Sir Evelyn Oakleigh in Anything Goes Nicely Nicely Johnson in Guys and Dolls Bill the chicken in Ozma of Oz The Sheriff in The Rainmaker The Preacher in Prelude to a Kiss Mr Potter in A Wonderful Life Samuel Chase in 1776 Chief Bromden in One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest
Plus many other roles, including a few years doing outdoor drama, and misc. small parts. I would have acted more, but I ended up being more of a backstage kind of guy.
There’s a semi-pro theater in Hollywood. My then GF got cast for Cleopatra in Anthony & Cleopatra. (Yes, she was gorgeous and dark haired, etc). I was hanging around a bit so the director ask me if I wanted a bit part. I played- literally- a ‘spear carrier” . I even had a spear.
Lenny in Up the Down Staircase
The Centurion from Androcles and the Lion
Lexy in Candida
A pirate and cop chorus member in Pirates of Pennzance
The French boyfriend in Sabrina
The Ship Steward in Anything Goes
I was originally cast as Jonathan Harker in Dracula but I had scheduling conflicts because I was in football and the director wouldn’t alter the practice schedule for me. She did for three other cast members a few weeks later though. Hmmm.
The most fun I had was as a wild west gunfighter the summer after my senior year in HS and before I went into the Army. The pay wasn’t the best and the owners were kind of goofy, but I had a fun time.
I wrote a radio play once, in college; it won a departmental award and everything. I have the reel-to-reel around here somewhere (which means I haven’t listened to it since college, and am not likely to ever be able to listen to it again :D). I wasn’t in it, though; I just directed. It was called Hotel Maxim.
I also played Marcellus Washburn in a dinner theater production of “The Music Man.” Meredith Willson actually attended the show with his nurse (he was frail and, I believe, was in early stages of Alzheimer’s at the time). After the show he was introduced to the cast, and said with a wink that the show had stunk. We all laughed, but to tell the truth, I think he was right. I, of course, was brilliant, but the rest of the cast . . .
I played Lazar Wolf in “Fiddler On The Roof” at the Glendale Center Theatre (Glendale, CA) in about 1984. I haven’t been onstage in a long time.
Harold hill in Music Man
Benny Southstreet in Guys and Dolls
Willy wonka in Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
The Major General in Pirates of Penzance
Strephon in Iolanthe
The diplomat (cannot remember his name) in King and I
The lawyer Mr. Blind in Die Fledermaus
Ko-ko in The Mikado
Mr. Mallard in Make way for Ducklings
A bunch of chorus-type characters etc.
Fun stuff. Big time commitment though and so I am retired from it for the second time.
I didn’t want to be an actor in the play (I wrote it, produced it, and directed it. Enough’s enough), but one of my actors quit the night before the taping. Hard to find fill-in’s on that short a notice.
I was in a production of Kiss Me Kate at Occidental College in California. I played Harry/Baptista. I would have loved to be one of the gangsters! **Brush Up Your Shakespeare **must have been a lot of fun to do.
I even had a spear.