Tuning in…
Tuning in…
Castaway
1 appearance
Theatre director, playwright, producer, and actor, still active at 97 directing On Your Toes.
On the island
Eight records
Falling in Love with LoveFavourite
And it can be sung so that it makes no sense. But if it's sung beautifully, it has a beautiful lyric and it's very moving, both in the music and in the words.
I'll tell you the reason is people ask you, what is your favorite show? And you haven't any really favorite, but you always say the last one. And so Now On Your Toes is my favorite show, and so I must pick a song from that.
And it illustrates how you have to hear things twice sometimes. or have a reason to listen to them. I think if that song had been so placed In the musical, that something was at stake or emotionally involved, I would have remembered it, but I didn't.
Christine Andreas and Lara Teeter
I think I'll cheat and get another one from On Your Toes, and this has been a big hit for many, many years. It's a very tender song, as so many of Larry Hart's songs are, called Small Hotel.
The reason I like this song I suggested it. We were stuck for a number in the second act, and I remembered a song of Irving Berlin's called Sing Something Simple, which was counterpoint a slow number against a fast number.
In the pajama game, the big hit was Hey There. And this needs some explaining and as far as the record goes. In the show, John Wright sang to the Dixophone about this girl that he thought was giving him a hard time. And then he played back his record, and he talked to it, and then he sang with it.
Let's Do It (Let's Fall in Love)
Or or we're going to do uh a funny one for a change. Let's do it. We've got a wonderful lyric to cheer you up.
Russ Brown and the Ball Players
Oh, I think a a good way to finish is optimistically with you gotta have heart. From Damn Yankees... So this is a baseball manager trying to buck up four discouraged players.
In conversation
Presenter asks
0:54What brings you to London on this occasion?
On this occasion I came to direct A production of On Your Toes.
Presenter asks
3:11Do you remember the very first time you visited a theater?
I do. It was in Cheyenne, Wyoming. And it was a farce about a minister who went to a prize fight and was fainting with his fists the next day, and that's all I can remember about it.
Presenter asks
5:03What was your ambition [at college]? What did you want to be?
I thought I would be a writer. I thought journalist had a dandy sound.
Presenter asks
9:46Which of [the great theatrical producers, like David Belasco and Jed Harris] do you remember?
Well, Jed Harris wasn't anybody I worked for. He was somebody I helped get started. But really Pulasko I worked for, and he was a real character, although he was Jewish. He wore a Roman collar, which he affected, and he was a great dramatist with his caste. One time he took an axe and chopped the scenery to pieces, and I learned from the stage manager that they'd decided to change it so he could put on this act of fury to affect us all.
The keepsakes
The book
Well, I'm pretty well fixed, but I think the thing that would give me the most pleasure would be the encyclopedia.
The luxury
I think if you were alone on an island, to be able to write would be company which would keep you from being lonely and and make you feel useful.
Presenter asks
11:48How soon did management come into it? How soon did you like to put on your own [shows]?
Oh, I I'd never liked to put on my own shows, but I didn't like managers hanging over my shoulder when I was trying to do something, so I became a manager to get rid of managers.
Presenter asks
21:30Do you regret having given up acting?
Are you referring to m My return to the stage? Or don't you know about that? ... I played the lead in The Skin of Our Teeth after I hadn't been on acting for thirty years.
“I enjoy it and and I've always enjoyed working. That's the only reason I can give you.”
“But I claim acting is by observation, not by experience.”
“I'm sort of reckless. I would go in and fix anything, practically.”
“But I think if you were alone on an island, to be able to write would be company which would keep you from being lonely and and make you feel useful.”