Hello everyone and welcome back into a fabulous and special edition of Whisper in the Wings from Stage Whisper.We are honored by the guests that we are joined with today.
We've got the legendary, incredible playwright Austin Pendleton and the amazing producer, artistic director, and performer Katie McLean.Both of them are joining us today to talk about a very exciting show Orson's Shadow.
It's happening November 8th through December 1st at Theatre for the New City, and you can get your tickets and more information by visiting theatreforthenewcity.net.
It is such an honor to be welcoming on these guests, especially this legendary, as I say, playwright, and I cannot wait to dive more into this piece and share this wonderful story.
So with that, let's welcome on our guests, Austin, Katie, welcome into Whisper in the Wings from Stage Whisper. Thank you so much.Thank you.I am thrilled to have you here.I mean, this show, I am a huge fan of the Golden Era of Hollywood.
So as I was reading it, I was like, yes, yes, go on, tell me everything.So Austin, I really want to start with you.You're the playwright of the piece.Can you start by telling us a little bit about what Orson's Shadow is about?
I'll tell you very briefly about it, and then I'll tell you the way it came into being.Orson's Shadow is about the time that Orson Welles mistakenly thought he could direct Laurence Olivier in a play in London.
And by the time the thing opened, Orson was no longer the director.And the other characters are Joan, Katie, and Vivian Leigh, And the critic, Kenneth Tynan, and then a guy who's kind of the helper, the stage manager.So that's what it's about.
So now, how did it come about?Is that what you were asking?
Yeah, yeah, I mean, that is my next question, which is, you know, what inspired you to pen the piece and to put this down on paper?
Okay, now I'll try to make this very brief. In 1967, don't get alarmed, I'm not gonna describe every year in between, I was in the first season in San Francisco of the American Conservatory Theater.And it was in true repertory then.
I mean, you'd play one play in the afternoon, the other in the evening and so forth.And the artistic director was kind of the genius of the time, a man by the name of Bill Ball, William Ball, who in his prime was kind of like an orson.
He was inspired, he was everything.And an actor who scored a particular number of triumphs that first season was Rene Aubergine.So much so that the critics were beginning to call him the American Olivier.
And Bill Ball kind of helped me through that season.I got my first set of really bad reviews. Constantine and the seagull and Bill Ball took me aside and said you're not a real actor until you get your first terrible reviews.
I mean he was tremendously I was going to play in the second season then then by a fluke so ridiculous I'm not going to go into it I ended up in this quote all-star production by Mike Nichols of the Little Foxes and uh and and and Renee went on to
He came to Broadway, he won a Tony for a show with Katherine Hepburn.And then he got in those wonderful Robert Altman films. of the 70s.I'm sure you all know about those.
I mean, Altman, who kind of changed and revolutionized filmmaking and everything.Extraordinary.I, like an idiot, had turned down one of his.So 30 years pass.
And so René, after the Altman film, got on a very successful TV series in which he played, like, I think, And that went on for years and years.
So 30 years after what I've just described, I was in LA, I was making a movie, and his wife, Judith, invited me over for breakfast on a day I wouldn't be shooting.
And she said to me, in 1960, Orson Welles directed Laurence Olivier in Ionesco's Rhinoceros.And by the time it opened, Orson was no longer directing, write a play.
Now, obviously the reason that Judith wanted that is if I cast him as Olivier in a play, it might, the entertainment world might begin to think of him the way they first did in that incredible season almost years before. So I said, yeah.
So that's how it all got started.And then along the way, I found out that while Olivier was directing Orson, that he, Olivier was about to leave his first wife, Vivian Lee, and take up with Miss Plowright, Katie here.
And so I put Vivian Leigh into the play.And then there was a critic, an English critic, a brilliant English critic, Kenneth Tynan.And I put, so I put him in the play.So that's how the whole play came about.Wow, that's fascinating.
Well, Katie, I would love to know, how is it that you came upon this piece?
It's a funny story.There was a woman named Gabrielle Berberich who owns Michael Howard Studios.And she'd come to me and said, I love this play.
She teaches something in her classes where it's sort of like a sneaky way for the actors to learn about the history of stage and film, where they each have to portray a certain character, right?So she really loves the history of
of film in particular.So an actor in her class might have to do Laurence Olivier or Orson Welles.And so she had come upon this play and was like, Oh, this is just like, this is the most amazing play.I love this play.I love Austin.
And she came to me and she said, I would love for you to do this play.And I was like, I'm, this is an amazing play.I love it.I am, I've got 500 things going on.Like come to me, come back to me, come back to me.Let's talk.
And then one day I was on the subway and I saw a fellow holding a flyer for Orson Shadow.And I was like, they're doing it.They're doing the play.What's happening?Oh my gosh, I missed the boat.I missed it.
And I talked to this lovely man, his name's Mark Carafin.And I said, of course I'm going to come.Give me the flyer.So I saw the, I got to see the very last show of this showcase that was done at Theater for the New City in March.
And I just thought it was the best thing.It was so brilliant.It was so brilliantly directed, so brilliantly done.And so I was just entranced.And I said afterwards, how can I help?What can I do?What can I do to help this continue on?
It's a beautiful play.It's a play for us.It's a play for artists and actors, for me.And it talks for me so much about the creative experience, the
I don't know, the being in the business, dealing with other actors, dealing with artistic drive and desire and, and clashing with other artists.And I just think you did such a lovely job of it, Austin, obviously.
So we had talks and I got to meet Austin.We had some meetings and I got to meet other members of the team and we just all sort of.Got together and Stringberg rep and Oberon theater ensemble and
These lovely people at Theater for the New City all sat down and said, let's figure out how to make this happen.And so that's how we got to this production that's happening now.
That is incredible.I love that.I want to jump off that idea and ask you, what has it been like developing this current iteration of the show that's opening back up at Theater for the New City?
Well, I mean, I get to work with Austin Pendleton, so, you know, how bad can it be?It can be terrible. It's been torture.What can I tell you?Every day is hell.Every day is just, you know, what can I... They're the most lovely people.
Ryan Tremont plays Laurence Olivier, Brad Fryman plays Orson Welles, Natalie Mena plays Vivian Leigh, Patrick Hamilton plays Kenneth Tynan, and Luke Hoffmeyer plays Sean, the stagehand.
And they're all such wonderful, wonderful actors and lovely, lovely people.
And the joy of doing the research, you know, on all of this, you know, watching all the movies and reading the books and, you know, reading about the brilliance of Kenneth Tynan's reviews, you know, having respect for the critics that are such a part of this process.
And, you know, I think you did such an amazing job, Austin, in terms of that kind of idea of including the critic in terms of their lending the voice to the conversation.
I mean, I'd like to ask you, Austin, if I can ask a question, Andrew, if that's okay.Can you tell me more about like what you discovered, or why Kenneth Tynan, and what you felt about including him in this, this story.
First of all, have you ever read a collection of his criticisms?
I've been hunting it down.It's very hard to find that book.
Curtains is what it's called.And Kenneth Tynan also, he had a slight, slight problem with the stutter, which I myself had in my teenage years.And, and and gradually I was trained out of it.
But when it was first done, it was first done in Chicago to a company that I, in part, in part of there called- Steppenwolf.Yeah, yeah, Steppenwolf.And it got produced there by kind of a fluke, which I won't go into.
But so then the New York critic of the, I mean, the Times critic of the time came up.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.Ben Brantley came out and he did, he did a roundup of all the shows playing in Chicago, but he concentrated particularly on Horse and Shadow.And the praise he gave it is so convincing to me, the reason why it worked.
that I've kind of insisted on it ever since.He said, it was done in a small theater.He said, the actors should be people that the audience has never heard of.So in other words, you're not watching a star play another star.
it should have a very informal feeling to it.So I've held to that every time.The result of this is I've turned down about three offers to put it on Broadway, because I think that his analysis was completely correct.Now, a funny thing happened.
So it was done in Chicago.And because of the Ben Brantley review, all these producers wanted to do it.But they all wanted big stars.They all had one problem, you know. And one of the people I had interviewed, I was kind of heartbreaking.
a director named Robert Fitzgerald, who's the son of Orson Welles and Geraldine Fitzgerald, who was a very, very good friend of mine.He wanted to direct it in New York.And that was a painful one to turn down.
And it's been, I don't think he's ever spoken to me since then, but I don't blame him.So finally, I went to see a play, off-Broadway play, with Tracy Letts at the Barrow Street Theater down in the village.
And as I was picking up my tickets, the producer who did all the plays on there, Scott Morphe, M-O-R-F-E-E, came around and said, Tracy says you have a play.And could I read it?So he read it and he said,
Well, this was at the beginning of the year, 2000, whatever.He said, we can't, it's gonna run all year.So, but when that's over, then you can do Horse and Shadow.Nobody would accept Cromer.
Yeah.So finally, Scott said to me now, are you serious about this?And I said, yeah.And he said, okay, well then, Can we put a reading together?So Tracy put a reading together, and an interesting thing happened.
The only actor who wasn't able to come in was the actor playing Kenneth, yeah, playing Kenneth Tynan.Tracy, if you've ever seen him on stage, he's on stage, he's a rock star.
It did us no harm whatsoever with the critics that when we opened at the beginning of the next year, that they saw a critic being played by a rock star. In fact, a lot of the reviews began with talking about Tracy's performance.And he saved his ass.
I mean, we wouldn't be having this conversation right now if it weren't for Tracy Letts.So it ran for like a year.The replacements had to be very, very, very carefully. And then it began to be done all over the country.
And I always, when another theater was doing it, I told them what it had to be like, all the things that Ben Brantley said.And it's been done.So as a result of that, it's been done all over the place.
And now finally, 20 years after it, Homer wasn't available.But so we got hold of David Schweitzer, and that's what the show is now.
Oh.Oh.Austin and David. together at last.
Well, Austin, let me ask you, I mean, with this fantastic story that you've created, is there a particular message or a thought you hope that audiences will take away from this?
Well, the thing that has to make the play work, and I think all these observations that Ben Brantley so often, is it just should be about regular people, if that phrase means anything at all.It should be very loose.
It should not be grandiose in any way at all.And the productions I have seen, because, you know, when you have a show, they fly you all over the place to see them, have all observed this.
I mean, some of them I've made it clear, but some of them just have figured it out all by themselves.So I've never seen a production of the play that violated, now, now, an interesting story.
A good friend of mine is Frank Langella, and he was in a play with Alan Bates, And so I would go see the play, we'd go to Joe Allen's or something, and Allen Bates said, is the play sympathetic to Vivian Leigh?And I'd say, yeah.
He said, well, then you won't get it produced in London because everybody in London thinks Vivian Leigh is overrated and that Joan Polaroid is much the superior artist and so forth.Finally,
I got an email from this tiny unheard of company in London who actually flew me over to see it.And it was in this tiny little theater and the audience was almost kind of in the round. And it was a wonderful, but they flew me over.
I mean, happily, I had a friend who, at that time, lived in London, so I could take care of that.So I went out with them afterwards, and I said, and this is a thing I often have to say, the part of Vivian Lee must not be played by, played as a diva.
She got to be played by this troubled person who's caught in the middle of all this.And they had fallen into that trap.So I saw every performance they gave.I mean, I saw it quite a few times in the week that I was there.
So I whispered that into the ear.The next night, the Vivian was completely different.Yeah. The fact the audience was actually and literally in the room, as opposed to people objectively.And I love it.
And it's easy to create that feeling down in theater for the new city. There's a kind of, to put it mildly, informal feeling about it.And I was, in 1962, 63, I was in a thing called the Lincoln Center Training Program.
And Crystal Field, who runs TNC, was also in it. So I've known her all these years, and it was an amazing group of people.Some of them pursued their craft and others did not, but Crystal has been remarkable.
Theater for the new city is just an invaluable place.There is an informal feeling about the whole place, and there's a weird kind of intimacy in all the spaces, even the larger ones.
And she critched the, you feel when you go to theater for the new scene that you're dropping in on a show, which is exactly the feeling that Bradley talked about that has always prevailed with Orson Shadow.
I love that.Love that.Well, Katie, I want to bring my final question for this first part to you, because not only are you performing in this piece, you're also producing this piece.So who are you hoping to have access to Orson Shadow?
Well, those are interesting thoughts to tie together.Well, originally I was not acting in this piece.I was just producing and I was just thrilled to be doing that.
And then we discovered that one of the actresses couldn't be in the piece and the actress in me said, can I, can I, can I audition? So I auditioned and then I had a call back and had to sort of prove myself.
And I'm really, really grateful that I was asked to do that, actually, because, you know, it's important that you earn your space and the respect of your peers.
So, you know, my job really is to start with knowing my lines and not bumping into the furniture.
yeah not causing a scene and you know being a good supporting player you know being an ensemble player right and then my other job is as a producer is just making sure everything you know making sure the train keeps going and i i hope every of course i hope everyone comes to see it because it's a pleasure it's a pleasure to drop in that wonderful feeling of what austin was saying you know dropping in on the creative experience dropping in on people working who are talking about the things that
you know, matter to them, matter to them and are dealing with life and what life throws you, loving the wrong person or dealing with illness or, you know, I mean, it's just from my perspective, certainly I'm not sure if this is your intention, Austin, but just from my perspective, you know, struggling with, I think with like with Orson Welles, struggling with having done Citizen Kane and become the greatest filmmaker ever at 25.
How do you do your next piece?How do you live up to that?How do you keep working?And yet you must keep working because it's your identity.It's who you are.It's what you are.
And struggling against that and then differences in styles of working, the difference between Olivier and Wells and how they work together or how they work, approach the work.
I mean, all of that is fascinating to me, and I think will be very interesting to theater lovers, people who love the theater, because I know this phrase is sometimes overused, but it is a love letter, I think, in many ways.
I felt loved after I watched it.I felt seen and appreciated for the efforts that the work, there's so much work that goes on goes into making a play.And so to me, it sort of honors all of that in a way.
And I feel like people should know that we're real people making making work, you know, it doesn't pull the, pulling the curtain back doesn't make the magic any less, you know.
It's all about, the piece is all about, and this of course is automatically a universal thing, not living up to people's expectations.It's that whole struggle and that whole comedy really, and that whole sadness
And but that's something everybody goes through.
On the second part of our interviews, we love giving our listeners a chance to get to know our guests a little bit better.Pull the curtain back, if you will.
And I would love to jump to my favorite question to ask guests, and that is, what is your favorite theater memory?
Well, you brought up Frank Langella, and I remember seeing him in Dracula when I was 12 years old or something at the Amundsen Theater in At the music center in Los Angeles, I grew up in Los Angeles.
I saw Nicholas Nickleby and Roger Rees and Nicholas Nickleby.And it was a, I think that was a 12 hour production done in like over several days.
And I mean, I could have sat there all day and that kind of immersive theater was all around us, which I absolutely love.And I think those two pieces really, really stuck with me for a very long time.The theatricality of Dracula.
You know, and that sort of like huge presentational, like, drama, of course, very proscenium, right?
And then the immersive, like almost a bare stage, everyone's in black, and yet you're just totally into the story and the lives of Dickens, Nicholas Nickleby, and the great performances.And Smyke, do you remember Smyke, who calls so loud?
Just devastated me.So those were the, those were early pieces that sort of formed my theater taste, if you will.
Yeah.What amazing theater pieces to get to have seen.Those are incredible.Thank you.Austin, how about you?What is your favorite theater memory?
Well, well, here's my mom had been a professional actress.My father had seen a play and she said, I mean, they'd met in Cleveland where she was in a show at the Cleveland Playhouse.
And I'm from a town in Ohio called Oren, Ohio, very close to Cleveland.So my father had seen her in the plane Cleveland brought to her by mutual friends.And I hesitate to tell you the part she was playing.
This was now the 1930s, but she was playing Topsy in Uncle Tom's cabin. What can I say?But then she was, in her work at the Playhouse, she was having some successes.So she moved to New York and she got a spectacular job.
The play, The Children's Hour by Lillian Hellman, and you know that play, and a bunch of young girls.She got one of the flashier parts for the national tour. of this Broadway hit.And then they were in rehearsal, I think.
And the producers all across the country finally got around to reading the play and discovered it had contained a compassionate portrait of a lesbian.They all canceled it.So the next time he proposed, she accepted.
So that was in 1938, they got married.And then, of course, there was the war.And my father wasn't in the war because he had a small company called the Warren Tool Company, which was manufacturing anti-tank shells and everything.
So he stayed home before.He always felt guilty about that.Then, soon after the war, people approached her about this community theater. Warren is in Trumbull County in Ohio.
These people came to her and said they were beginning a new company called Trumbull New Theater, in other words, TNT.So she became involved in that. I directed her there 20 years later in the Glass Menagerie, and she was also a terrifying director.
The first director that I worked on on the stage was Sherone Robbins, who was known how ferocious he could be.The first film was with Otto Preminger.People knew how ferocious they could be.
In the event, well, actually, I owe my career to Jerry Robbins. Because I went from a play, Oh Dad, Poor Dad, to the musical called Fiddler on the Roof.But my mom, because she was a woman in those years, became a ferocious director.
Every year I would go out to see a TNT show that she had directed.And one by one, the cast members would come and say, would take me aside quietly at the party afterward and say, Austin, I hope you understand, but your mother is just impossible.
And I would say, I understand, et cetera. the next year the exact same conversation would happen.She because she was and one time they got an equity waiver and Katina and I went, Katina's my wife, to get to act in The Seagull.
And in community theater the communities can come in the evenings to to watch the show and of course that hardly ever happened, but in this case, because I was, quote, a movie star, unquote, and she was ferocious.
Austin, I had told these people that you were a professional actor.I would like to see some evidence of this.Yeah, oh yeah, yeah.She took no prisoners. But so I had Jerry Robinson, Otto Preminger, and she, in effect, was training for me.
And both Otto and Jerry, if I may call them that, became friends for the rest of their lives.Right now, I'm just sitting. two blocks up above where Jerry Robbins lived.And he was incredibly encouraging to me.
Jerry Robbins, as I said, I had this trouble, which still crops a little bit up in the conversation, of having trouble speaking.You know, I had a stutter.
And in Oh Dad, Poor Dad, the first play I got, as fate would have it, the character had a stutter, so it kind of drove me crazy.And I wanted to quit the show.
And so the stage manager said to me, I lived on the Upper West Side of Denver with about 18 people, on your way to the show tonight, would you stop in at Jerry's?I went in there, two blocks south of right here. And he said, well, I can't stop you.
You have a two-week out.It's an all-Broadway conflict, but Austin, quote, I want you to act the rest of your life.That's what he said.
Then finally in Odette, and the whole year was a struggle with it because if you do, if you, in fact, have had experience of a stutter and you're playing a stutter, it gets impossible to control.
Happily, I had two magnificent actresses in it, Joanne Fleet and Barbara Harris. So I kind of, some nights were perfect, some nights were too fluent, some nights were awful.
Finally, the kindly producer, it was theater around the side here, T. Edward Hamilton, I don't know if you ever heard of him, lovely gentleman, called me into his office one Sunday night after the show and said he had to fire me.I celebrated.
And two weeks later, after the final performance on a Sunday night, which was the schedule they had, all my friends came to a bar just up the road to celebrate.And I thought, but now Jerry Robinson is going to hire me again.
Six months later, he asked me to audition for Fiddler on the Roof. And he had me read for the part of Perchick, who, if you will remember, is kind of, he's the revolutionary and all that.
Now, because Perchick is angry a lot of the time, you're absolutely fluent.Get any stutterer angry and they will speak flawlessly.So I got him and I... And Jerry quite intelligently held auditions in a theater, so he would get, yeah.
So he came running back and saying, it's amazing, the study's gone.And it wasn't quite, but it was effectively gone.So all went, and then it got postponed.So he offered me a part in Finland Group.
And so it got postponed because the leading guy, Mr. Zero Ostell, you know, got in the way.And then finally, we went back into rehearsal in early June.And we went into rehearsal.
So to my disappointment, he hadn't cast me in Perchett, but in the part of the tailor, which he refashioned.It was conventional role as written.And he turned it into the character it is now.And I was still speaking with traces of stutter.
So we went to rehearse the 1st of June.We opened in September.It was the days when the director... We got, in that 16 weeks, we got three Sundays off.I mean, Jerry was just... So we'd just gone into rehearsal.
And we're in Central Park, two blocks south of Carnegie.We rehearsed still two blocks south in the Carnegie Recital Hall from Central Park, so we're having a patronage.And Jerry said very sweetly and thoughtfully, I see the stutter isn't all gone.
And I said, yeah, well, I lied a little bit.But don't worry about it.If you get through a block, if you could move through it quickly, because the show is three and a half hours long.And that was very funny and all that.So then the years go by.
Jerry comes to see every show that I'm in.And he always comments on the stutter.And he says, it's almost done.It's gone, it's gone, it's gone.He would do all that. Then after he passed, of course, I was interviewed for the biography of Jerry.
I'm reading myself to sleep one night in the early years of Jerry, and I find that Jerry Robbins had a stutter.
Wow.Oh, my goodness.There is no business like show business.
Yeah.Thank you so much for sharing that.That was both of you.Those were amazing.I really appreciate hearing those.Thank you.
As we wrap things up, I would love to know, do either of you have any other projects or productions coming down the pipeline that we might be able to plug for you?
I have two jobs of directing coming up, and one will have a workshop, like a week-long workshop in December, and then in about a year, we'll do it full.That's Camino Real by Tennessee Williams.Do you know that play?
That's an amazing play.But now the guy who puts up all the money for it, who's a great theater freak, and he's got a lot of inherited wealth, unfortunately, he has a whole lot of places in Florida.
So he lost millions and millions of dollars in the recent horrors.So one of the more trivial results of that would be that I don't know if we'll be able to come.Now, as I say, the full production of it isn't going to be for a year, so maybe by then.
Then the other directing job I have is Long Day's Journey Into Night in St.Louis.I'll be out there effectively the month of January.I have always, always, always wanted to be involved with that play.Wow.Wow.
That's so exciting.That's fantastic.Thank you for sharing that.
My final question for you two is if our listeners would love more information about Orson's Shadow or maybe about you, maybe they'd like to reach out to you, how can they do so?
Well, you can go to theaterforthenewcity.net and find the tab for Orson's Shadow.There's a whole page dedicated to the play and a ticket link with even more information about the history of the play and all the players
in it, and if you want to email, there is an email address that people can use to contact the ticket box office and that sort of thing.
To find out more about Austin, I suppose you can Google Austin Pendleton and you'll learn more than you ever thought possible.
Yes, not a totally wise idea.
My guests today have been the legendary artist, the playwright, Austin Pendleton, and the amazing producer, artistic director, and performer, Katie McLean.
And they both joined me to talk about this fabulous show, Orson's Shadow, that's playing November 8th through December 1st.
This is all happening at Theater for the New City, and you can get your tickets and more information by visiting theaterforthenewcity.net.You are not going to want to miss this production.
This is such a fabulous production, a wonderful space, very intimate.So get your tickets now for Orson's Shadow playing November 8th through December 1st.And we wanna add for our American listeners that election day is November 5th.
Make sure you are registered to vote, have a plan to cast your ballot and do your democratic duty.You can find out how and where you can register and vote by visiting vote.gov.The future demands that we fight for it now.
So until next time, I'm Andrew Cortez reminding you to turn off your cell phones, unwrap your candies, and keep talking about the theater in a stage whisper.Thank you. If you like what you hear, please leave a five-star review, like, and subscribe.
You can also find us on Facebook and Instagram at Stage Whisper Pod.And feel free to reach out to us with your comments and personal stories at stagewhisperpod at gmail.com.
And be sure to check out our website for all things Stage Whisper and theater.You'll be able to find merchandise, tours, tickets, and more.Simply visit stagewhisperpod.com. Our theme song is Maniac by Jazzar.
Other music on this episode provided by Jazzar and Billy Murray.You can also become a patron of our show by logging on to patreon.com slash stage whisper pod.There you will find all the information about our backstage pass as well as our tip jar.
Thank you so much for your generosity.We could not do this show without you. I don't care anywhere, New York town.Take me there.
Sign in
