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This is seminars in theatre a series of discussions with leading members of the theatrical profession who comment on the problems and pleasures of life in the theatre. Here now is the host of seminars and theatre Richard Paey at the MCG and welcome to another discussion about theatre in New York and as it sometimes turns out across the nation. We're very pleased to welcome as our guests four members of the walk down my street cast what I really should say. It's the next stage theatre company and they've produced a walk down my street musical revue because if I'm wrong just correct me Norman and the Norman is our first introduction here Norman Curtis who wrote the music for the review as well as I do you know the other author the producers Norman and Patricia Curtis was also sitting next to
Norman Curtis and Patricia Curtis wrote a script and lyrics but you both also produced this. Really it was like Right that's correct right and. I think Norman I was just looking for some background on you here. There isn't any right. Well we'll get to that and our other guests include Denise Diller Pena who is a talented member of the cast and Freddy Diaz also a talented member of the cast and I can say about a nice teleprinter that she attended the American Academy of Dramatic Arts and Hunter College and her father was a member of the famed deep river boys and was Della Pena as as made her off Broadway debut I think in this particular production. And she had training in radio and then all of the Allied crafts connected with theater and show business. And she has been
performing since the age of six and Freddie Diaz was in his first production in a school production called Liberty Bell in which he played for Helen's boyfriend always a good part to play. He sang his first solo at the age of 11 and at 17 he was a featured player in off-Broadway production of unfinished business and he's appeared in stock. The exception in the rule and in community center productions of Sam Pacific and Carnival has also appeared on television on CBS's repertory workshop and Camera 3 and as guests of the US on other TV stations. Now I think we have our introductions fairly over except Norman and Patricia Curtis. How do you come to be involved in this as producers in other words what have you been doing up to now.
Why did we produce our own show you mean. I mean I don't know. Yeah well that's a very good question because we felt that the show should be seen felt and had an audience and there were other people who were willing to take a chance on it as far as finances but they weren't willing to. Not enough people willing to put up enough money so we decided just to take a chance. So we took a chance. I tell you what I found interesting about this. Some of the publicity I read about the production and I think I do have that here in the program notes that the next stage theatre company was founded in one thousand sixty two and incorporated in the name of audience associates. But this is the group that performs has evolved out of a scholarship program and which is give to young people primarily from economically disadvantaged backgrounds are given the opportunity to study musical
theater and participate in the creation and production of original theatre pieces. And I wondered whether you could tell us whether you knew the group during this this period of growth and where everyone does everyone come from the same group participation that started out or are these different different members now. Well I can explain everything we need. We are the founders of the group. We are the founders of the next stage a company. Tricia and I were incorporated in 162 as a nonprofit educational terrible organization. And we have done just that we provide young people the opportunity to participate in the creation of the original theatre pieces and this is our third review but it is our first regular off-Broadway production.
We played in off-Broadway theaters before but as an antiquity company this is an equity company now that's right I said. Is there any truth to this percentage that I'm reading that these people are primarily from economically disadvantaged backgrounds or are they all rich people disguising themselves as economically deprived persons or is this to get some kind of sympathetic response from the general public or just what is meant by all of this this writing. Well it happens to be true. Well how do you get them together. I mean what what. Well we set out audition notices in 1962 so it was an amount to wear to high schools as a matter of fact we sent out audition notices to all kinds of places we sent them to music schools dance schools community centers. But the overwhelming response. In numbers was from high school drama teachers got these notices that we sent out and they told their
students about it and they came and audition for us. And sometimes very large numbers we've had auditions with over 100 people coming from all five boroughs of New York City. Note the distinctive factor about this was that I assume all of the applicants were coming to you from high school rather than the open market. And I was when casting is done usually somehow or other through the trade they would have right. Yeah they all flock because they hear about it but you didn't have a person who's auditioning for you from that area. No only recently we have put notices in trade papers but until now it was this way this is how we got. Well Norman by way of the background of this what were you doing in 1960 in 1960. I was studying composition at Columbia University. I wrote a flute Sonata and year which was performed there. I was a company dance at Juilliard School of Music and various other dancing schools around
town. Just that was the year I came to New York right in the early part of 1960 I was working at Second City you call him The Pianist and composer music. Did you go on I think I moved over to Patricia because of the mother because she wrote the script and lyrics and by the way this show as we as we talk the information evolves eventually by and sort of a backward approach I think some of my listeners probably are familiar with this technique and I like to not know anything really about the individuals because it's so much better talking and getting a pursed hand at the same time the listeners do and then the script in the race do I. Are you interested in being a playwright which occurs or is this just the thing that you're doing at the moment and that's it.
I mean I'm just interested in theater and I do my thing whichever way it had to be done. Can you do all things. That's the cosmic question. Well if you're if you're interested in theory that is as wrong and it has many opportunities for diversity in expressing oneself and can can you act think and direct and write plays and do anything that comes to your mind. No. Well what are you interested in doing that you can do. Let me say that let me let me put it on my level so I can and will in my own way. I'm interested in total theatre. And I'm primarily interested in the production aspect of the M to work effectively with my opinion. I feel you should know I have your fingertips in all aspects so you should know business managing you should have your head writing and staging play direction the whole the
whole gamut of things you have to know your medium you have to know your materials you have to know what you're dealing with. I find it infinitely fascinating the all faith infinitely fascinating. And. I also met Barry had this. That's a very broad background. If you were in the production of him and if you're going to create theater producer Norman mention that he was at Columbia studying composition. Have you involve yourself in any formal study of trickle craft. Yeah. Or if your background is there any academic pertinence to ya. I've been working on a doctorate off and on for the last eight years and everyone and I don't want to college in Columbia television in drama than you were attending. Where did you get your undergraduate degree master's degree from Penn
State and what area of that theater dance theater So in other words you've been involved in the study theater formally one aspect of another and now coming to fruition and your current production by the way that kind of production I should mention that it's at the player's theatre MacDougal Street and the review is called walk down my street. Can I correct you and then please do it is walk down my street over the top row of course the phonetic identification here who would my IM eight. However I refuse to conform to it and I would say walk down my street. But I think the credit line and Freddy Diaz it's obvious what aspect of the least is obvious to anyone looking at you on stage. What's your interest in theatre is and that is I guess at this point exclusively as a performer would I be right in that or something I would sell.
I've always for a long time been interested in performing in elementary school. Would you say are you planning to continue as a dancer and singer or are you going to try to move into acting as well by acting as well. I don't mean to exclude the fact that you're acting as a singer dancer but I do mean in straight drama or for any of the plays that are being written. Like in high school I did a few dramatic production straight dramatic production. I'm interested in drama but mostly and I would play my first love the musical. I love music and I think they really involve everything you know good musical do involve acting and singing and I guess the West Side Story is now being revived and like musicals of that time have a kind of strong significant story of them and you know you can have good acting in it from you know.
They were penned by eventually get to everyone. I don't know if there's a particularly talented girl and I say that and I don't usually talk about people in front of them this way but one of the things about the production I think is the poise and the control that the need does have and a number of actors we talked with a number of actors about the training. Is it because of the respect the discipline of the body and the face and the eyes are usually this particular discipline for all of them were left to chance and we don't find it too much now with multiple media theatre because everything goes in a different direction which is all right too. We can qualify it. But did you have any formal training in theatre.
Little girl I used to sing. And I stop singing about. I guess when I was about 14. And totally abandoned the idea of theatre. And when I went to college I started thinking again in terms of becoming an actress not a singer but an actress. And I went to the American Academy of Dramatic Arts for a term then learned something there. And I'm presently enrolled in hunter which has a very fine drama department. And. I've gotten more training and I heard about next stage and decided to audition and my voice had fallen. Not having used it for so many years and we've been rehearsing on well I joined in January at the end of January and we've been working on walk down my street. Where did you hear about the next theater program. There was a flier at
school on the bulletin board. Several of us went down and auditioned. And pretty. Where did you hear about or when I was in my third year of high school. There was a bulletin wire on the bulletin board and I came down the audition and there were about 100 people are doing today with me. And I was told this was an effective method not been of the flyers going to the high schools apparently because that's what everyone has heard about it. The review itself. One of the things I think is particularly noticeable about it is the infectious quality of cohesion among the group whether they are having fun or whether they are off on a jag on stage of some kind.
There's a great deal of fun in that because and I don't assume that that's correct. Is that because everyone feels together and has a common aim so to speak in connection with this particular company Norman would you say or anyone comes out of the fact for one thing that a good many of them I'm working with for a long time and it's been a very intimate kind of working relationship for instance. Patricia who we call Patty. She does the choreography and she frequently will just watch them do popular dances and she will then learn the steps and we become infused into the choreography. And often ideas come out of a kind of a party like atmosphere. We in our apartment have a theater studio and most of our rehearsals have been there and many of the questions I would call them a formal you know
it's often just a good time and frequently when the cast is exhausted at the end of a rehearsal like let's say 7:00 p.m. on a Saturday evening haven't we heard from 1:00 PM. They put on from rock and roll and they are dancing and dance and dance and dance and then the energy comes back and the ideas start to fall and the whole style of movement I think developed out of this. I like that so much of the material grew out of the experiences of the young people. And when it's the script by Patricia Curtis I have to qualify that. I finalize the script I finalize the many experiences that we've had in the company and if we think that stand up I have usually gone through the very critical eye of members of the company. Oh I didn't mention that merely corrected before they've even gone out of the group to become very sharp.
At evaluating the improvisational and creative work that come out of the group so you can. Like most theatre companies we have a creative team is made up of the members. Well the directors and all of them contribute to the whole product. Although I didn't mention I said that the entire production was staged by FIFA to the Kurdish region I want to mention that now is because he's being so modest about the material. And the music I will repeat is by Norman Cousins and I think we're beginning to get a frame of reference for whom we're talking to this time we are trying to break in there. I think one of the reasons why the company works well together author like Patti said is because of Martha the gifts and everything else came out because of improvisation. And we would go over and I do an over and Norman said we would go on trying to get something together and it was right.
Everybody was working towards a good idea you know so we could write down and have something. And we're only working together in order to finish it because we had been on it so long that it really would work and so I think that's right. Everybody worked as a team you know let's get this done and do it well. And. We ended with Oh and I think you know a review to me here. I think one of the hardest show to put on because you've got to say what you've got to get off you know and do things that are quick you know quick blackouts or thing that's wrong deliver the thoughts not to thing in words you have to give usually thought that means something and you have to deliver it. Get off you know and so it really needs teamwork and you're doing a review of the
all of the material in this review touches upon some aspect of our society that it's current flux. I mean and some reviewers have been critical of what you're doing with some of the numbers in other words some I think I think I don't know you know remembers not important but until you've read it some reviewers felt insulted by I think it's weird today or one of them in a way that I did not write is that the one who we don't know what you're doing without it we don't want to think like that. That's one prevalent opinion that seems to run throughout the review along with comments on education along with comments on poverty and ghetto housing along with certain phony in the phony hypocritical
society that you pick on one by one in certain ways with the review. Is this generally the viewpoint of everyone in the cast to society to the society that they're living in. I mean just how you feel. I don't know if it's if it's the thing that we play so much. Well all of the boys in the company have been in the company for one and been in for six years the other two including myself have been in for the company in the company. Another administrative turn about and another one in the company for two years and then the girls have been in for a few months time for five months. We know what it is to work on something that we think is good and have people think it's wonderful but not get anywhere. You know
and I think we all know what it is to meet up with somebody who represented and represent the kind of hypocritical. You know it's fabulous but I wish I wish I could help you with something. Mainly I think people are a lot of people have something to say and it's not of course right. Well if you thought the critic said he was kind of unfolded because of the life it's not that we think that all adults are wrong you know or whatever but there's a general thing here I think that in any type of theater you have to magnify emotion you have to be lagging a fire at any point that you have to that you are trying to make and walk down my street making a particular point in order for it to have anything or touched any kind of emotional or intellectual kind of response. It has to
be emphatic sometimes harsh sometimes. Super theory you know but you know what it is we have a thing things that have to be done to get a point across well so I'm not saying that production can get a better idea of what we're talking about by specified for example. You have one of the review songs called I'm just a statistic and this means that I mean I was translated throughout the music in the song it's very musingly done and I don't think any of it really is bitterly done. This is a which is a nice thing about it watching it but the idea comes across through that particular number that all of the study commissions are coming up with findings about how many people don't have this and how many racial groups do we have or don't have this and how many of this and that
goes on that in for an item and yet are the results of these studies are never seem to be implemented in any really meaningful way. I think I think that the conflict is one of the more I thought of desperation. You go through four different different emotional level and four different musical level. At this very. Emotionally high emotionally angered and dry. But but enough. Well let's let me just say that I'm emotionally distraught and then the rhythm changes which signifies a different kind of a mood and it's an upbeat tempo and. I say that that I'm the square in the world which we can private. A different kind of other feeling from desperation and then. I come back again and I think the reprise which is my building are
in shambles. There are holes in the war and I let the desperation you know if it's not really supposed to be amusing there are and there are tendencies there. Are going from the song went when I have a composer here it's all right with him. And I sing it I mean that would be difficult but just the words of you know the words are that we get an idea of what's going on. I'm just it's a statistic. What does the song go. And so I think one point when they were not when I reported I wish we were if you can comfortably sing a few of my home and in broad daylight Roth IRA
to Hong Kong. I even. I beg housing to help but I got down on my knee. They said they understood me. What I lack. We were happy. You said it in a way that my case. I know mine. That Rampal of what you get if you go over there or go down there from wherever the geographical point you might be. And thank you because it's difficult to just expect the thing with power and I would think that with that with Norman
writing the rhythmic section there he wondered what was happening to you. That but that but I think in or of these songs the lyrics in just that way touch upon the very have a very very serious social themes and the difference in this review and some of the other things that are happening and why I'm talking and sort of thing this point to the group particularly young and or exceptionally young. Had a relatively young Broadway in what off-Broadway generally is comprised of and I think it's important that the viewpoint is understood because you're going to do be doing more things. I take it I mean I do perhaps write a play I wonder or or a musical
that is not a review by the way are you planning anything like that now. Well we hope to do it we haven't. We haven't any definite plans. We have a number of ideas about it. There's a great interest in involving the audience these days and many devices are you to do this. The device that you used in walk down my street when I was there several things I remember but run I did want to mention into that when one of the members of the who was cleaning up the paper and he invites members to pick up the paper and it becomes I imagine on many nights depending on what night it is the rugged little moment that I did and the reaction of the audience members sitting down and then some members of the audience invited to go up
on stage to help pick up the rest of the paper. What reaction do you get when people do go up and pick up the paper or is it something against the strike the significant meaning in the fact that they have gone on stage and picked the paper up.
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Series
Seminars in theatre
Episode Number
Episode 31 of 31
Producing Organization
WNYC (Radio station : New York, N.Y.)
Contributing Organization
University of Maryland (College Park, Maryland)
AAPB ID
cpb-aacip/500-v40jzb46
If you have more information about this item than what is given here, or if you have concerns about this record, we want to know! Contact us, indicating the AAPB ID (cpb-aacip/500-v40jzb46).
Description
Series Description
For series info, see Item 3231. This prog.: Next Stage Theatre Company and cast from "Walk Down My Street." Norman Curtis and Patricia Curtis; Denise Dellapenna; Faye Diaz.
Date
1968-08-06
Topics
Literature
Theater
Media type
Sound
Duration
00:29:47
Credits
Producing Organization: WNYC (Radio station : New York, N.Y.)
AAPB Contributor Holdings
University of Maryland
Identifier: 68-11-31 (National Association of Educational Broadcasters)
Format: 1/4 inch audio tape
Duration: 00:29:35
If you have a copy of this asset and would like us to add it to our catalog, please contact us.
Citations
Chicago: “Seminars in theatre; Episode 31 of 31,” 1968-08-06, University of Maryland, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC, accessed March 29, 2024, http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-500-v40jzb46.
MLA: “Seminars in theatre; Episode 31 of 31.” 1968-08-06. University of Maryland, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Web. March 29, 2024. <http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-500-v40jzb46>.
APA: Seminars in theatre; Episode 31 of 31. Boston, MA: University of Maryland, American Archive of Public Broadcasting (GBH and the Library of Congress), Boston, MA and Washington, DC. Retrieved from http://americanarchive.org/catalog/cpb-aacip-500-v40jzb46