Stories From Alums


STORIES FROM ALUMS
FROM LARRY BANGS Memories of Lost Innocence at the BHP In 1964 at the very impressionable age of 16 I was allowed the great privilege of joining the BHP company (probably cuz my Dad was Prez of the BOD). That was the last year of the "lean and mean" companies. Couldn't have been more than 35 - 40 total in camp so everybody did everything -- even Milt (who was also 16 but an "old hand" by then) and me. That included trying to look like a crusty old miner and sit in the bar scene for "The Legend of Devil's Gulch" (hereinafter affectionately referred to as "The Gulch"). I was pretty staggered all summer just being surrounded by college age theatre folk, but the actresses -- whoa! Talk about hormonal overload! They loved to tease me (Mary Sue Perkins gave me my "first cherry" in the design room off the kitchen -- unfortunately, it was of the fruit variety). Margo Chandler took me swimming/sunbathing on Sunday mornings and made me feel very grown up. But I was deeply and hopelessly in love with Barbara Hanson. This was the first year that Evie and Ellie were NOT the saloon girls in Gulch so it was a pretty big deal when Margo and Barbara were cast in their roles. Barbara had promised me that on the final night of The Gulch she would sit on my lap and give me a kiss during "Waltz Me Around Again, Willy." I was practically beside myself with anticipation as the great night neared. I was in my chair ready to go and happened to notice that Walt Gislason took the seat next to me. Walt had never sat at that table before but I didn't give it much thought. I was somewhat preoccupied and had my attention focused on what was to come. Margo and Barbara start the number. Barbara winks at me at the beginning just to make sure I knew it really was my night. Oh boy, was this going to be the thrill of this 16 year-old's life (things ain't what they used to be innocence wise). The girls come around during the chorus when it's time to sit on a few laps and here comes Barbara right on cue. And I am READY. At the absolute perfect moment (his timing on stage was never this good), Gislason pushes my cowboy hat over my face just as Barbara is leaning in to plant one on me. She got all hat, I got nothin' and everyone in the bar (apparently Barbara and I were the only ones not in on the joke) went into an uproar. Fortunately, it was supposed to be a raucous bar scene so I'm sure the audience was non the wiser. Nonetheless, I was in touch with Walt just the other day and even though it will be 43 years this summer (so, who's counting?), I let him know that I still have not forgiven him. In 1965, now being a seasoned veteran of 17 (and a Comanche with the very embarrasing name of "Boy Who Likes Big Girls"), I was cast as Ito, the Japanese houseboy in "Auntie Mame." Joanie Pape was just magnificent as Mame -- many years later I got to see her on Broadway as Sister Woman in "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" with Elizabeth Ashley and Fred Gwinn. Marian Reed played Mame's best friend -- (you fill in the blank, I sure as hell can't remember the name). I got my first taste of the power of comic theatre coming down stairs center stage with Marian as (Velma?) passed out on the couch. Paused just to make sure I had everyone's attention and in one of the worst Japanese accents you have ever heard, exclaimed as loudly as possible, "Me tuck her in!" Boy, was I somethin'. Staying in character with my Comanche name and hard earned reputation, I was backstage one night later in the run with Bonnie Swenson (sorry, Bonnie, can't remember your maiden name - yet another Playhouse marriage) sitting on my lap happily helping her learn her lines for the next show. I was faintly aware of a phone ringing persistently on stage and wondering what was up -- didn't seem right -- when someone looked at me and said, "Larry, aren't you supposed to be answering that phone." Omigod! I raced on stage to find Skip somebody or other (not Swenson) in the midst of a hilarious pantomime with the phone. He made his entrance as a paper hanger laden with buckets and ladders, etc. The phone rings and just as he puts all his stuff down and reaches for the phone, I was supposed to make a perfectly timed entrance to give him a great mugging opportunity (which he never passed up). This night, I was about 45 seconds late (an eternity on stage when things have gone wrong as you know). Skip and I made the best of it and the show went on. Next night, at least 10 minutes before the cue for my entrance, Graham Thatcher leads me out of the dressing room and holds me firmly by the shoulders at the door where I am to make my entrance and at the very correct moment, releases me with a fair amount of momentum in the direction of the stage. Graham may have repeated this for a couple of more nights. I really don't remember. I can tell you that I have been early for every single entrance I've made in a play since then. Fond memories always for the "good old days" Larry Bangs	FROM ANNE MUNDELL It was 1985 and I was sitting next to Bill Anderson in a tech for a show I’d designed at Brandeis in my second year of grad school. Bill leaned over and quietly asked “What are you doing this summer?” At that point in my life, the farthest west I’d been was Louisiana. My parents had taken us over the Mississippi as kids so that we could say that we’d been “West of the Mississippi”. Even at the ripe old age of 24 (yes, do the math, I’m that old), as far as I was concerned, the West Coast was the east bank of the Mississippi and anything beyond Saint Louis was as distant as the moon. To go all of the way to South Dakota was the adventure of a lifetime, equivalent with heading up the Amazon in a bark canoe. In May, Lynn Nickles, another Brandeis person, my dog Kirby and I climbed into my car and headed out. There was a lot to notice as we headed west. People in Boston speak with their mouths in a flat line. By the time we got to Pittsburgh, folks were only talking out of one side of their mouths. One of the freakiest things was what happened in Madison, Wisconsin: People’s faces formed perfect donuts when the said anything with an “O” in it. I was convinced that I was going to be able to see those “O’s” pop out of their mouths like soap bubbles. Stranger still was the fact that the farther west we went, the nicer the toll booth people were. No longer was change returned with a grunt and no eye contact. Now we got a smile and a heartfelt “Have a nice day”. Were they getting paid more out here? And was there some kind of special on blond hair dye in the upper Midwest or was it possible that all of these people were truly BLOND? When we got to Wall Drug, I honestly felt like a Martian. This kind of place only existed in the movies. The badlands made me silent and humble; I think I understood at that moment how awe-inspiring the planet could really be. And then the Hills. Every eyeful and lungful convinced me that this was a sacred place. But then the enchantment ended with a sickening crash. We rolled into camp. What was this place and how could anyone do theater here? We stood outside of my car, speechless. I think the first thing we said to each other was something like: “You wanna get back in the car?” The place was deserted. I felt like we might have been plopped right down in the middle of a grade “B” horror flick. Had Freddy Krueger killed everyone in camp? Was he lurking behind the snack bar, just waiting for his chance to get us, too? Then I heard an odd sound….clink….clink…clink. I looked down the road and there was a guy casually swinging a tin can on a string back and forth over the road. Was he divining for water or maybe even gold with that gadget? No, but it turned out that he was doing the BHP equivalent. This was not Freddy Krueger, but it WAS a kind of prospector. It was John Wylie questing for hardware amongst the gravel with a magnet. This only further convinced me that we had made a horrible mistake: Back east, we got our hardware at the hardware store. Regan Cook and Wylie took me for an inaugural “meeting” at the Gold Pan. I was clueless enough to take my briefcase. I was tall and dressed in black (I had yet to learn that there are other colors for attire.) and leather jacket and boots. My hair was in a short, punky cut and I was wearing multiple earrings. Culture shock hit me like a Black Hills hail storm, when everyone at the bar turned to stare when we walked in. One fellow, well into his cups, said to his companion: “Hey look at that guy!” Now, I thought that Regan and John were on the normal side of odd looking, so this statement confused me. The companion replied, “That’s not a guy, it’s a girl!” They were talking about ME. In all of his wisdom, Lenny Anderson had hired me to design the scenery for the two musicals that season: Sound of Music and Once Upon a Mattress. Those were the first two musicals of my career. Let’s just say that that the shows were a tad over-designed. I remember those production periods as a series of snapshots: a vision of screaming nuns scattering as part of the rigging hardware popped off of a flying unit sending it swinging across the stage like a guillotine. Randy Yackle, furiously directing his orchestra, dressed in his trademark striped overalls, sweat flying. Lynn Nickles, channeling Scarlett O’Hara when she had to make all of the kid’s costumes for SOM out of old curtains because that was all she could afford. Wylie and I sitting in the road having a knock-down-drag-out about why he couldn’t give me all of MY scenery. Didn’t occur to me at the time that maybe I was asking for a little too much from two weeks and $1200. Kathy the props master and I finding the PERFECT furniture, getting Baer’s to lend it to us, only to have to take it back because Lenny was sure that we were going to ruin it. I was never late for morning staff meeting, but one morning I opened the door at staff housing and there was a buffalo on the porch. We were eye to anus. I quickly closed the door and paged through my brain, trying to remember instructions for getting one of these creatures to move (and HOLY COW was he HUGE close up. He looked to be about the size of an elephant…who knew?). The best I could do was open the window and say things like “shoo” and “PLEASE don’t poop on the porch”. He was not moved by my gentle entreaties. Finally I climbed out the back window and went around, waving and nodding to the Buffalo as I headed down the hill, attempting to look as non-threatening as possible. Lenny still gave me one of his patented withering Lenny looks even after I explained why I was late. Then there was walking back from the Needles in the middle of the night with Wylie and his girlfriend at the time, whose name has escaped me. Don’t do it if you don’t have to. And if you think you are going to hitch-hike, give it up. Hours will go by with no cars. I remember lying down and napping in the middle of the road not even slightly concerned for my safety. One night, Tony Cook and I decided that we were going to attempt to sleep on top of the Needles. Both of us were so focused on the fact that rolling over meant certain death, that neither of us got any sleep. Before global warming gripped the Hills, it was cold out there. Really cold. And wet. Really wet. We had to paint a translucent drop and the only way to do that properly was with no shoes on. It just wouldn’t do to have Nike tracks marching across the prison of the Spanish Inquisition in Man of LaMancha. As all of you know, there’s no heat in the paint shop so my feet turned into size ten (I told you, I am tall…size ten is not disproportionate. Really.) blocks of wood At one point I tripped over a bamboo stick and heard it go crack. After my feet thawed out later in the day, I realized that the snapping sound was actually the sound of my toe breaking. That day, I discovered the anesthetic power of cold. So many stories. All of us have them. While doing shows and exploring the Hills were absolutely magical, that summer I discovered something much more important than summer stock theater and a beautiful part of the country. Despite all of the hardships, or maybe because of them, together we created things that were nothing short of impossible. We made little theatrical universes out of a couple of boards, sweat, and what we found lying around. We told stories on stage, that were better than they had any right to be. Yes, we squabbled and drama with a capital “D” abounded, but there was something that transcended all of that. Folks like Jenny Mae and Janet and Gordy, Regan Cook, Wylie, Melissa Davis, Meredith McEnroe and Ernetta Fox came together to do things that couldn’t be done. That summer I saw the power of the human spirit clearly for the first time. Since that season, I’ve done hundreds of shows. I have loved every minute of my life and career and believe that I am possibly the most blessed person on the planet. More than any other job, the BHP taught me about the mysterious power of the work we do. I know that this is true for hundreds of other people. It’s something that Jan and Jill have embodied for the last twenty years. And this is why I am praying that once again, the power of the BHP spirit--our spirits--will bring us together to build a future for this place we all cherish so much.
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STORIES FROM ALUMS

FROM LARRY BANGS

Memories of Lost Innocence at the BHP

In 1964 at the very impressionable age of 16 I was allowed the great privilege of joining the BHP company (probably cuz my Dad was Prez of the BOD). That was the last year of the "lean and mean" companies. Couldn't have been more than 35 - 40 total in camp so everybody did everything -- even Milt (who was also 16 but an "old hand" by then) and me. That included trying to look like a crusty old miner and sit in the bar scene for "The Legend of Devil's Gulch" (hereinafter affectionately referred to as "The Gulch"). I was pretty staggered all summer just being surrounded by college age theatre folk, but the actresses -- whoa! Talk about hormonal overload! They loved to tease me (Mary Sue Perkins gave me my "first cherry" in the design room off the kitchen -- unfortunately, it was of the fruit variety). Margo Chandler took me swimming/sunbathing on Sunday mornings and made me feel very grown up. But I was deeply and hopelessly in love with Barbara Hanson. This was the first year that Evie and Ellie were NOT the saloon girls in Gulch so it was a pretty big deal when Margo and Barbara were cast in their roles. Barbara had promised me that on the final night of The Gulch she would sit on my lap and give me a kiss during "Waltz Me Around Again, Willy." I was practically beside myself with anticipation as the great night neared. I was in my chair ready to go and happened to notice that Walt Gislason took the seat next to me. Walt had never sat at that table before but I didn't give it much thought. I was somewhat preoccupied and had my attention focused on what was to come. Margo and Barbara start the number. Barbara winks at me at the beginning just to make sure I knew it really was my night. Oh boy, was this going to be the thrill of this 16 year-old's life (things ain't what they used to be innocence wise). The girls come around during the chorus when it's time to sit on a few laps and here comes Barbara right on cue. And I am READY. At the absolute perfect moment (his timing on stage was never this good), Gislason pushes my cowboy hat over my face just as Barbara is leaning in to plant one on me. She got all hat, I got nothin' and everyone in the bar (apparently Barbara and I were the only ones not in on the joke) went into an uproar. Fortunately, it was supposed to be a raucous bar scene so I'm sure the audience was non the wiser. Nonetheless, I was in touch with Walt just the other day and even though it will be 43 years this summer (so, who's counting?), I let him know that I still have not forgiven him.

In 1965, now being a seasoned veteran of 17 (and a Comanche with the very embarrasing name of "Boy Who Likes Big Girls"), I was cast as Ito, the Japanese houseboy in "Auntie Mame." Joanie Pape was just magnificent as Mame -- many years later I got to see her on Broadway as Sister Woman in "Cat on a Hot Tin Roof" with Elizabeth Ashley and Fred Gwinn. Marian Reed played Mame's best friend -- (you fill in the blank, I sure as hell can't remember the name). I got my first taste of the power of comic theatre coming down stairs center stage with Marian as (Velma?) passed out on the couch. Paused just to make sure I had everyone's attention and in one of the worst Japanese accents you have ever heard, exclaimed as loudly as possible, "Me tuck her in!" Boy, was I somethin'. Staying in character with my Comanche name and hard earned reputation, I was backstage one night later in the run with Bonnie Swenson (sorry, Bonnie, can't remember your maiden name - yet another Playhouse marriage) sitting on my lap happily helping her learn her lines for the next show. I was faintly aware of a phone ringing persistently on stage and wondering what was up -- didn't seem right -- when someone looked at me and said, "Larry, aren't you supposed to be answering that phone." Omigod! I raced on stage to find Skip somebody or other (not Swenson) in the midst of a hilarious pantomime with the phone. He made his entrance as a paper hanger laden with buckets and ladders, etc. The phone rings and just as he puts all his stuff down and reaches for the phone, I was supposed to make a perfectly timed entrance to give him a great mugging opportunity (which he never passed up). This night, I was about 45 seconds late (an eternity on stage when things have gone wrong as you know). Skip and I made the best of it and the show went on. Next night, at least 10 minutes before the cue for my entrance, Graham Thatcher leads me out of the dressing room and holds me firmly by the shoulders at the door where I am to make my entrance and at the very correct moment, releases me with a fair amount of momentum in the direction of the stage. Graham may have repeated this for a couple of more nights. I really don't remember. I can tell you that I have been early for every single entrance I've made in a play since then.

Fond memories always for the "good old days"

Larry Bangs

FROM ANNE MUNDELL

It was 1985 and I was sitting next to Bill Anderson in a tech for a show I’d designed at Brandeis in my second year of grad school. Bill leaned over and quietly asked “What are you doing this summer?”

At that point in my life, the farthest west I’d been was Louisiana. My parents had taken us over the Mississippi as kids so that we could say that we’d been “West of the Mississippi”. Even at the ripe old age of 24 (yes, do the math, I’m that old), as far as I was concerned, the West Coast was the east bank of the Mississippi and anything beyond Saint Louis was as distant as the moon. To go all of the way to South Dakota was the adventure of a lifetime, equivalent with heading up the Amazon in a bark canoe.

In May, Lynn Nickles, another Brandeis person, my dog Kirby and I climbed into my car and headed out. There was a lot to notice as we headed west. People in Boston speak with their mouths in a flat line. By the time we got to Pittsburgh, folks were only talking out of one side of their mouths. One of the freakiest things was what happened in Madison, Wisconsin: People’s faces formed perfect donuts when the said anything with an “O” in it. I was convinced that I was going to be able to see those “O’s” pop out of their mouths like soap bubbles. Stranger still was the fact that the farther west we went, the nicer the toll booth people were. No longer was change returned with a grunt and no eye contact. Now we got a smile and a heartfelt “Have a nice day”. Were they getting paid more out here? And was there some kind of special on blond hair dye in the upper Midwest or was it possible that all of these people were truly BLOND?

When we got to Wall Drug, I honestly felt like a Martian. This kind of place only existed in the movies. The badlands made me silent and humble; I think I understood at that moment how awe-inspiring the planet could really be. And then the Hills. Every eyeful and lungful convinced me that this was a sacred place.

But then the enchantment ended with a sickening crash. We rolled into camp. What was this place and how could anyone do theater here? We stood outside of my car, speechless. I think the first thing we said to each other was something like: “You wanna get back in the car?” The place was deserted. I felt like we might have been plopped right down in the middle of a grade “B” horror flick. Had Freddy Krueger killed everyone in camp? Was he lurking behind the snack bar, just waiting for his chance to get us, too? Then I heard an odd sound….clink….clink…clink. I looked down the road and there was a guy casually swinging a tin can on a string back and forth over the road. Was he divining for water or maybe even gold with that gadget? No, but it turned out that he was doing the BHP equivalent. This was not Freddy Krueger, but it WAS a kind of prospector. It was John Wylie questing for hardware amongst the gravel with a magnet. This only further convinced me that we had made a horrible mistake: Back east, we got our hardware at the hardware store.

Regan Cook and Wylie took me for an inaugural “meeting” at the Gold Pan. I was clueless enough to take my briefcase. I was tall and dressed in black (I had yet to learn that there are other colors for attire.) and leather jacket and boots. My hair was in a short, punky cut and I was wearing multiple earrings. Culture shock hit me like a Black Hills hail storm, when everyone at the bar turned to stare when we walked in. One fellow, well into his cups, said to his companion: “Hey look at that guy!” Now, I thought that Regan and John were on the normal side of odd looking, so this statement confused me. The companion replied, “That’s not a guy, it’s a girl!” They were talking about ME.

In all of his wisdom, Lenny Anderson had hired me to design the scenery for the two musicals that season: Sound of Music and Once Upon a Mattress. Those were the first two musicals of my career. Let’s just say that that the shows were a tad over-designed. I remember those production periods as a series of snapshots: a vision of screaming nuns scattering as part of the rigging hardware popped off of a flying unit sending it swinging across the stage like a guillotine. Randy Yackle, furiously directing his orchestra, dressed in his trademark striped overalls, sweat flying. Lynn Nickles, channeling Scarlett O’Hara when she had to make all of the kid’s costumes for SOM out of old curtains because that was all she could afford. Wylie and I sitting in the road having a knock-down-drag-out about why he couldn’t give me all of MY scenery. Didn’t occur to me at the time that maybe I was asking for a little too much from two weeks and $1200. Kathy the props master and I finding the PERFECT furniture, getting Baer’s to lend it to us, only to have to take it back because Lenny was sure that we were going to ruin it.

I was never late for morning staff meeting, but one morning I opened the door at staff housing and there was a buffalo on the porch. We were eye to anus. I quickly closed the door and paged through my brain, trying to remember instructions for getting one of these creatures to move (and HOLY COW was he HUGE close up. He looked to be about the size of an elephant…who knew?). The best I could do was open the window and say things like “shoo” and “PLEASE don’t poop on the porch”. He was not moved by my gentle entreaties. Finally I climbed out the back window and went around, waving and nodding to the Buffalo as I headed down the hill, attempting to look as non-threatening as possible. Lenny still gave me one of his patented withering Lenny looks even after I explained why I was late.

Then there was walking back from the Needles in the middle of the night with Wylie and his girlfriend at the time, whose name has escaped me. Don’t do it if you don’t have to. And if you think you are going to hitch-hike, give it up. Hours will go by with no cars. I remember lying down and napping in the middle of the road not even slightly concerned for my safety.

One night, Tony Cook and I decided that we were going to attempt to sleep on top of the Needles. Both of us were so focused on the fact that rolling over meant certain death, that neither of us got any sleep.

Before global warming gripped the Hills, it was cold out there. Really cold. And wet. Really wet. We had to paint a translucent drop and the only way to do that properly was with no shoes on. It just wouldn’t do to have Nike tracks marching across the prison of the Spanish Inquisition in Man of LaMancha. As all of you know, there’s no heat in the paint shop so my feet turned into size ten (I told you, I am tall…size ten is not disproportionate. Really.) blocks of wood At one point I tripped over a bamboo stick and heard it go crack. After my feet thawed out later in the day, I realized that the snapping sound was actually the sound of my toe breaking. That day, I discovered the anesthetic power of cold.

So many stories. All of us have them. While doing shows and exploring the Hills were absolutely magical, that summer I discovered something much more important than summer stock theater and a beautiful part of the country. Despite all of the hardships, or maybe because of them, together we created things that were nothing short of impossible. We made little theatrical universes out of a couple of boards, sweat, and what we found lying around. We told stories on stage, that were better than they had any right to be. Yes, we squabbled and drama with a capital “D” abounded, but there was something that transcended all of that. Folks like Jenny Mae and Janet and Gordy, Regan Cook, Wylie, Melissa Davis, Meredith McEnroe and Ernetta Fox came together to do things that couldn’t be done. That summer I saw the power of the human spirit clearly for the first time.

Since that season, I’ve done hundreds of shows. I have loved every minute of my life and career and believe that I am possibly the most blessed person on the planet. More than any other job, the BHP taught me about the mysterious power of the work we do. I know that this is true for hundreds of other people. It’s something that Jan and Jill have embodied for the last twenty years. And this is why I am praying that once again, the power of the BHP spirit--our spirits--will bring us together to build a future for this place we all cherish so much.

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