My Sondheim Summer

In 1985, I was studying technical theatre at San Diego State. A friend passed along a tip that transformed my summer. La Jolla Playhouse needed students to crew their summer productions. Young and clueless, I had no idea of La Jolla Playhouse’s history, and I didn’t know who would be involved with their current season. It turned out to be an amazing experience.

I wish I could boast that my wonderful credentials got me the job, but I have to be honest. Just the willingness to work long hours for almost no money got me in, since they were short on hands and short on time. The locals who worked the crew were from colleges nearby, and most of us were studying acting or technical theatre. I developed a crush on one of the student actors, a big flirt with a conveniently absent girlfriend. Nothing happened between us, but it did earn me a crew nickname. He was Landshark, and I was Sharkette.

Crew members relaxing backstage

Once I arrived backstage for my first tech rehearsal, it became apparent that I was surrounded by some of Broadway’s best people. The show was the musical Merrily We Roll Along by Stephen Sondheim and George Furth. It wasn’t just that we were doing their show. They were there in person, doing daily re-writes and revisions. I peeked out at Stephen Sondheim from behind the curtain in awe, which is where I remained for the rest of the month. I never once had the courage to speak to him, but I watched him whenever I could. When the rehearsal began, I recognized the actor playing Franklin Shepard, one of the lead roles. It was John Rubinstein. I turned to my fellow crew members and said breathlessly, “It’s Pippin!  That’s Pippin!” They answered, “Who?” I dug out my tape of the Pippin cast recording and played it on my drive to the theatre all summer. The rest of the cast had intimidating Broadway credits as well. At least with them I wasn’t as awestruck. It helped that I didn’t get to read a program until much later.

Merrily We Roll Along opened on Broadway in 1981 and closed after only 16 performances. The music was praised but the book had problems. It’s the story of three friends and the disintegration of their friendship, told in reverse chronological order. When the musical starts, the characters are angry, bitter, and compromised. At the end, they are young, optimistic and idealistic. One of the big problems was how to end at the beginning and still have it be interesting for an audience who knew the beginning at the end. La Jolla Playhouse’s production was the first of several attempts to rework the musical. It was a fascinating process to observe, and changes continued throughout the 24 performances. The local crew’s favorite regular re-write was seeing which gadget would get invented by one of the characters in the second act. Some nights it was the answering machine, but each night it was likely to be something else, and we never knew what until the scene came up.

Because I’m tall, I often got assigned to grips, meaning I pushed sets around. Sad really, since I’ve never been strong or athletic. Being detail-oriented, I preferred running props—taking care of many little items that need to be placed just so. It’s easy to guess where I was assigned here. I was shoving around rolling platforms, moving furniture, and shifting stair units. There were frequent set changes on this show with lots of furniture pieces, so I was always exhausted at the end of the day.

The set was built on two rolling platforms from the back. We’d shove them out and pull them back using long wooden poles with hooks that caught on rings mounted to the platforms. We quickly learned how tricky it was to get the hook out of the ring. More than once, the pole got jerked out of someone’s hand to slam down on the stage floor and get pulled along by the platform. We were ordered to avoid hooking the rings. One night during a rehearsal, my hook slipped into a ring by accident, and when the platform was pulled in, the wooden pole hit a brace above my head. As the platform was pulled in further by all those strong guys, the force snapped my pole in two. The breaking pieces hit my thigh and knocked me down. Honestly, I thought my leg had snapped as well, but I was only bruised. It was a terrific welt that turned all sorts of interesting colors.

The Emergency Room (check out the La Jolla Playhouse tee shirts!)

I wasn’t the only person who suffered. John Rubinstein put his back out during the same rehearsal, and everyone was very careful to help him whenever possible. Fortunately, the show didn’t require him to dance, but he had to climb up and down those platforms, and sometimes they moved when the actors were standing on them. Later, just before the show finished its run, one of the props crew had a fall that injured his neck, requiring a trip to the emergency room. I had to take over his duties, and my old tasks were divided up between the other grips. I was flattered that they trusted me with a new position, but I was also hurt that my job on grips was considered dispensable. I felt that everything I did was hugely important to the show. My first night doing props, an actor couldn’t get off a platform because nobody bothered to set one of my old stair units. I felt very smug.

During the Merrily run, which opened on June 16th, there were some dramatic events happening in the real world. Because I was surrounded by people who read The New York Times and listened to news radio, these events became part of my memories of the show. On June 23rd, Air India Flight 182 was brought down by a terrorist bomb. On June 30th, I saw a small brush fire along the side of the freeway on my drive through Mission Valley. By the time I got to the theatre and we began our performance, the fire went out of control and destroyed 76 homes. Standing outside the theatre, we could see the smoke and flames. It was surreal.

Later, we had a fire scare of our own. During a performance, a fire alarm in the theatre went off. I wasn’t sure what the procedure would be, but the show definitely does not go on. The audience, cast and crew moved outside, where we waited until the fire department arrived and found the problem. Somebody had left a hot soldering gun in a utility room which set off the alarm. Once we were given the all-clear, the audience went back to their seats, and the actors picked up right where they left off. I was amazed at how calm everybody was coping with the situation. A lot of the credit went to Johnna Murray, our fantastic stage manager.

Another significant world event that happened just before the Merrily run was the introduction of New Coke. Yuck. For 79 days, classic Coke was not available. Old-fashioned bottles of Coke were used in one of our scenes, so luckily the Merrily team had purchased enough old Coke to use for the entire run. Those Coke bottles became the most treasured items in the theatre. We’d to go down to the prop storage area and lust over the stash.  Fortunately, New Coke was a marketing disaster, and classic Coke was brought back on July 11.

John Rubinstein remained my favorite cast member for the run of the show. During one of the longest rehearsals, there was a surprise delivery backstage of pies and cookies for everyone. He tried to stay anonymous, but word got around that Rubinstein was responsible. After another long rehearsal, I wrote in my diary: “Today we went from 10:30am to midnight, did two full run-throughs, totaling twenty scene shifts, three Act 1 presets and two Act 2 presets. The preview went fairly well. I prayed constantly to get through it. John Rubinstein gave me a hug at the end.” One day I left a wind-up toy dragon on his dressing room table, and he searched me out to thank me. I still have the Merrily tee shirt that I had him autograph after a performance one night. He was clearly exhausted but still gracious enough to write “I Love You” above his name. (I’m sure he didn’t love me at that particular moment.)

John Rubinstein’s autograph

I didn’t dislike the other cast members, but they were older and so much more experienced. One guy had a game that I enjoyed but played very badly.  He had the first lines from dozens of books memorized, and he’d quote one and then make us guess the book.

I love to take photographs, but I was still using a 110 camera back then, so my photos from the show are awful. The first time I took a photo of an actor hanging out backstage, he snapped at me for it. After that, I never attempted to photograph the other actors, which is why all my photos are of the crew.

The fly crew with airplanes they flew down to the stage below.

We worked hard, but we also played hard. Most nights we would go to a nearby restaurant in a big group after the performance. There were fancy catered parties in some of the fabulous La Jolla homes surrounding the theatre, and the crew was usually invited. My favorite party was hosted by Des McAnuff, the artistic director. Because it was on a day without a performance, we got to dress up.  I borrowed my roommate’s cabbage rose blouse (a big fashion craze that summer), put on some jewelry and makeup, and felt like Cinderella going to the ball. John Rubinstein asked me at the party what I thought of the revisions to the show. I told him that the graduation scene at the end wasn’t working, and that it might be better to end with the song “Our Time,” which happened to be my favorite. At the next performance, the graduation scene was dropped and “Our Time” became the finale. I wish I could take credit for this, but I doubt I had anything to do with it. I’m not even sure it was a good suggestion, because the ending still didn’t feel quite right.

The audience seemed to enjoy the show, but we really enjoyed the audience. Each night, we’d peek out from behind the curtain to see what celebrities were in the house. It seemed like there was always somebody famous. I didn’t make a list, but I do remember Gene Hackman came backstage.

After Merrily We Roll Along closed, I didn’t meet any of the cast members again. John Rubinstein is still hard at work, and I love seeing him in guest roles on television. He still looks great, too. I worked with some of the same crew members on The Seagull later that summer, but then I lost touch with everybody.

My photos are terrible and my tee shirt no longer fits, but I have some wonderful memories.

(Click to enlarge and read)

[Note:  When I was composing the paragraph about our fire scare, the smoke alarm went off in my kitchen! ]