by Ted Chapin
In the middle of the week Michael flew to Cleveland for the opening of the tour of Coco, a musical that he had choreographed starring Katharine Hepburn as the couturiere Coco Chanel. Rather than have everyone just go over what had already been staged, he left the choreography in Bob’s hands for more work on “The World’s Full of Boys.” When he returned, the first thing was to show him what had been done in his absence. The work was fine, but the song was cut shortly thereafter.
Auditions were held on Tuesday, first for the older ballroom-dancing couple. This was hard. It does seem to be the only process that works, but auditioning is ruthless. When it involves older performers, there is an added melancholy. Who wants to reject someone the age of his parents or grandparents? Still, everyone in the theater understands the rules: if you want the part, you have to audition. Couple number one is introduced to Michael. They say how thrilled they are to meet him, what good things they’ve heard about him, etc. He thanks them graciously. Then he asks: “What do you have for me?” “Oh, anything you want—tango, merengue, fox-trot.” “I would just like to see you move, so anything would be fine.” The couple go over to the pianist, hand him some music and mutter a few words, then wander to the center of the room and begin. They move about the floor, doing a series of routines, but their faces show no emotion. When they finish, Michael says: “Thanks very much. We will let you know when we decide.” And suddenly the feeling of disappointment in the room is palpable. They know what that line means. They haven’t made it. They leave as quickly as possible. If it doesn’t go well and you get the “thank you,” it’s best to beat a hasty retreat. No one wants to engage in conversation. The next couple is ushered in. “How tall are you?” Michael asks. “Five-eleven.” “We are looking for dancers over six feet.” The woman pipes up: “Do I have to be six feet, too?” The man suggests: “We could go on the stretching machine every day.” They do their routine. “Thank you.” The woman goes over to Hal, who is not looking thrilled, and introduces herself as the friend of a friend of his. The name doesn’t register. “Well, she doesn’t even know I was coming down to audition for you. Won’t she be surprised?” Hal smiles. Several other couples come in; none gets selected.
Then come the three finalists for the role of Young Ben. Sondheim is summoned from a conference with the music department. The first candidate is brought in. All three young men have been screened by Hal’s in-house casting director, the respected actress Joanna Merlin. The first two seem lightweight—one wears a floppy bow tie, the other has a bouffant hairstyle. Neither is of much interest. But the third, Kurt Peterson, is a distinct possibility. He reads some scenes with a stage manager and everyone seems pleased. John McMartin is summoned to see what they would look like together, since they would be playing the same person at different ages. “Well,” said Hal, “it looks as if over the years the nose has changed shape a little bit, but we can play with some putty.” John asks if he could hear him sing. “Oh, yes, fine, okay, by all means.” Kurt chats with the pianist, then his large voice fills the room with “Lonely Town,” from On the Town, and everyone is pleased. He stands there, smiling, with his hands in his pea coat, looking somewhat sheepish. When asked how old he is he says: “Twenty-two, twenty-three in February,” to which Hal replies, “No. Didn’t hear that. You’re twenty-two.” Kurt seems somewhat dumbstruck. “Well,” says Hal, “I hope to see you . . . in rehearsal!” “Ah, really, thank you very much.” Then Kurt beats his own hasty retreat. As he leaves, a toothbrush falls from his pocket. The atmosphere this time is decidedly upbeat. A good and successful audition can energize a room. The truth is that everyone in the room wants every audition to be great. It’s just that so few are. Kurt Peterson is hired to play Young Ben.
The four principals were taught their signature song, “Waiting for the Girls Upstairs.” Michael began to rough out some staging, with Hal sitting close by. It was the first time I had seen them together. Their relationship seemed carefully crafted. They had clearly enjoyed working together on Company, a joyous experience for everyone. Michael had his sights set on directing, and he was looking for the right opportunity. Hal was in transition, clearly preferring the artistic challenge of directing to the business drudgery of producing, and he wasn’t about to hand the direction of this show over to anyone else. Michael knew that the fluid nature of the show would require him to do a lot more than just create isolated dances, so he saw it as an opportunity to move one step closer to directing. Both men realized that this show would be important to their careers, so they had agreed on the almost unprecedented notion of codirecting. Basically Michael was responsible for all the dances and the movement, which in Follies was a prominent part of the direction. Hal directed and staged the book scenes, which were, by nature, episodic and short; very few were traditional in structure, and they tended to involve ghost figures and crowd movement in addition to dialogue. But, to the credit of these two artists, the end result looked seamless. The actions of these first few days, however, were indicative of how things would progress: Michael was using every second of the time allotted to him, while Hal would work with any actors who were free on any scene in which they were involved. (Hal seemed to have a lot of time on his hands.) “Waiting for the Girls Upstairs” was a song that landed right between both men’s responsibilities, and it was Sondheim’s favorite song. He made it known that he wanted to see how it was to be staged as soon as it was on its feet. By week’s end, enough of it had been blocked out for him to be summoned for a run-through. He was pleased, but afterward he called a brief meeting out of earshot of the actors to explain just what liberties he would allow within the melody and rhythms—and which ones he would not.
As the week went on, preparations for the first day of full company rehearsals took focus. The scripts had been prepared by Studio Duplicating, a firm that specialized in scripts for Broadway shows. Everyone used them, and their style was distinctive. The process was by mimeograph, in which each page had to be typed onto a stencil that would then be placed on the drum of the printing machine, inked, and printed, copy by copy, on 8½” x 11” paper with two holes on the left-hand margin. The process was repeated for each page, and then the collated scripts would be bound in specially coated covers fixed with little brass screws. The covers were distinctive; no other copying establishment had them. And they were available in a vast array of colors. Follies’ was orange, but there had already been earlier versions in green, red, and light blue. The title was embossed in the center in a single, no-nonsense typeface. Because the mimeograph process was time-consuming, once rehearsals began it would become my responsibility to type out individual pages with changes and make enough copies to go to those who needed them. I would make copies either by placing multiple carbon sets in the typewriter (I worked up to being able to do ten at one time) or by using the new machine at the Prince office made by the Xerox company. This dry copying system was fairly new, and it was slow. It would, however, be the preferred route if large numbers of copies were needed.
Saturday would be the official first day of rehearsal. A whole lot of people would be showing up. In addition to the entire cast, people who would be working on the show over the next few months would also be attending—designers, musical staff, press agents, and assistants from the office—as well as some friends. Part social event, part actual work, the first day of rehearsal has an almost ritual feel to it. Everyone would gather in the large rehearsal room, which would be arranged with several tables pushed together in the middle surrounded by as many chairs as we could find. Around the periphery would be additional chairs, even crates and boxes, to accommodate everyone. A high table on casters was positioned so that the model of the set could be viewed by everyone. The piano was pulled out of the corner so Sondheim could play the songs. Following general introductions, the script would be read through. Then the work would begin.
On Friday, I helped the stage managers prepare. The week—not to mention the years—of preparation was coming to an end. Fol
lies was about to begin in earnest. Several songs were still not written, the Follies sequence wasn’t fully formed, and there was no ballroom-dance couple. But on Saturday, at ten A.M., a motley assortment of people with a variety of different talents would converge for the first time in the service of the collaboration that would result in Follies.
2 “Hats Off, Here They Come, Those Beautiful Girls”
IN THE REHEARSAL STUDIO,
THE FIRST WEEK, JANUARY 9—15
Since I had been asked to help open up, I made certain I was there on time. In fact, I was the first to arrive. The three stage managers followed shortly. There was work enough for all four of us: lights on, tables and chairs checked, scripts and music collated for all the actors, and so on. Although the day marked the official beginning of rehearsals, there was a decidedly social aspect to the morning’s activities. I had no idea exactly who was going to show up, only that it was to be quite a crowd.
The next to arrive was Terry Marone, the official from the union for actors and stage managers, Actors’ Equity Association. She was a fixture on the first day of rehearsal for all Broadway shows. A former singer and dancer, she was responsible for making certain all the proper union paperwork was completed, including contracts, insurance, and pension and welfare forms. Any performers who weren’t members had to join, and she was to take them through the process; the three Las Vegas showgirls were likely candidates. And once all Equity members were assembled, she had to read the rules and regulations out loud. As Terry unloaded her papers and laid out her forms on a table in the hall, John Grigas hovered, helping her get organized. The forms were complicated, and as he separated the different forms into neat piles, he muttered, “Some of these actors are really very dense. I’m sorry to have to say it, but I’ve been in this business for a long time.” Terry, in her capacity as a union administrator, said, “I have also been in this business for a long time, but I can’t talk about it anymore.”
I posted a couple of messages on the callboard. From George Furth, author of the book of Company: “The next thing is the best thing. Good luck with the next thing. Follies is beautiful. Warmly, with love, George Furth.” A letter from Louis Botto, an old-line theater journalist who was hoping to do a piece on Hal for Look magazine: “Dear Harold Prince: Thank you for letting me read Follies. It is to the American musical what Virginia Woolf was to the American drama. It takes its form one step further than Company, and higher praise I cannot bestow.”
The supporting players in a publicity pose on the
first day of rehearsal: Mary McCarty, Ethel Shutta,
Michael Bartlett, Fifi D’Orsay, Ethel Barrymore Colt.
The actors started arriving around nine-thirty. And they were quite a group. Mary McCarty, a zaftig woman in her late forties, had made a splash in 1949s Miss Liberty, but hadn’t been on Broadway since Bless You All in 1950. Her career had included a lot of nightclub work, and she had recently opened her own “Eastside niterie,” appropriately named MaryMary. She would play Stella Deems, who would lead the group of old Follies girls in “Who’s That Woman?” Hers was a secondary character, but her backup dancers would include every woman listed above her in the show’s program. This number would prove to be a highlight. Fifi D’Orsay was to play Solange LaFitte, the Follies’ resident French person. She had been calling all week to check on this or that, so often that Hal stopped taking her calls, always happening to be unfortunately unavailable. She arrived fully made-up, a librarian’s chain hanging from her eyeglasses, in a sweater, plaid pants, and a pageboy hat, and she talked a mile a minute in her heavily French-accented English, greeting everyone with “ ’Allo, babee” and calling everyone “chickie-poo.” Turns out she was from Montreal and had never been to France, but never mind. She was a bundle of nerves. And then there was Ethel Shutta, at seventy-four the oldest member of the cast, who trudged up the stairs, solid, standing firm in her sensible orthopedic shoes. When she was hired, she wrote a four-page thank-you letter to casting director Joanna Merlin, telling her how happy she was to be cast, since she had been sure her career was over. She was the one holdover from one of the show’s previous incarnations, having been cast by Stuart Ostrow when he held the option, and had written to Hal when she heard that he had the show. “You won’t have heard of me,” she began, but what she didn’t know was that when Hal was eight, he had stood in line at his school with all the other boys to get the autograph of one classmate’s mother, who, they said, had been a Follies girl. The classmate was Georgie Olsen, and his mother was Ethel Shutta. Michael Bartlett was to play Roscoe, the old tenor who serenades everyone with the opening song, “Beautiful Girls.” He looked as old as Ethel did, and seemed a little bewildered, his eyesight less than perfect. But his silver-white hair and mature girth gave him an aura of faded grandeur. Ethel Barrymore Colt, a member of the famous theatrical family, was always gracious, although she looked as if she had ventured a little farther downtown than she was used to. Somewhat out of her element, she stayed pretty quiet. Gene Kelly’s younger brother, Fred, who had been running a dancing school in New Jersey, played a small role. He, too, was a quiet figure, keeping to himself most of the time. Sheila Smith, Broadway’s stalwart leading lady standby, most recently for Angela Lansbury in Mame, had her own part this time but was also called on to cover the leading women. Low-voiced, dark-haired, and slim, she had the poise of a dancer and the look of someone who had seen it all. Justine Johnston, a full-figured character actress with an operatic voice, would play Heidi Schiller, a singer from Vienna, who, years ago, had had a waltz written specially for her. She would shortly be elected Equity deputy for the company, with the responsibility of seeing to it that management behaved and that rehearsals were run by the rulebook. As rehearsals progressed, she could be seen glancing at the watch she wore permanently around her neck. Justine wasn’t someone to tangle with.
The rest of the company was full of good New York character actors—among them Dick Latessa, Helon Blount, Charles Welch, Dortha Duckworth, and John J. Martin. Of course, the dancers looked great—young, slim, attractive, alert, and cheerful; they seemed to be a source of limitless energy and stamina. When the first casting call went out, bona fide ex–Follies ladies showed up, looking nothing like their old photographs which they presented as current. Few could actually act.
While looking for something in the stage managers’ office, I found a list of actors who had been considered for the show. The task was to find old Hollywood stars, regardless of whether they could sing. Among the men: Van Johnson, E. G. Marshall, Peter Lawford, Jim Backus, Howard Keel, Craig Stevens, Jack Albertson, John Raitt, Don Ameche, and Ray Middleton. And the women: Rhonda Fleming, Joan Bennett, Kitty Carlisle, Barbara Cook, Gloria DeHaven, and Jane Wyman. So Alexis Smith, Gene Nelson, and Dorothy Collins fit right in, as did the woman who was about to make a somewhat grand entrance.
Direct from Hollywood, in all her glamour: Yvonne De Carlo.
Working her way up the stairs, wrapped in fur, wearing a black wig and teardrop-shaped sunglasses, and carrying a small suitcase covered in fabric of brightly colored flowers, came Yvonne De Carlo. Of all the actors in the show, she was considered to have the best “name” because of her recent television experience as Lily, the mother in The Munsters, a ghoulish family situation comedy created somewhat as a humorous twist on Charles Addams’s cartoons and characters (who had their own series called The Addams Family). Arriving in Hollywood in 1940 from Canada with a pushy mother, Peggy Yvonne Middleton yearned for a career in the movies, which happened once she changed her name to something more exotic-sounding. Taking her mother’s maiden name, De Carlo, she landed the title role in an audience-pleaser titled Salome, Where She Danced. She had found her niche, and continued to portray harem gals and dance hall gals, mostly with a fair amount of flesh showing. As Leonard Maltin put it rather succinctly, “her starring roles didn’t usually require much in the way of emoting, but she gamely rose to the occasion when something more than looking beautifu
l was required.” The Munsters had become a camp favorite, and Yvonne De Carlo quite embodied the spirit of the show, driving around Hollywood in a car outfitted like a hearse. New York’s autograph hounds, a scruffy group of men who followed celebrities around town, didn’t take long to find out where Follies was rehearsing, and although they often toted movie magazines with photographs of Alexis and Gene, and even Dorothy and Ethel Shutta, Yvonne was the catch. Her daily outfits rarely changed and the dark glasses were standard attire when she ventured out into the real world. After a while she even mustered a sense of humor about herself, reporting that a cab-driver, looking in his rearview mirror, had remarked, “Hey, lady, why do you wear those sunglasses? What do you think you are, a movie star?” She was playing only a featured role, Carlotta Campion, but it was being beefed up for her. Although she had “also starring” billing, right below the title, her name was equal in size to the four principals, and she had the line all to herself. Before long, nicknames were established for the stars of the show: “the big four” for Alexis, Gene, Dorothy, and John, and “the big one” for Yvonne. Make no mistake about it, until she sat down at the table and became one of the gang, she was our resident movie star. After she had greeted everyone and had settled herself in, I handed her a script. She looked around and remarked, “Hey, this is some classy joint.”
