These are the first few sections of my new book "The Front Row."
If you like these weekly anonymous interviews, that's what this is--but the super-sized version.
In the book, I talk about why I felt this particular story deserved a much bigger platform, but I wanted to give you all a free sneak peek.
If you want to purchase the book, it's available now by going to https://www.amazon.com/Front-Row-Conversation-About-Theater-ebook/dp/B08K9BXB8J/ref=sr_1_7?dchild=1&keywords=kevin+broccoli&qid=1601399482&sr=8-7
Now here's (a little bit of) the interview:
Q: What’s your first memory of it?
A: Theater?
Q: Yes.
A: I remember grabbing the script in--I would have been...Eight years old. I remember grabbing the script when the teacher asked who wanted to read the lead role.
Q: What was the show and what was the lead role?
A: The show was Curious George and the role was Curious George and I went ‘Me!’ and I grabbed the script and--I was reprimanded, lightly, the teacher liked me, and she let me play Curious George.
Q: And that was it?
A: And that was it.
* * * * *
Q: When was the first time you went to the Oak Street Theater?
A: A friend invited me to a show there, because she had taken a class with someone who was in the show. Come with me to see this show. Okay. I go with her. I pull up. There was no parking. They had no parking lot and the building was a church--I never heard of a church with no parking, but there was no parking and the place used to be a church, and...So I’m walking in--fallen Catholic--and I almost crossed myself walking in, and I--The box office is the first thing--You walk through these big double doors, and you half-expect to see the priest out front greeting the, the parishioners, ha, and you walk in, and the box office was just this little woman sitting up on a chair, nothing in front of her, and she’s got a book on her lap, and if your name is in the book, that means you have a reservation, and if not, you can buy a ticket, and there was a cash box under the chair, and you could buy a ticket that way, or--That was back when if you used a credit card, you had to fill out a slip. But you really couldn’t buy tickets at the door because they were always sold out back then. The woman’s name was Georgeann.
Q: What did the rest of the theater look like?
A: Once you got past the box office, there’s a bar to your left, and you go right to go in the theater, and it’s thrust, so it’s three sides, maybe twenty or so seats on the left and another twenty or so on the right, and then most of the seats--there were fifty--in the middle, and the stage was--It wasn’t very big, and the actors would come in from around this wall, and behind that wall was backstage, this hallway, it wasn’t very big, and then behind that, there was a staircase, and down the stairs, in the basement, they’d toss props and things. Costumes. Wasn’t sanitary, but that’s where they went.
Q: Where were the dressing rooms?
A: They were in what I think was an old office of the priest or whoever it would have been. There was a door next to the staircase and that would take you into the dressing rooms. I didn’t see all that on the night I went there--
Q: No, I know.
A: I saw it all later. That night I just sat and watched the show.
Q: What was the show?
A: They were doing Cymbeline. Not my favorite. But they did a good job, and I liked--The place had a really cool feeling to it. Because it was so cramped in there. You felt the intensity of everything. It was a manufactured intensity, you know, but it was still this hyper--Back then I would fall for that. You could manipulate me real easy with the way you presented things to me, and so if you got in my face, and you were acting, you know, you were doing acting, I was into it, right away, and that’s what they did there. It was very in your face. It was very loud. They were always yelling. Yelling their Shakespeare. I got a kick out of it. It was safe, but it didn’t feel safe, and I think that’s how they were successful--at first. Making people who didn’t want anything too crazy think they were getting crazy so they could feel cool. That was what they were going for. Cool. It’s hard to achieve that, because cool is what everybody wants, but they got there. There are ways to do it if you know how to do it, but most places don’t.
Q: Where did you sit?
A: I sat in the front. Right in the front. Nobody liked to sit in the front there, because you’d have people in your lap practically, and I plopped myself right down in the front. Yes, I did.
Q: What’s your favorite Shakespeare?
A: I like Titus. I always liked the blood and the guts.
* * * * *
Q: Do you have any formal training?
A: In theater?
Q: Yes.
A: I got a degree in psychology. That’s my theater degree.
Q: You think that qualifies?
A: I think it overqualified me, if anything. That’s what I think.
* * * * *
Q: When did you first meet David?
A: You heard about David before you met him. You’d hear a hundred stories and then you’d meet him and he’d be all the stories and still you’d be thinking he wasn’t quite what they said he was. You couldn’t be prepared for him. I told my sister about David for years before she finally got to meet him and you could see her being surprised by something about him.
Q: How long had he been running Oak Street by the time you saw that first show?
A: Two years. He had come from England and he was--People used to do his voice, because he had that accent.
Q: The British accent?
A: It was sexy. People would do it to make fun of him, and the problem was, to do David, you had to make him sound sexy, but how are you going to make fun of someone if you’re making them sound sexy at the same time?
Q: How old was he?
A: When I--When he opened the theater he was thirty-four, I think?
Q: Not that old.
A: He was an old soul. Lot of--He had a lot going on.
Q: What did you know about his background?
A: At first?
Q: At first.
A: At first I heard this guy came over from England, and he was going to open a theater in _____ and people were excited about it. That’s all I heard. I thought, That’ll close in a minute.
Q: Why did you think that?
A: Because opening a theater is hard, and where I’m from, they’re not big on people coming in from out of town and doing much of anything, and with all that going against them, I didn’t think they’d have a shot.
Q: Did you have other theaters there?
A: We had Willow Street and they were the big theater with the musicals and they had professional actors who they brought in and housed and then sent back. So it was them and then all of a sudden, it was Oak Street, and that was good news for David, because he could be the cool kid right away, because nobody thought the Willow Street people were very cool. That wasn’t what they were about. You’d go there and have dinner in the restaurant next door--a hundred bucks for overcooked steak or something--and wine--and then you go see, I don’t know, Seven Brides for Seven Brothers, and then you gotta get a ride back home from somebody because you’re drunk, because they’d be drinking their red wine through the whole show. The people who went there. Older crowd. Rich. That wasn’t how it was at Oak Street. When you walked in, you saw it right away. That it was different. It was a completely different thing being there. You drank beer at Oak Street. I remember that. I don’t even remember people drinking wine there for the first few years. But David drank wine. David would drink anything though, sorry to say.
Q: What did David look like?
A: Big beard. He looked like--You know in Santa Claus Is Coming to Town when he’s young Santa? He looked like Young Santa. But in a good way. Nice build on the guy. Beautiful brown, brown hair. The beard. He had a real commanding presence where he’d walk in the room and everybody’s eyes go right to him. Right to him.
Q: What did you hear about him?
A: After the show that night, we went out to the pizza place next door, and everybody’s doing their David impressions. I ask them who David is, the actors, all sitting around the table, and I’m there with my friend who’s there, because come to find out, he’s sleeping with the guy he took the class with, and everybody’s drunk, and they’re doing David. I ask ‘Who is David?’ because I don’t know anything from anything.
Q: Were you doing theater in the area at all?
A: Out of town, because I wasn’t a Willow Street person. I didn’t--I would get in my car and drive fifty miles to somewhere and back sometimes to do theater, because we just didn’t have it available to us unless we wanted to be singing and dancing, and I didn’t want to be. That wasn’t for me. I’m at the table and I ask who David is, and everybody starts talking at once. I go, ‘One at a time, one at a time.’ ‘David is the director and he’s the Artistic Director of the theater and he’s so smart. He comes from England and he studied with Tom and Dick and Harry and he eats coal and s___’s out diamonds.’ That was how they sounded.
Q: Were you intrigued?
A: Not really. I had to work the next day and I just wanted to know how much my part of the bill was. I had onion rings, I think.
* * * * *
Q: What did you think about back then when you were driving long distances to do shows?
A: I would put on music and I would tell myself stories about what was going on in the song. Why was the guy sad and why was the woman mad and who were the different characters? I played a game where I would have until the song was over to get it all straightened out and then by the time I got to the theater, I would have a play of my own, but I would forget it five minutes later. I could remember lines and blocking, but hell if I could remember anything else. I’ve never had a great memory for anything that wasn’t theater-related.
Q: This might be difficult then, no?
A: What? Talking to you?
Q: Yeah.
A: All of the things I’m going to tell you are about theater, so I should be fine.
Q: What if I want to ask about something else?
A: Then you’ll either get told I don’t remember or to mind your own business.
* * * * *
Q: When was the first time you actually met David after hearing about him?
A: I went back to the theater--I started going all the time--and the funny thing is--
Q: Why were you there so often?
A: I liked it. I liked the work.
Q: Did you want to work there?
A: I wanted to work anywhere.
Q: Fair enough.
A: I have to tell you, it’s funny, David really was at that theater all the time, but did I ever see him? No. I’m always missing him. I didn’t want to meet him at first, because he sounded like a lot to me, and I’m more--I always get called cut and dry. What you get is what you see. David didn’t sound like that, and I’m standoffish when I’m around people with big personalities, so I thought I had better hang back and wait for an audition or something before I meet David, but when you keep hearing people tell you that you should, and then you can’t, you just want to do it so you can say you did it.
Q: You got curious.
A: Curious George. That’s me.
Q: Did you go more than you would have otherwise gone to try and--
A: I didn’t go too out of my way, but I did go on nights when I thought he might be there--Fridays or Saturdays. But he’s never around, and I’m not going to ask when he’s around, because I knew all these actors were breathing down his back trying to get roles, and I didn’t want to be so obvious that that’s what I was looking for. I just wanted to tell him I liked his theater and I liked the plays I was seeing. I think I was on my fifth or sixth show there before I even got to say a word to him.
Q: What was the show you were at when you met him?
A: I think it was Mother Courage.
Q: That’s a big play to do in a small space.
A: It was great. It really was. The woman who played Mother Courage, she was this tiny little woman, but man, she’d open her mouth, and she shook the rafters. I loved her. She ended up moving to _____ or somewhere like that and nobody ever heard from her again, but man, she was terrific.
Q: What’s that first memory of seeing David that night?
A: He was crouched down at the end of my row--front row, always--and he was talking to someone, this person, who I found out later was a donor, or a potential donor, and he was focused on them. All on them. When he focused on you like that, it was a lot. Like I said, everybody said that David could be a lot. It made you feel special if you could take it though. Important. I’m sitting there watching him, and I recognize his photo from in the paper, because they had written something up on him, and I saw what I thought was a break in the conversation, so I got up out of my seat and I walked over to catch him, and I guess I read that break wrong, because the conversation wasn’t over, and he looked at me with this ‘Who are you?’ kind of look, and right then, I saw both sides of him. I saw him being this one person to this donor he wanted something from, and I saw him looking at me, and deciding in that moment, without knowing me, that he didn’t need anything from me, and he changed right there. He was a different person. He goes ‘Yes?’ Just like that. I tell him he can finish his conversation, but I can tell he’s thrown off, and the person he was talking to says they’re going to go get a drink from the bar, and then he turns to me, and he’s mad now, but he doesn’t know me yet, even though he thinks he does, and before he can speak, I tell him I’ve been watching his shows and I love them and I’m a subscriber to the theater now.
Q: Good move.
A: Right? That’s a Bingo.
Q: Does he soften after that?
A: He does. He changes again. He’s smiling now. I’m not rich, as far as he knows, but I might be, so he’s that other person. That nice person. We talk a little bit, and he’s asking me about the shows I’ve seen, and I tell him that one of them I did back at another theater in ____ which was about forty minutes away, but it wasn’t as good as his, and I guess that might have been my way of letting him know I was an actor, and he told me I should call the theater the next day, because he would like to get coffee with me and he would buy. I said I could buy my own coffee, and he laughed at that. I said I would call the next day, and I went back to my seat, and he got up onstage to do his curtain speech, and that was when I saw the performer, and that was another part of him. He had a lot of different sides. I’m not even sure I saw them all in the time I knew him, and I knew him a long, long time.
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