Frank Beacham's Journal

Tom Keith, Sound Effects Wizard for "A Prairie Home Companion," Frequented Local Hardware Stores On the Road

   
Tom Keith, who died this week, once told me that the most valuable resource as he travelled around the country for broadcasts of A Prairie Home Companion was the local hardware store. It was there—at the very last minute—where he could purchase the gadgets needed to do the sound effects conjured up by Garrison Keillor.

Keith said Keillor, who wrote in most of the sound effects in his scripts, liked to make last minute changes and, at times, created almost impossible effects — some designed to trick him. But Keith almost always succeeded in pulling off an authentic version of anything his old friend could create, whether it be a singing walrus or a man falling into piranha-infested waters.

Whenever I visited a live broadcast of Companion, I always liked to get seats in front of stage left, where Keith positioned his table of sound effects goodies. Not only was he very good, but his facial expressions were hilarious. He was also an actor in Keillor’s sketches, where he played “Buster the Show Dog” and Maurice the maitre d’ at the Cafe Boeuf, among other characters.

When I interviewed him in his dressing room, Keith was the same unassuming, funny guy as on stage. He had worked for many years in radio in Minnesota and went back with Keillor to the early 1970s. He was engineer on the first two seasons on Companion, before joining the cast.

Tom Keith joined a grand tradition of radio sound effects artists. Cliff Thorsness, who did sound effects for Orson Welles’s Mercury Theatre radio company, was a personal friend in Los Angeles in the 1980s.  Both he and Orson told me that sound effects operators and musicians were treated as equal parts of the sound palette in a good radio broadcast.

“Orson conducted the cast and crew as a symphony orchestra, bringing up the various elements of effects and music as they were needed,” Thorsness said. It was exactly the same level of artistry with Tom Keith, whose effects were essential to the success of all of Garrison Keillor’s on-air sketches.

Jack Hardy, Folk Singer, Songwriter and Playwright, Dies in New York

Jack Hardy, folk singer, songwriter and playwright of great influence to many performers, has died of cancer in New York City. He was 63.

Beginning in the mid-seventies, Hardy hosted Monday night pasta dinners at his apartment on Houston Street, which were open to all songwriters. He also began a small, informal songwriters' group at The English Pub in Greenwich Village, which later became a more formal songwriters' night at the Cornelia Street Cafe in December 1977. 

This group would later evolve into the Songwriter's Exchange, releasing an album on Stash Records in 1980. Eventually, the group formed a cooperative, led by Hardy, and in 1981 took over the booking of the "Speak Easy", which became a thriving venue for songwriters. Hardy was also the founder and first editor of Fast Folk Musical Magazine in 1982. 

He frequently toured with long-time friend and fellow songwriter David Massengill as a duo called the Folk Brothers. They are pictured below at last year’s 50th reunion concert at Gerde’s Folk City.

The hundreds of songwriters who frequented Hardy's apartment gatherings or recorded first for Fast Folk over the years included Suzanne Vega, Lyle Lovett, Shawn Colvin, Tracy Chapman, Richard Shindell, John Gorka, Jeff Gold, Wendy Beckerman, Richard Julian, Christian Bauman, Linda Sharar, Rod MacDonald, Lucy Kaplansky, the Gregory Brothers and Christine Lavin. He was a major influence to all.

RIP, Jack Hardy.

Stephen Sondheim is as Entertaining As His Musicals

There is little question, that in his 80th year, Stephen Sondheim is the greatest living American composer and lyricist for stage and film. Last night, I had a front row seat to a continuing series of “conversations” Sondheim is having around the country with New York Times writer Frank Rich. The great man is charming, hilariously funny, self-depreciating and chocked full of wisdom.

Sondheim was pushing his new prose book, Finishing the Hat, which puts his lyrics under a magnifying glass. He clearly enjoyed writing prose, which he said is not nearly as restricted as writing lyrics. “And the book is an object,” Sondheim said, “where stage shows are so liquid and keep changing.” For that reason, he noted, he always works these days with the book in view, because he’s so happy he finished it.

Sondheim covered a lot of ground, keeping the audience laughing much of the time. But he’s serious on the state of Broadway theatre. “I look around on Broadway these days and the average audience makes me look like a young guy!” he said. “These are people who are in the habit. It's why they go. The habit for younger people now is not live theatre. The habit is movies and things like that. 

“In the 1940s, when I was starting out, it used to be half plays and musicals on Broadway; then, a few years later, it was one-third plays and the rest musicals,” Sondheim said. “Recently, at one point The 39 Steps was the only straight play on Broadway. And many of those new musicals are nothing more than concerts.”

However, Sondheim said he feels deeply that kids want to participate in live theatre. “I may be wrong, but I think that kids will always want to dress up and put on plays,” he said. “Live theatre will always exist at schools and universities. People want to do live theatre.” 

As a kid in the 1940s before he became a songwriter, Sondheim liked straight plays, like Tennessee William’s  Streetcar Named Desire and The Glass Menagerie, and classic films like Orson Welles’s Citizen Kane and John Ford’s The Grapes of Wrath. Then, in 1945, he saw the musical, Carousel. 

“That’s the one that got me,” he said. “That one really moved me. I thought, oh my goodness, musical theatre.”

Sondheim still likes straight plays. He cited a new production of Hamlet he saw in England recently that he called “extraordinary.” And, he told the audience: “It has no songs.” He urged the people in the New York Times building to at least see an upcoming high-definition broadcast of it.

Rich asked Sondheim about his regrets about not having a child. “What would you pass on to a child,” he asked.

“Education is the big thing to me,” Sondheim replied. “The idea is teaching a child everything....to open up the mind.” This launched a discussion of people who had influenced him as both a child and adult.

Among his great teachers, Sondheim said, were a Latin teacher at prep school. “I had skipped a grade and had missed nouns and verbs. I met with her to tell her I was lost. She had an afternoon free and I had one of those soak-up afternoons. After that, I was ready to take the second half. It was a mind opening thing.”

In college, it was a music teacher. “He reduced music to mathematics. That opened me up.” After college, Sondheim studied with composer Milton Babbitt, who is now 94. He took four hour sessions from Babbitt early in his career.

What he does, said Sondheim, is really simple. “If you look at the inside cover of the book, there’s all you need to know about lyric writing. It's all there,” he said. “Of course, you have to have some kind of gift of expression, but essentially its such a small and clearly delineated and defined craft. Less is more. It’s like the card game, Bridge, which can be taught in five minutes. But to become really good at it, that takes a lot more time.” 

In his long career, Sondheim said he has had no truly bitter experiences, but he described the best moments a man in his profession can have.

“There are times when you're standing in the back of a theatre and you see something you've written and it has fulfilled what the hook is and you see the audience come to it and take it in. You made that connection. You feel it. That, in this business, is as good as it gets.” 

Two seats next to me on the front row at the Sondheim talk last night were reserved. Just as the program started, a camera operator and the great filmmaker, D.A. Pennebaker, came in and sat next to me.

Pennebaker, who is now 85 and I knew from previous encounters, told me he's doing another film on Sondheim. In 1970, Pennebaker had made a film on the making of the cast album for Sondheim's play, Company.

While we were talking, I told Pennebaker how much I liked his 2007 film, 65 Revisited, his one-hour re-edit from the outtakes of the Bob Dylan classic from 1965, Don't Look Back. 

"You mean the friendlier version?" Pennebaker asked. "Yeah, Dylan saw it and liked it better too."

 

The Death of Edward Kean, Head Writer for the “Howdy Doody Show”

                    Edward Kean by Del Ready

Edward Kean’s recent death ends a 55-year journey that started for me as a kid in front of a TV set responding to “Say Kids! What Time is It” when the Howdy Doody Show came on the air.

When my family got our first TV set in 1955, I stared at the test pattern each afternoon waiting for the Howdy Doody Show to begin. I was a huge Howdy fan. I once even built my own Howdy Doody studio, and was part of a kid mob that chased a fearful Clarabell to the roof of my local station.

To make a very long story short, while living in Florida, I was hired to shoot a video interview with Buffalo Bob Smith, the host of the show, at his home. Buffalo Bob and I immediately hit it off. 

When the shoot was finished, we sat around Bob’s piano and sang Howdy songs. I remembered every word. Then he did an incredible thing—he took the real Howdy out of his glass box and let me operate his strings. It was a day I’ll never forget. 

Later, when I moved to LA, I was invited to sit in the Peanut Gallery for a TV taping of Howdy’s 40th birthday party. It was there I met Clarabell the Clown and most of the living Howdy Doody gang. As a writer, I came to appreciate Edward Kean, the man who put words into Howdy’s mouth.

 

When Buffalo Bob died, I wrote his obit. That obit was given to Lew Anderson, the actor who played Clarabell. I was summoned to Birdland to meet Anderson, who in real life was the conductor of a big band. We became friends and even discussed doing a book together to be called “Clarabell Speaks.” It didn’t happen. Anderson died soon after that. I wrote his obit as well.

 

Now, Edward Kean, the final name in the big three Howdy players, is gone. He died at age 85.  Kean conceived many of the puppet characters on the show, including my favorite, the cantankerous Phineas T. Bluster, who always represented “the man” to me. A puppet of Mr. Bluster sat on my desk for many years. There was also Dilly Dally, Flub-a-Dub and the one Buffalo Bob loved so dearly, Princess Summerfall Winterspring.

Kean once said that he was probably best known for coining the word “cowabunga” (originally spelled with a “k”) as a greeting for Chief Thunderthud, another character on the show. The word has become part of American vernacular, used by the cartoon character Bart Simpson and by the crime-fighting Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles.

RIP Edward Kean and all other people who created such a powerful childhood fantasy. It will always resonate with me.

My cat, Willow, has become a close friend of Howdy through the years.

On the Million Dollar Quartet

 

I recently saw the Million Dollar Quartet on Broadway, the wonderful new jukebox musical about the impromptu jam session on December 4, 1956 at Sam Phillips’ Sun Studios in Memphis when Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, Johnny Cash and Elvis Presley came together by pure chance.

The show is a remarkable lesson on the history of rock and roll at a time when it was mostly about music—before big money and show business changed and corrupted it forever. Sam Phillips, played by Hunter Foster, ran a Memphis recording service that lured not only the Million Dollar Quartet but such names as Roy Orbison, Howlin’ Wolf, B.B. King, Junior Parker, Rufus Thomas, James Cotton and dozens of other legendary names in music.

Phillips took each of these immense talents and badgered them to find and shape the source of their music. Even though Phillips saw in the young Elvis a white performer who could effectively perform black music (thus melding country with R&B), he considered Howlin’ Wolf his greatest discovery. Elvis, he said, was second.

When you go back to the 1950s to the birth of rock, Sun Records, in its tiny one-room studio, produced more rock and roll records than any other. In 16 years, the company produced 226 singles.

 

 

Elvis first auditioned for Phillips in 1954. But it was not until Elvis sang That’s Alright (Mama) that Phillips was impressed. In less than a year, facing financial troubles, Phillips sold Elvis’ contract to RCA Records for $35,000. But, as Phillips says in the play, don’t feel bad for him. He took that money and invested it well, from releasing Sun’s first big hit, Carl Perkins’ Blue Suede Shows to investing in a small hotel chain that became Holiday Inn. Never has $35,000 gone so far!

When Elvis came back to visit Sun on that faithful day in 1956, he was then famous and missed the mentoring knowledge he’d gotten in the early days from Phillips. He wanted Phillips, who had hooked him up with Scotty Moore, his lead guitarist and bassist Bill Black, to come produce him at RCA. Phillips would have none of it. He stayed with Sun and continued discovering artists that other companies rejected.

For those who love the music history of the United States, Million Dollar Quartet is a must see. I hung onto the every word and marveled at the excellent performances by each of the musicians, especially Tony-nominated Levi Kreis as Jerry Lee Lewis.

But so few today know this history. Without it, one cannot understand how fully money and corporate culture have so corrupted this very native American music. For me, one of the show’s best lines comes when Phillips talks of listening to the records of his musicians at home.

“This is where the soul of a man never dies,” he said, nailing cold what he saw in his musicians that others could not.

The real Sam Phillips. He died in 2003. 

Bet Against the American Dream

This American Life, the public radio show by Ira Glass, has pulled off a winner. With reporters from ProPublica, the nonprofit journalistic organization, it told the story of Magnetar, the hedge fund that gamed the housing bubble. 

Bankers who worked on Magnetar deals walked away with their huge bonuses well before disaster struck — or, as the program put it, “bankers made money even when they were buying things that eventually blew up the bank.” Not to mention the economy. And it was all legal. 

The radio show concluded with a Broadway song commissioned from a co-author of the satirical musical Avenue Q. Titled Bet Against the American Dream, it distills a complex financial saga to its essence: Those who shorted the housing market shorted the country.

A Few Things to Learn About Directing

 

I was recently reminded of a wonderful lecture the great film and theatre director Elia Kazan gave “On What Makes a Director.” In a nutshell, Kazan said a good director must have some knowledge of just about everything: literature, dramaturgy, acting, speech, comedy, music, dance, scenery, costumes, lighting, color, cameras, tape recorders, cities, the country, the sea, animals, psychology, the erotic arts, war, history, economics, food, travel, sports....and that was just the beginning.

Too many video directors today are obsessed with technology. They play the game of camera specifications and always demand the latest new toy off the video assembly line. Some are actually convinced that the glitzy gadgets of the video playpen will assure them the power to create magnificent, compelling programs. Sadly, they are very wrong.

Probably the best advice I’ve ever received about directing came some years ago from a veteran motion picture cameraman who had successfully switched to feature film directing in mid-career. The advice was this: no matter which medium—video, film, theatre, etc.—and no matter what kind of production—news segments to feature films—as long as people are involved, a good director must have a knowledge of the craft of acting.

For someone whose training (a BA degree in journalism) had always emphasized the technical side of video production, this advice initially threw me for a loop. Acting. Learn acting. No one, including all those j-school and broadcasting professors, had ever told me this. A knowledge of the actor’s craft will fundamentally change your approach to directing any kind of program in which people appear on camera. I guarantee it, the film director assured me.

I took his advice and can now, with good conscience, say: HE WAS RIGHT!!! At the very minimum, every video director should study acting. Period. No matter where you are or what kind of programs you direct, do it.

Admittedly it’s easier to study acting with a choice of great teachers in cities like New York and Los Angeles. But some level of acting classes are taught in nearly every city in America. And many books are available which can start a beginner on the right track.

I was lucky enough to study with an excellent teacher who offers a class which is tailor-made for video directors. Judith Weston, who is based in Los Angeles, teaches “Acting for Directors,” a workshop of basic acting techniques for directors, writers and producers with no previous acting experience. The class (www.judithweston.com) will teach you to communicate with actors and inspire them to do their best work. 

There are many great books on acting. Names like Stanislavski, Sanford Meisner, Stella Adler and Uta Hagen have written among the best. But, on the subject of directing, I’d like to recommend two personal favorites.  One—On Directing by Harold Clurman—was published in 1972, and—On Directing Film by David Mamet—was published early in 1991. 

Mamet’s philosophy of directing follows that of Ernest Hemingway’s theory on good writing: “Write the story, take out all the good lines, and see if it still works.” Clurman, the legendary stage director and drama critic, focuses on the process of directing for the stage. His insights and methods, however, apply to all media. Their advice will change your life.

Revisiting Orson Welles is a Reminder of Vast Change in the Arts

I moved to New York City nearly 19 nears ago in large part due to Orson Welles. Through a strange set of circumstances, I was lucky enough to work with the great man during the final year of his life in Los Angeles. After his death in 1985, I came to New York to interview the living members of the Mercury Theatre Company for a documentary on Welles. I fell in love with New York City and eventually moved here.

The New York City I was attracted to was of the 1930s. To hear the exciting stories I was told by the Mercury actors, I thought those wonderful times still existed. Like so many before me, I was lured to the city by a false dream. One soon learns they have to make their own dreams come true in this town.

On Sunday afternoon, I was reminded of this again by Timothy “Speed” Levitch, the legendary New York City tour guide, who gave an Orson Welles tour of the Broadway area as a promotion for Me and Orson Welles, the new film opening this week. Though I had been an executive producer of Cradle Will Rock, a 1999 film about Orson, I had never walked the streets to see where Welles had actually worked.

Timothy “Speed” Levitch, performer and legendary tour guide. Photos by Frank Beacham

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Sadly, there was little to see. Just as theatre itself exists only in the memories of those who witness it, Levitch reminded us that very little of Welles’ New York of 1937 is now left. “Just like us, the city goes through constant transformation,” Levitch said. “That’s why there's almost nothing of old Times Square left. The city has been destroyed and rebuilt 5,000 times already. As we walk along the concrete of the city, think of it as the skin of a living being.” It was an interesting way to think of constant change.

 

As we walked past the Marriott Marquis, Levitch reminded us of the 1985 massacre when three Broadway theatres were torn down to build the huge hotel. Hilariously, however, Levitch noted that three of the hotel’s “homogenized, plastic conference rooms” are each named for among the most radical, socialistic, innovative minds in American theatre: Clifford Odets, Eugene O’Neill and Thornton Wilder. Only in New York!

 

As we approached the site of the original Mercury Theatre at 110 West 41st Street, where Welles and the Mercury produced the modern dress Julius Ceasar—the subject of the new movie—I was saddened. It's now a dreary, nondescript office building. This Wednesday, after all these years, a plaque is finally going up to mark the location as a historic site.

Orson Welles brought innovation and daring to American theatre. The Mercury’s mission was to break the fourth wall and “scratch the nervous system of its audience.” It was an exciting, provocative period of Broadway that is now long gone. To relive the experience today, the closest we can come is to see movies like Me and Orson Welles.

At least, in our dumbed down society, films like this are still being made. Bravo to those who still celebrate great artistic vision. There’s so damn little of it anymore. 

Christian McKay as Orson Welles in Me and Orson Welles

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It says a lot about New York City in 2009 that it took the promotion of a movie to finally install a plaque marking the original site of Orson Welles’ Mercury Theatre. But finally, Thanksgiving week, it happened. It was part of the hoopla for the opening of Me and Orson Welles. In the photo is Christian McKay and Zac Efron, actors from the film. 

The scene of such a burst of creativity should have been on every tourist map for 50 years. But it was lost. Finally, for those who want to know, the place—now a dreary office building—is marked at 110 West 41st Street. 

A Different Side of Wallace Shawn at the New Yorker Festival

My taste in theatre is not mainstream. I love the experimental theatre that came out of the 1960s, when plays broke the “wall” between actors and audience and shocked us with bold ideas, rather than mindless entertainment.  

As a Southerner, I’ve grown up to appreciate the sophisticated works of Tennessee Williams. The plays of August Wilson and David Mamet have resonated deeply with me. Today, my favorite contemporary playwright is Wallace Shawn.

My Dinner with Andre was my first encounter with Shawn, who is the son of William Shawn, the late editor of the New Yorker. But it was Andre Gregory’s 2000 production of Shawn's The Designated Mourner in an abandoned men’s club in Lower Manhattan that made me see the true genius of Shawn’s theatrical productions. His production of The Fever a few years later and his recent book of Essays really sealed the deal for me.

Because both The Designated Mourner and The Fever were made into feature films means they are available to anyone. But their content insures these masterpieces will be seen only with those who want to take a deep bite of truly compelling theatre. They explore Shawn’s love of human creature comforts (coffee is a major thread) while examining the oppression and torture of others who supply him his lifestyle. Shawn calls his writing “a cat and mouse” game with him playing both sides.

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Last night, Shawn talked about the serious side of his life in an interview with critic John Lahr at the City Winery as part of the annual New Yorker Festival. Shawn talks about the bohemians and radicals who taught him at the Putney School, the private liberal arts high school where he got a dose of "high self-esteem."

His first play was written on a whelm, after seeing an ad for a playwriting content. In 1970, Shawn met Andre Gregory, who has directed several of his plays. This is where Shawn developed his radical approach to the presentation of theatrical works outside the normal confines of the traditional theatre. The Fever, for example, was presented in private homes for audiences of only 12 people in its early days. 

His Designated Mourner was heavily enhanced by its location in the crumbling old multi-story men’s club. In that production, the tiny audiences were led through the building as participants in the play. At one point, audience members actually ate a small meal with Shawn and Gregory. It was a theatrical experience I’ll never forget as long as I live.

Last night, Shawn told the story of two young actors who gave their limited impressions of winos on skid row. Gregory didn’t discourage them, but gave them an assignment. They had to actually live on skid row for a few days, drinking the cheapest wine available. Then they would return to the next class and do the scene again. This time, Shawn said, it was different because their performances were rooted in the life they had learned on the street. This, he said, is essential to good acting.

Many people in the New Yorker Festival audience knew Wallace Shawn only from the light comedic roles he plays on television. That’s so sad. Because this man offers far, far more to those with open, curious minds. I urge anyone who likes to think to dig into his work for a rich and rewarding experience.

Wallace Shawn Writes His First Book of Essays

Since the 1981 film, My Dinner with Andre, I have been a big fan of Wallace Shawn’s work. In 2000, a year after I moved to New York City, Shawn and his directing partner, Andre Gregory, produced The Designated Mourner in the city and I somehow got an opening night ticket. Held in a derelict former men’s club in the Wall Street district and limited to 30 audience members each night, the play was one of the most remarkable theatrical experiences of my life. Nothing since has topped it.

Shawn and Gregory, I learned that night, know how to break the walls (and rules) so common in theatrical productions. The production moved about multiple floors in the old building—then under construction—and the audience was seated on old Salvation Army chairs. I won’t go into details here, but the play is set in an unnamed country where repressive forces encroach upon—and then eventually do away with—the intelligentsia. Perfect Shawn material!

A few years later, I saw Shawn perform in The Fever, another amazing work that challenged how I view everyday common objects. In fact, I have not been able to drink a cup of coffee again without thinking of that play. Let’s just say that Shawn challenges conventional ideas about theater, power, sex, class, and, most unsparingly, liberal complacency.

This week, the actor-playwright released his first book of non-fiction essays. I’ve just started it, but so far I’m blown away by Shawn’s provocative insights. Not only is this man a great writer, but he’s one of the few real public intellectuals left in our dumbed down culture.  The book is simply called Essays. However, the ideas he expresses are not simple at all.

     ---Wallace Shawn signs Essays for readers at the Barnes & Noble store at Lincoln Triangle on Sept. 1, 2009.  Photo by Frank Beacham