5-12-06
News from the North
Most of the news Behind the Curtain is from Evanston this issue.
Beginning in September, the Northwestern University School of Communications welcomes a new professor: distinguished director and choreographer David H. Bell. Associated in his early career with the Marriott Theatre in Lincolnshire, and associated in his current mature career with Chicago Shakespeare Theater, Bell has roots here that go back 25 years. Now he’s pulling up stakes in New York, his longtime home, and looking for a place in Chicago or Evanston. Bell was in town in April killing three birds with one stone: he staged a portion of the 75th annual Waa-Mu Show at Northwestern (April 28-May 7 performances), he held auditions at Chicago Shakespeare Theater for his expected-to-be-lavish new, musical version of The Three Musketeers (Dec. 16, 2006-Feb. 18, 2007) and he went home-hunting. We don’t know why he needs to buy a place; he could build a three-flat from the ground up with his collection of Joseph Jefferson Awards.
Speaking of the Waa-Mu Show, those of you unfamiliar with it (if any could be so benighted) should know that it’s the Mother of All Undergraduate Variety Shows, co-founded in 1931 by Northwestern legend Joe Miller, who directed it for the next 46 years. It was produced by the Women’s Athletic Association and the Men’s Union, hence the name Waa-Mu (say “Wah-Mew”).
Among notable Northwestern students who appeared in Waa-Mu or wrote for it are: Tony Randall, Cloris Leachman, Charlotte Rae, Paul Lynde, Claude Akins, Sheldon Harnick, McClean Stevenson, George Furth, Warren Beatty, Nancy Dussault, Garry Marshall, Ann-Margret, Tony Roberts, Karen Black, Frank Galati, Shelley Long, Gregg Edelman, Ana Gasteyer, Megan Mullally, Brian d’Arcy James and Heather Headley. Of course, that means that Northwestern undergrads Hope Abelson, Charlton Heston, Jennifer Jones, John Logan, David Schwimmer, Mary Zimmerman, Denis O’Hare, Paula Prentiss, Richard Benjamin, Terry McCabe and a few others did not appear in Waa-Mu. Still, it’s not too shabby an alumni list.
Frank Galati was sweet enough to e-mail a personal reminiscence, which we are pleased to reprint in full. “I was in Waa-Mu for four years under Joe Miller’s direction. In those years Gus Giordano did the choreography himself and the beloved Harriet Crowley was the acting coach. Miss Crowley was a brilliant actor herself and performed funny and touching one-woman shows around the North Shore. She always performed at the Cherub’s final bash. Joe was a soft-spoken sweet man who always wore smocks and during the run of the show decorated them with boutonnieres that grew larger and larger each year.
“I wrote songs and skits for the show as well as being what was called a principal. Jeff Haddow, Mark Lamos, Evelyn Barron, Karen Johnson, Jim Bell, Sheila O’Neil were all in the show my years. I did a monologue each year, usually sending up one of our professors. One year I did a monologue based on Herman the janitor at Annie May Swift Hall. I loved Waa-Mu, every delirious second of it, and I learned a great deal from Joe and the entire experience. It was a huge, complex organization and it created a paradigm for creative work in musical theatre. The training was and still is invaluable. Most of all, those were our ‘salad days.’ Each spring, with the purple and white crocii, came song and dance and sometimes real satire. What a joy to celebrate this Waa-Mu Jubilee.”
Just as Waa-Mu turned 75, the Next Theatre Company turned 25. A gala North Shore crowd gathered in Evanston April 30 to honor co-founders Harriet Spizziri and Brian Finn. Neither has been active in theatre for well over a decade (and Finn now lives in San Diego) so their names are not as well known as they should be. Spizziri and Finn really set Next on its eventual course of presenting socially provocative theatre, with such gritty 1980s social dramas as Class Enemy, The Crackwalker and The Normal Heart, and political fare such as Johnny On A Spot and The Enormous Room. Next introduced young directors such as Eric Simonson and Dexter Bullard to Chicago audiences, and gave early acting opportunities to Matt DeCaro, Ann Dowd, Si Osborne, Lee Guthrie, Stephen Trovillion and Lawrence Arancio, among many others. Next was founded on $1,000 in profits from a wild cat oil well that came in, courtesy of Harriet Spizziri’s husband.
We also take note of a sad celebration: Mary B. Rouleau, president of the board of Light Opera Works, died Sunday, April 16. She’d been a dedicated LOW board member since 1999. Many theatre folk will remember Rouleau from the days when she ran a photography business (she photographed LOW productions gratis). A dedicated arts maven, Rouleau was a regular at Goodman Theatre, Next Theatre and Lyric Opera of Chicago, and served as president of the Dancing Club of Evanston (among other notable civic positions).
Director Ina Marlowe has herself a new Near North gig at the Feltre Library Theatre. What? You never heard of the Feltre Library? Me neither. It’s part of the Feltre School, a small, independent non-profit institution specializing in adult education focusing on language and literature. Just 15 years old, the Feltre (that’s “Fell-tray”) occupies a townhouse at 22 West Erie, formerly a residence for Methodist deaconesses. Last fall, the Feltre launched a play reading series in its 60-seat library theatre, with Marlowe as artistic director and Feltre co-founder Lawrence Lenza as executive director.
They began last autumn with single-performance readings of plays by Sophocles, Ibsen and O’Neill with Equity players Tony Mockus, William J. Norris, Cynthia Judge and Maureen Gallagher, among the readers. The series continued May 5-7 with a bill of fully-staged Tennessee Williams one-acts. Next fall, Feltre Library Theatre will offer Ionesco’s Exit the King and Noel Coward’s Fallen Angels. Info at 312/255-1133, or www.feltre.org.