I thought so oftentimes they would braze you. But with the praise was mixed, you know, because you had you were getting information from the movement teachers, from your acting teachers, from speech and voice. And it could be it was sometimes very brutal. I mean, there were many, many tears and screaming things. And then sometimes arguments occasionally, which we could think Yukino, for this every once in a while, because the faculty would have met before the critique took place and they would do would discuss amongst themselves what they all felt about each person’s performance. And then it was supposed to be kind of a united front when they came in. But every once in a while, there being somebody who is a dissenter. And Moni was good about this. I think you’re all flushed. He was brilliant, but after they’ve got famous. So anyway.

Speaker But the critics were pretty, pretty wild, pretty well.

Speaker And it could be devastating, especially if you felt or had had gotten a sense from especially once we had started inviting at least some audience, like the first few productions that were not just viewed by the class, were open to the Juilliard students from the music department or the dance department, that they were there like a notice put up. And if you’d like to attend this, you could come in. And if you had done this performance in which the audience seemed to be really with you and you felt this really went well, and then to go into the critique, to be told that was exactly the wrong thing to do, you were you could be devastated. And that happened. And that happened to me in a big way. And it in one show and it was it was a great experience because it was just something that I had to get over and have an experience like that to go. Well, yeah, I can see I can see why they want me to do what they want me to do and I need to do that. But they can’t I can’t ignore what good work was also there. And it only would, in my opinion, of only taking, you know, just a couple of notes and it would have been taken care of.

Speaker Hey, what about my cohesion?

Speaker Show me your particular memories of coming back to shows at that time.

Speaker I mean, I can remember feeling incredibly adequate several times, especially at the end of the first year when basically I just I just played out. I mean, I I had come to the end and it was also in New York. And I just hadn’t been someplace where spring didn’t come in March. It comes in May. And so I was just ready for school to be over. But it had been a difficult year. And we did what we did, The Winter’s Tale. And I was cast as far as the young prince. And I was I know I was just horrible like I had I just hadn’t didn’t have an idea what to do. But it was it was a very good thing because it was the first time I worked with Bill Woodman and my my relationship with Bill started there. And and he didn’t hold it against me. The fact that I did a bad job and and believed that I that I could do other things. And we went on to do a very, very important work in my career. And I think he’s do a production of Richard the Third at the Goodman. This is after I left the acting company and it was just spectacular. But that was about the sixth time, I guess I had done a show with him cause I did several plays with him at school. So anyway, that was a wonderful beginning of a relationship with Bill. The other shows that first couple of years it was because of the sort of, like I say, no audience. There wasn’t there wasn’t a lot of joy to be to be gotten out to perform because you weren’t really doing it for that at the time that I enjoyed the most.

Speaker As far as enjoy the thought, I got the most out of it. I know I got a lot of things out of it was when we did the Lincoln Center tours in the third year.

Speaker That was we did the small productions that were to play, not in the school, not for the students, not for the general public, but to go and perform in the high schools in New York City and also around the state of New York. And that was that was that was tremendous, was a tremendous to get out there and do these plays for kids. And they were wonderfully done. Kevin and Patti and David Stiers, they did SkyPan. We had two shows. We they did all Skipper and the the other half of us who didn’t get into skep. We did a double bill of Becket’s act without words. And Sean Bunnytown, his interview. And it was just it was wonderfully done. It was just the perfect thing to do for New York City inner city schools. We start with that without words, which has no dialogue. So you go into this riotous atmosphere where these kids could care less about being there, or at least they’re giving that impression. And there’s this wonderful little simple thing that’s going to take place in front of this little this little play, this act that words. And it had no music or anything. So they get just a big, loud trumpet and they could scream, they could talk it, they could throw things at the audience and it didn’t matter. And in the middle of it, this wonderful athletic Jim Moody with his beautiful body jumps out of this bag in his underwear and all the girls can scream and and make catcalls about and they got all of their energy out. And by the end of it, they were played out. As far as that sort of negative, we’re not going to. And then we started interview and they loved it. They loved it. There was this enormous high energy show. I mean, we’re sweating like pigs. And anyway, it was a great thing. That was the, I think, my most enjoyable experience at the school as far as learning. And I mean, getting to know and work with Boris to Moran was where in the world?

Speaker Well, I’m sure there are other people that have similar sort of experiences. Our talent is past demand, but this man who who studied with Michael Chekhov is a direct link to Stanislavski. And he’s directing us in Chekhov.

Speaker I mean, it’s it’s amazing. And he was he was one of the few. Directors that I’ve ever known who was such a brilliant actor himself that he could do every part in the play. And you didn’t mind. It wasn’t like, I’m going to show you how to do this and you don’t do it like me. But I’m going to show you what this particular moment is about. He’d sit down at a table or whatever, and he would created the whole thing for you in an instant.

Speaker It was really bringing to a very world, John.

Speaker Oh, yeah. Just they just become one after another. And you’ve already named, you know, something to do. Rene Rennell version. I mean, who’s one of the great classical actors of our time? And I saw his work at AICTE and he’s.

Speaker But to have him just be one of the directors and direct he directed this in the first year in our town and then he did the Phaedo Hotel Paradiso, which we got to do with. And who better to do that?

Speaker Gosh. And then by the end of the third year, bring in Jerry Friedman. Gerald Friedman is a magnificent and probably. Yeah, I could probably say that when I’m doing any play. There are several moments in which and wherever I am and I will stop and I go, which are you believe this? He was that sort of incisive sort of. I say, are you are you telling the truth, your partner? I just did a little workshop with Jerry this fall.

Speaker It was his theme friendship that brought all this together.

Speaker Was it like a social swirl of him introducing all his friends to all his children?

Speaker I don’t know. I don’t know that they were his friends. Some of the people they hadn’t met, Tim. I mean, he’d just sort of I don’t think that Gerald Friedman had ever worked with John before, but John definitely knew Gerald’s work. Seen it. I don’t believe that they were. I’m almost certain they were not very well acquainted or anything. He just knew. This is the right person for this particular project. And boy, was he right. I mean, that was the school for scandal is what. That’s what Bay basically made the acting company. At least that what I’ve been told. That’s the time that at least John and Margo and and Michael sort of were able to look at it and go, we really do have something here. This could be a professional company. This could be what we sort of started out to do. And that was that was that production school was at the end of the third year with Jerry Friedman. And. That’s right. You were supposed to ask me this and I just. Now you are supposed to ask me that. But that is how Mary, Joan and I, my wife, got together because she there weren’t enough women’s parts in the school for scandal. So she she she joined the third year and I was already there. And so she had been there since September and had no time in the world for her. She was she was a very nice girl. But we didn’t work together really. I mean, we did we were going to one play. Together, which is interview, the interview, the other place. She was Earth cast into the shows and I was to the shows, I didn’t know. And during interview, which was all this touring around, she you know, she and I joked a lot, but it wasn’t it wasn’t any. It probably was looking back. It probably was flirting, but it was just, you know, gibes comeback. But she was she was she was a good sport and she was very funny. And she’s a really smart person. But, you know, by the time we got to the end of year, which was school for scandal, she there weren’t there wasn’t a role for her. They didn’t think that was. I’m sure she would dispute she should have been played one of the first. But anyway, she would she was chosen to be Jerry’s assistant. So she assist Jerry during that period. And because of the experience and working at the school for scandal, Jerry, who was directing Timon of Athens and Central Park that summer, Jerry gave me a job. He hired me, and that was my first equity job in the summer. After the third year, I worked for Jerry in Time and of Athens and also did symbolist with Ajanta. But he also hired Mary Jones to be his assistant in the summer. So he basically sort of set up the framework of all the other Juilliard kids have gone off to do their summer things. And we were just there together. And our romance started in Central Park that summer when he he hired he hired us. He didn’t know he was getting together, but he takes credit for it.

Speaker She said she said that all the other actors were quite irritated when they arrive with stires, fine. All of you thought, you know, who are these people?

Speaker Yeah. Yeah, there was quite a bit of that, especially though especially the girls. I mean, because the girls are going, why do we need the girl? There aren’t enough girls roles to, you know, ladies roles to go around anyway. But we definitely were, of course, a much better company with with Mary Jo. I mean, Mary Joan was just another great asset to put in there, the guys. Yeah, we were a little like how how’s this all gonna work out? How do we. Why do we need that? But stires Mr. Sparks.

Speaker David Ogden Stiers. He was such a different. Such a different type than any of the rest of us. He was he was a couple years older and. They just didn’t seem. There seem to be lots of roles that that none of us would have to play that David would would would take over. And Kevin Kevin was just I don’t know. I couldn’t. How could you ever be here with Kevin? He was such a nice person and talented. And the thing was the other thing was that it was wonderful having Kevin in class because he is so, so funny. So I never anyway, I never resented any of them.

Speaker I mean, Kevin, this piece, when when we got into the character mask work, which was basically when they came in, which is that third year, we’ve done a little of it the year before. But the heavy duty character mask work with peer LAVANDERO, which is just a.

Speaker A magnificent training tool class. I mean, I. I wish I mean. Which anybody wants to be an actor would have a chance to take that class because the way it’s set up and especially with a teacher like Peer, I don’t know that there are that many who know how to teach it the way it is. It’s it’s really you just go from this step to that step, to that step to that one. And he made it so just so, Crystal, what needed to be done now?

Speaker Sometimes it was difficult to get to those steps, but he could always trace you back and go, no, you always have to make a choice.

Speaker In these particular improvisations with these characters, that’s going to lead to a choice. That’s the whole point. And that when you get to this particular choice, they’ll have wasn’t a little fork in the road, they go. This is the funny choice. This one is a funny choice, but it’s also a deeper choice which will lead to another choice, which you anyway. So Kevin was just tremendous. And that I mean, who just killed us? He killed us. He’s a talented guy.

Speaker A lot of people later. Absolutely. They were deeply upset. How did you experience the network?

Speaker Well, I mean, experience that you just watched group to just disintegrate. I mean, they were our, you know, our buddies. I mean, they were right behind us, the ones who’d been there the longest. And they all just by the time they got into their third year, there were so few of them left. I mean, they were they were scrambling, trying to find a repertoire that they could do with the, you know, their depleted numbers. And we went and raided them and took one of their when the actually company was formed. The John. And we needed another actor. He decided that we needed another actor. And we we did. He’s a talented person. He went and took one of those students and put him in the act, took him out of school. I mean, they gave him the choice. Would you rather continue and do because it was in September. Would you rather go ahead and finish your your schooling at Juilliard or would you like to join the acting company, turn professional and go on tour with us now? I’ll go with you.