This transcript was automatically generated and might contain errors.

[0:05] Robert W. Schneider: Hi, I'm Robert W. Schneider.

[0:06] Kevin David Thomas: And I'm Kevin David Thomas.

[0:08] Robert W. Schneider: And this is Behind the Curtain, Broadway's Living Legends.

[0:10] Kevin David Thomas: Don't forget to follow us on Twitter at Broadway Curtain.

[0:13] Robert W. Schneider: And make sure to join our Facebook page at Behind the Curtain, Broadway's Living Legends.

[0:18] Robert W. Schneider: Our guest this week is not only the Tony Award-winning director of Chicago, he has also directed High Fidelity, White Christmas, and Bright Star, and was one of the founding fathers of the celebrated New York City Center Encore series.

[0:30] Robert W. Schneider: But before his incredible directing career, he was one of New York's hardest working actors, appearing in the original Grease, I Love My Wife, and most memorably, as Nicely Nicely Johnson in the 1992 revival of Guys and Dolls.

[0:44] Kevin David Thomas: Here to tell us what it was like to work with such legends as Candor and Ebb, Gerald Guterres, and Andrea Martin, and how he created his breathtaking turn as Malcolm McBeagel in Love Cycle, a soap operetta. Here is WALTER BOBBIE.

[0:55] WALTER BOBBIE: Hi, WALTER.

[0:57] WALTER BOBBIE: Hi.

[0:58] Kevin David Thomas: Thanks for joining us.

[1:02] Robert W. Schneider: So I'd like to start there. So what exactly was Love Cycle?

[1:04] WALTER BOBBIE: Oh my god. You've had this amazing body of work, but I'd like to start there. Love Cycle, you know, it was supposed to be like a monthly television musical for PBS.

[1:18] WALTER BOBBIE: And we did the pilot and the cast, and what they did is it was like we put together an ensemble cast. And the on like Saturday Night Live, except we were going to do a new original musical every month.

[1:31] WALTER BOBBIE: Oh my gosh. And the cast was Patti LuPone, Lonnie Price, Priscilla Lopez, I think. The first one was just sort of awful. But I never went anywhere. I played inexplicably a Scottish laundromat attendant.

[1:51] WALTER BOBBIE: So to this day, whenever I go backstage to see Patti LuPone, they'll say, "Who may I say is coming?" And I'll say, just tell her it's Hutman McBugger.

[2:05] Robert W. Schneider: So born in Scranton, correct?

[2:07] WALTER BOBBIE: Yes.

[2:08] Robert W. Schneider: How'd you get exposed to theater? Parents, friends, school?

[2:13] WALTER BOBBIE: No, not at all. I was in a very... no, not at all. I just was drawn to it. I don't know. I was in the kindergarten play. I was, you know, I remember being in the second grade playing. I had the biggest part, but I was off stage on a microphone and I hated it. And I thought this is no good.

[2:28] WALTER BOBBIE: Oh, in the foot library out front. So I always just did the school plays and the community theater. I went to... I was a business major in college and then a literature and then got my degree in literature and philosophy.

[2:45] Robert W. Schneider: What college did you attend?

[2:46] WALTER BOBBIE: At the University of Scranton.

[2:47] WALTER BOBBIE: At the University of Scranton. And I thought, who am I kidding? So I then went to graduate school at Catholic University in Washington and majored in theater.

[2:57] Kevin David Thomas: Were your parents okay with the switch?

[2:57] WALTER BOBBIE: It was threatening to them. I, you know, my grandparents were all Polish immigrant coal miners, you know, and they had very, very large families and it was a very provincial upbringing I had. So the idea of working in the theater was completely foreign to this.

[3:20] WALTER BOBBIE: I mean, actually I brought my parents their first tickets to a Broadway show that they'd ever seen. But I did the school shows and I went to graduate school and when I wanted to be in, but they were very much against it. They wouldn't really allow me to do summer stock when I was in college.

[3:30] Kevin David Thomas: Oh, really?

[3:36] WALTER BOBBIE: I finally did when I was in graduate school, and then I said, I'm just doing this, and I came to New York.

[3:41] Robert W. Schneider: Right after grad school?

[3:42] WALTER BOBBIE: Yes. I was offered some regional theater jobs at Arena and someplace else. But I really wanted to come to New York. And so I did. And my family, you know, by then were signed on to the idea that this is what I was going to do.

[4:04] WALTER BOBBIE: I would come in on the weekends. We lived in New Jersey by then, and I would come to New York and just see five shows a weekend. I'd go to Friday and two on Saturday, and off Broadway was... there were no Sunday Broadway shows at the time, so I'd go to see two off Broadway shows on Sunday.

[4:21] Kevin David Thomas: Do you remember any of the shows that you saw?

[4:21] WALTER BOBBIE: Well, most memorably I remember my sister and I coming in and seeing Dames at Sea. Oh my goodness. And I said to my... and we laughed, we thought it was hilarious. And I said to my sister naively, I said, "When I go to New York, that's the first show I want to do."

[4:41] Kevin David Thomas: How'd that work out for you?

[4:43] WALTER BOBBIE: It did. Interestingly, you know, I think if you don't know any better, you do things. And I remember I came to New York and I went to the stage door at the Theater de Lys, it's now the Lucille Lortel where Dames at Sea was playing. And I knocked on the stage door and I asked to see the stage manager.

[5:04] WALTER BOBBIE: And he came out and I said, "Hey, this is my picture and resume, and you should call me in and audition me for this show. I could really... would be able to do this." And I said, "Now don't throw my picture in the garbage. I'm telling you, you should bring me in." And lo and behold, they actually did.

[5:20] WALTER BOBBIE: And I got the job as the last understudy for all the men in Dames at Sea downtown.

[5:26] Kevin David Thomas: Well, you were a bold man.

[5:27] WALTER BOBBIE: I didn't know I was being bold. I just, you know, I learned everything I know about Joseph and the Amazing Technicolor Dreamcoat from the movies.

[5:31] WALTER BOBBIE: Isn't that the way Donald O'Connor did it? I mean, isn't that the way Gene Kelly did it? You know, you just got off the bus.

[5:38] WALTER BOBBIE: Yeah, it's great to Allen Town. And my family, I thought... And because what happened was I knew I was going on because I was understudying one of the people. I was understudying was wonderful, Kurt Peterson. And he knew he had to do a benefit or be somewhere with family, and I knew that in two weeks I was gonna go on on a Sunday.

[5:58] WALTER BOBBIE: And so I called my family and I said, "Would you like to come? I'm gonna go on in this show." And they said yes. I said, "Well, how many tickets do you want?" They said, "Well, let me get back to you." So my family, who was all very sort of dubious about my being in the theater, called back several days later and I said, "How many tickets do you want?" They said, "34."

[6:22] WALTER BOBBIE: So they went from being, "This is ridiculous. You can't be in show business, you'll end up a drug addict." And to, "We need 34 seats for some."

[6:33] Kevin David Thomas: That's great.

[6:34] WALTER BOBBIE: That's fantastic. So it's been a... you know, it's been a wonderful... yeah, yeah.

[6:38] Kevin David Thomas: Do you remember what your standard audition song was?

[6:40] WALTER BOBBIE: Ooh, yes. Well, talk about presumption. I remember my uptempo song for a while when I first got off the bus.

[6:50] WALTER BOBBIE: Oh my gosh, yes. Yes. I can't even say... well, everyone here kindly stepped to the rear from How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying.

[7:02] Kevin David Thomas: Good song.

[7:03] WALTER BOBBIE: It's a great song. It's a great song. I remember singing it for Gower Champion for Mack and Mabel.

[7:09] WALTER BOBBIE: Yes. I don't know. It just all felt great. I learned by experience. Yes, anyway. But I... when I reflect back, I enjoyed my instincts. They were really kind of corny and wanting to...

[7:21] Kevin David Thomas: Yeah, besides Dames at Sea, do you remember any other memorable shows, memorable performances that you saw on those trips up to New York?

[7:29] WALTER BOBBIE: That I saw? Oh, so much. My first day in seeing professional theater, I went and saw a matinee of How to Succeed in Business Without Really Trying. And in that evening, I saw a revival of The Glass Menagerie with Maureen Stapleton and Piper Laurie.

[7:51] WALTER BOBBIE: Oh my gosh. Wow. And I sat there, especially in the afternoon, and I went, I couldn't... I mean, I wanted to jump out of my seat, and I thought, I have to come back here and do this. This is what I... I was in college.

[8:02] WALTER BOBBIE: And that's what made it clear to me. I didn't know enough, and I wanted to go to graduate school, but I thought I'm gonna come back here and this is what I want to do. It's just been all made clear for me that day.

[8:13] WALTER BOBBIE: And so that's why when I finished graduate school, I really didn't want to go spend a lot of time in regional theater. I always knew I wanted to come to New York and work here, you know.

[8:25] Kevin David Thomas: And you knew that you clearly liked musicals as much as plays.

[8:29] WALTER BOBBIE: I mean, oh yeah, they were the same everything. I would come in and see, you know, Skyscraper in the afternoon and A View from the Bridge off-Broadway. You know, I saw everything.

[8:39] WALTER BOBBIE: And once I saw Maureen Stapleton, I'd come and see anything that Maureen Stapleton was in.

[8:44] Kevin David Thomas: For those of us who never got to see her live on stage, I mean, we know her from films. What was it like to see her live and in the flesh?

[8:52] WALTER BOBBIE: You couldn't... for me, first of all, she was incredibly charismatic. She was hilarious and sympathetic and strong, and you couldn't catch her acting. You know, it was... I remember her answering the door in, I think it was... was it Last of the Red-Hot Lovers or Plaza Suite, I think.

[9:09] WALTER BOBBIE: And I mean, she was answering the door of the hotel room, and she had a piece of roast beef in her hand at the same time. And I thought, this is... this is not direction or anything. It's just like she was just sublimely hilarious and incredibly heartbreaking.

[9:24] WALTER BOBBIE: I thought to me, she was the... she was one of the early experiences for me in the theater of what you could... what you... the impact you could have on an audience. I just loved her.

[9:36] Kevin David Thomas: Was your graduate school experience... did they appreciate musical theater, or was musical theater something that did not even enter into...

[9:36] WALTER BOBBIE: Musical theater was the delight that happened once a year. Well, I remember we had one acting class, and it was interesting. It wasn't a musical theater class, but we had a professor who made us act Gilbert and Sullivan, not sing the songs, but to take, you know, "I am the very model of a modern Major General" and try to do it as a monologue because it said it doesn't matter if you're singing, it doesn't matter if you're... how do you deal with "I am the very model of a modern Major General of Information Animal Vegetable and Mineral" as an actor.

[10:14] WALTER BOBBIE: And although it was there, it was not intentional on his part, it was a wonderful transition for me to understand the importance of interpreting a song or a lyric as dramatic literature and not just a pile of notes that I rested on top of.

[10:31] Kevin David Thomas: That's right. So when you direct musicals now, do you ever do that with any of the rehearsal methods?

[10:37] WALTER BOBBIE: You know, I'll tell you, after we had done years and years of Chicago, I put... I was putting together a national company, and I got together, and it kind of... everybody was a little freaked at first, but I said, today we're not going to sing the score. We are going to read the script of Chicago as if it was a play.

[10:57] WALTER BOBBIE: And it was in one of the most extraordinary read-throughs I'd ever heard. Because everybody knows the songs so well at that point that to get them to say, "Come on, babe, why don't we paint the town?" and "All that jazz?" And we literally read the script as it was a play. The cast was on fire.

[11:17] WALTER BOBBIE: They responded so dramatically and positively. And then when we went into the rehearsal, they had a different insight into what their task was supposed to be. Because by the time you get to that third and fourth and fifth company, people know the hand gestures and the choreography.

[11:34] WALTER BOBBIE: And it's hard to get them to open up their souls and their minds and their spirits to what is actually the action of a song or the action of a scene. And I sometimes do that now. I think I don't think there's a... you know, there should not be a separation between the two.

[11:53] Kevin David Thomas: Agreed.

[11:54] WALTER BOBBIE: And I'm more and more drawn to pieces of material where that is true.

[11:58] Kevin David Thomas: First Broadway show you were in.

[12:03] WALTER BOBBIE: Yeah.

[12:03] WALTER BOBBIE: I'm surprised I stayed and survived. My first Broadway show, my first Broadway show lasted one night, and it was called Frank Merriwell.

[12:15] WALTER BOBBIE: And what was Frank Merriwell about?

[12:17] WALTER BOBBIE: Or Honor Challenge. Frank Merriwell was about... oh, that's going to give it a subtitle. You know, sort of... it was a turn-of-the-century kind of... there was a villain and a hero, and it was a very kind of corny melodramatic show musical, and there were wonderful people on that too.

[12:40] WALTER BOBBIE: Uh, and it lasted one night. Um, it, it, uh, I think the review in the New York Times was a paragraph. Oh no. Oh, yeah. And interestingly, it's the only theater poster I've kept.

[12:55] Kevin David Thomas: Oh, really?

[12:56] WALTER BOBBIE: You probably debuted. Of course you should be. It had, but it had one of the, it has, it has one of the best theater posters of that era was by, uh, what was his name? Tom Byrd, who did all those classic posters, Volleys and God's Bill. Well, he did our poster, and it's actually magnificent, but it lasted one night. And my first off-Broadway lead was in a show called Drat, which also lasted one night.

[13:20] Kevin David Thomas: What was Drat?

[13:21] WALTER BOBBIE: It was me and Bonnie Franklin and Jane Connell, and it was, uh, The Drunkard, basically it was a musical version of The Drunkard. And I had the most, uh, remarkable, and, uh, I mean, I've been very fortunate, I have to say. The producers came to me three days before we opened, and they said the show is gonna close on Sunday, and it's not your fault. And they offered me the standby for The Grass Harp. And I thought, gee, this is either expedient or thoughtful. But I went to rehearsal, I opened the play, which was a dreadful little musical, and we closed on Sunday, and on Monday I went to rehearsal at The Grass Harp and sat there as a musical comedy, you know, maniac.

[14:12] Kevin David Thomas: Yeah.

[14:13] WALTER BOBBIE: Suddenly I, there I was sitting with Barbara Cook, Karen Marr, you know, Ellis Rabb was directing.

[14:19] Kevin David Thomas: Oh wow.

[14:20] WALTER BOBBIE: Um, Jonathan Tunick was doing his first set of Broadway arrangements. So even all along the way, whenever experience I was always in the most remarkable experiences, even in failure. And the wonderful thing about Frank Merywell is that Neil Kenyon, who was the director of Dames at Sea, actually saw me do Dames at Sea before it closed and gave me my first Broadway show.

[14:44] Kevin David Thomas: And they were closed in a night.

[14:46] WALTER BOBBIE: Um, there was something about even when I was in all of these failures, I was, there was some sort of affirmation that I shouldn't stop this. So it didn't feel like, oh Juan, I know I felt like Karen Marl who opened and closed many shows to talk to at some point.

[15:02] Kevin David Thomas: Yes.

[15:06] WALTER BOBBIE: And it was, they did it all so that I could sit there in the theater every night and watch Karen Marlowe and Barbara Cook. That's why the show was ultimately done. It was just to give me a master class on musical theater performance. And again to watch the great Ellis Rabb.

[15:21] Kevin David Thomas: I was just gonna, at the end of his career at Shapers Creepers, that was good. What was it like to be directed by him?

[15:26] WALTER BOBBIE: What I didn't get to be directed by him because we opened and, and we closed in eight days or something.

[15:32] Kevin David Thomas: What made him so good?

[15:34] WALTER BOBBIE: I think, well, I have to say, I think because he was an actor as well, and there's so many of us who came to directing, uh, you know, who acted, and I think understand the actor's process and understands, uh, uh, what the actor needs. And, uh, many of the great directors I've worked with, from Jerry Zaks to Dan Sullivan to, you know, uh, Jerry Gutierrez, they acted at some point.

[16:02] Um, and for a while, you know, so they really understood the process.

[16:07] Kevin David Thomas: Um, was Tom Moore the same way on Grease?

[16:11] WALTER BOBBIE: Tom, I don't think ever, I think Tom was never an actor. I think Tom was always a director. Uh, you know, the thing about Grease is they, the wonderful, I think the wonderful lessons I've learned from, uh, Pat Birch and Tom Moore on Grease, the lessons I learned as a director was that they celebrated the people they cast.

[16:32] They were all these great numbers, but everybody was expected to bring their personality to these roles, which were initially, you could have given anybody's lines to anybody else.

[16:46] They weren't like, oh my god, I think I'll study this, you know.

[16:48] Kevin David Thomas: Yeah.

[16:49] WALTER BOBBIE: It wasn't that kind of investigation, you know.

[16:52] Kevin David Thomas: Yeah, totally.

[16:53] WALTER BOBBIE: Um, you know, so that you could say, Did you meet her at the beach? And you can give that line to anybody. So it's like you investigated the text carefully to find your character. You had to bring some personality to it. And, and of course, they had, they cast 16 very individuated people, yeah.

[17:15] Kevin David Thomas: And, uh, and they just let us, um, be.

[17:20] WALTER BOBBIE: Yeah.

[17:21] Kevin David Thomas: You know, they, they let us, uh, exploit must have had a lot of trust in you, you know, to as actors.

[17:26] WALTER BOBBIE: I, well, they, I, they either had no trust or they had no choice. But if you look at who they cast, originally they cast a lot of real in pr, you know, and they're, and, and also you're in a musical where there was no chorus.

[17:40] You weren't gonna be wearing the same costume as anybody else. You weren't gonna be doing the same step at the same time as anybody else. So you, as long as you felt comfortable moving, you didn't even, there were no dancers in that show.

[17:52] In fact, dancers in that show looked odd because in the original production, you know, I mean over the years it's morphed into something quite different. And, and Happy Days has informed it, and the movie informed it. But originally we were a rambunctious two gangs who could move well and it was exuberant, but it wasn't a tidy piece of Broadway choreography.

[18:18] Kevin David Thomas: And who were you in Grease?

[18:19] WALTER BOBBIE: I was Roger, the original mooning champ of Rydell High.

[18:23] Kevin David Thomas: Congratulations.

[18:24] WALTER BOBBIE: Yeah.

[18:24] Kevin David Thomas: That's very cool.

[18:26] WALTER BOBBIE: How, uh, so Grease, I think they called him Potzi or something in the film, they cut his song.

[18:31] Kevin David Thomas: Oh weird.

[18:32] WALTER BOBBIE: How dare they?

[18:33] Kevin David Thomas: How dare they?

[18:34] WALTER BOBBIE: Oh, come on. One of the greatest songs ever written. Mooning, come on. Nobody could do it as well as you. That's why it's not in the movie.

[18:42] Kevin David Thomas: That's right.

[18:44] WALTER BOBBIE: That's the reason. They don't want embarrassing.

[18:47] Kevin David Thomas: Tricks.

[18:48] WALTER BOBBIE: Oh my lord. You know, I was in, I, I, I got this show called Tricks. I was in Grease, and I thought, oh, well, I, you know, and because I kept getting jobs, I thought, well, this'll just happen all the time. I think I'll just do Tricks. Why not? And it had been done in Louisville and Washington at the Arena to great acclaim.

[19:07] But when it was brought to New York, it was brought, uh, they changed a lot of the cast. And we had a first-rate, uh, what's his name? Herman Levin was our producer, who produced My Fair Lady and stuff like that. Extraordinary cast, Renee Bergemois, Joe Morton, on and on. And I thought, oh, I want to do this. And it was kind of a mess.

[19:31] Kevin David Thomas: I th, I, it was unfortunate.

[19:33] WALTER BOBBIE: Well, it w, I, it was, it was, um, it was based, it was an adaptation of Scapan, Moliere's Scapan. And it was called Tricks because it was very done, very up, you know, every, uh, well, what is the word? Comedia del arte. There was lots of business and shtick and stuff, and there was a prop for every line.

[19:50] And I remember saying when we were in rehearsal, and because John had done the show twice before, it was like he was putting a production and other people's business on top of this Broadway cast. And we were sort of like rebelled, saying, What, well, what's the, what's the heart of the show? You know, uh, I've done Gilbert and Sullivan as a monologue. So what am I doing here exactly except this, this business?

[20:15] It was a troubled piece, and, um, and we came to New York, but interestingly, interestingly, the producers of Grease called me while I was in Detroit because they weren't particularly happy with my replacement.

[20:31] Kevin David Thomas: And you could just leave, you just, yeah, yeah, yeah.

[20:35] WALTER BOBBIE: Oh, well, I, we could, you know, um, I, I don't know what my contract was, but I had done the show like nine months or something.

[20:43] Kevin David Thomas: Gotcha.

[20:43] WALTER BOBBIE: And I, I don't know. I probably, you know, when they, when they first had us, they had us, I think probably on minimum contracts. None of us had any negotiating power. We had done this thing off-Broadway, they moved us to Broadway. And on that kind of contract, I bet I could probably have gotten out in a month.

[20:58] Kevin David Thomas: Yeah, gotcha.

[21:00] WALTER BOBBIE: And you know, at that time you're doing that. You get your next Broadway show and you get an increase in salary, and anyway. So I'm in Detroit, miserable, and, uh, the producers of Grease call me and they say, We hear your show stinks.

[21:18] Kevin David Thomas: Perhaps something more elegant they said than that.

[21:21] WALTER BOBBIE: But they said, Do you want to come back? Because we don't, we know we hear it's not gonna run. And, and we're displeased with the, uh, with your replacement. I can't forget his name. And I said, Yeah. So I opened, uh, Tricks at the now the Neil Simon, then the Alvin Theater.

[21:44] Kevin David Thomas: Yeah, and I went back into Grease.

[21:48] WALTER BOBBIE: I was like, I had a guardian angel. I got off, I got off of it.

[21:51] Kevin David Thomas: I know, I know.

[21:52] WALTER BOBBIE: You know, people say, Well, I'll give you tips. I said, I g, my mine is not the how-to playbook. I have been amazing. It's been, it's been kind of remarkable, yeah.

[22:02] Kevin David Thomas: And the same thing happened when I finally went to direct.

[22:05] WALTER BOBBIE: I just suddenly was directing.

[22:07] Kevin David Thomas: Yeah, it's, uh, I've been very blessed.

[22:10] WALTER BOBBIE: Smother Brothers.

[22:11] Kevin David Thomas: Oh my god.

[22:13] WALTER BOBBIE: Yes. Now I needed a job. And they called me and they said, Would you understudy both Smother Brothers in I Love My Wife? And I thought, yeah, why not?

[22:24] Kevin David Thomas: Why not?

[22:27] WALTER BOBBIE: What could happen? What are they gonna do? Send me to comedy prison? So I, I, and also, uh, one of my friends was in it, um, Janie Sell, and I had seen an original originally with, you know, Eileen Graf and James Naughton and, um, oh, what's a beautiful Joanna Gleason, Joanna Gleason and Baker.

[22:54] Kevin David Thomas: And, uh, I really thought that Gene Sachs was a remarkable man.

[22:59] WALTER BOBBIE: I liked him a lot. So I said yes, and I actually went on a lot for Tommy. Dick was fine, but I went on for Tommy a lot.

[23:08] Kevin David Thomas: And back in the day, they used to have to do two of three things.

[23:08] WALTER BOBBIE: They used to have to do an insert in the program, change the board out front, and make an announcement. And they still do, but I, you know, back then, but the boards out front weren't, weren't a regular thing, and they certainly weren't digitized.

[23:29] Kevin David Thomas: And, uh, and I don't think any expedi expected Tommy to call in sick.

[23:35] WALTER BOBBIE: And when they went into the show, Gene had constructed, because it has no overture, it starts with the band. And so they started the show with, uh, Dick coming out stage right and taking a bow in a spotlight, and me coming out stage left, or Tommy coming out stage left and taking a bow.

[23:57] Kevin David Thomas: So I guess the first show I did was a matinee, and you hear this afternoon's performance ordinarily made by Tom Smothers, we played by WALTER BOBBIE.

[24:06] WALTER BOBBIE: Oh, Jesus! Oh mom! Oh my god, whoa. And I thought, holy mackerel, this is gonna be something. So the curtain doesn't go up, and Dick walks out in the spotlight and takes a bow. And I walk in the spotlight, and I look at the audience like, not my fault. Like, bow and they laughed.

[24:31] Kevin David Thomas: Oh, that's great.

[24:33] WALTER BOBBIE: And I was on at that point. The first time I was on, I think I was on for a week. And the thing is that Dick, who has been spent a career being on stage with a total loose canyon. Whatever I did, he was right there with me. He was remarkable.

[24:47] Kevin David Thomas: That's cool.

[24:49] WALTER BOBBIE: He never looked disappointed. He never seemed to judge me.

[24:52] Kevin David Thomas: Oh wow.

[24:53] WALTER BOBBIE: And he actually had a very, very good time together. And, uh, it was, it was a remarkable experience.

[24:59] Kevin David Thomas: How long were you with the show? Do you remember?

[25:01] WALTER BOBBIE: Well, I think we, we, uh, I think they were in the show for about six months, and I think we closed, they closed the show.

[25:07] WALTER BOBBIE: They closed the show. Well, they didn't close the show, but the closed show, the show closed while they were in.

[25:12] Kevin David Thomas: Got it.

[25:14] WALTER BOBBIE: So did I. No, I have to ask, you did a production of She Loves Me?

[25:17] WALTER BOBBIE: Yes. Back, you know, Playwrights Horizons used to have the theater, Queen's Theater in the Park at the Old World's Fairgrounds.

[25:27] Kevin David Thomas: Oh.

[25:27] WALTER BOBBIE: Oh wow. And they used to do three shows there a season. And I actually did and under Andre Bishop when he was had taken over. And then the first show I did at the park was Company. We did the 10th anniversary of Company with the wonderful and prematurely deceased Andre Arnott directing. He was a fantastic director who was lost to us quite early. But the cast was Peter Evans, Christine Baransky, me, Pat Richardson, Mary Testa. I mean, it was a cast. It was amazing. It was the 10th anniversary of Company.

[26:06] Kevin David Thomas: Yeah.

[26:07] WALTER BOBBIE: And uh uh Jane Galloway, who was sensational, one of the original vanities, she's no longer in the business. It was remarkable. And uh then that fall, they Jerry Gutierrez was directing She Loves Me, and they asked me to do She Loves Me, which is where I met Andrea Martin. It was it is Andrea Martin. Andrea Martin was in that she was hilarious, and the late uh David Um my mind. Carol David Carroll, yes, yes. I did another play with David Carroll, uh actually the public um Cafe Crown. But anyway, again, wonderful people, wonderful cast, great director, and uh a kind of a remarkable experience. I'll never I'll I I'll I won't soon forget it. Uh we had a great time.

[26:57] Kevin David Thomas: Who just going back a second? Who were you in the company production? Remember who you played?

[27:01] WALTER BOBBIE: Sorry, Grateful.

[27:02] Kevin David Thomas: Oh, uh Harry.

[27:03] WALTER BOBBIE: Yeah, whatever Harry, yeah. Very sorry, and I was grateful. You were sorry and you were grateful. Um I did both of those things in a distinctly different way. Oh my sorrow and my gratitude were expressed with remarkable range. It's that modern major general training. Nuanced to it.

[27:21] Kevin David Thomas: Well, yeah, it's that brilliant between the two. Um and then in the 80s, mostly regional theater. Were you on the road a lot or were you in the city a lot?

[27:32] WALTER BOBBIE: No, I don't remember doing regional theater. I did a little, I did a few things. I remember going to the oh, what was it in in uh I remember going to the oh what's the theater mainland stage company?

[27:53] Kevin David Thomas: Oh, Portland Stage.

[27:54] WALTER BOBBIE: Yeah. Portland Stage Company doing a play called Goodbye Freddie by Liz Diggs. Again with wonderful people. And Lend Me a Tenor? Did you do Lend Me a Tenor?

[28:03] WALTER BOBBIE: Oh, I did the original version of Lend Me a Tenor. It was called Opera Buffa. We did it at the American Stage Festival. Oh my goodness. And I was uh who the role that rather later bitterly was handed over to uh my dear friend Victor Garper. Dare hearing. But up there it was called Opera Buffa, and we thought, this is great. We're going to Broadway. Instead, uh they took it to London.

[28:34] Kevin David Thomas: Oh.

[28:35] WALTER BOBBIE: Oh. And uh, and they did it in London, and they changed the title to Lend Me a Tenor. And then it came to America in a dramatic and radically different production, which which my dear friend Jerry Zach's didn't cast me in. Although we've worked together multitude of times. Jerry. No, Jerry's a great pal. But uh, and then they did that in Broadway. But it had a it had a long journey. And when we did it, it was Opera Buffa.

[29:00] WALTER BOBBIE: Uh Up from Paradise? Up from Paradise was one of the most remarkable theater experiences I've had. Stuart Ostro was then running the musical theater lab at the top of the Kennedy Center. And that's where we first do it. Is everybody seated? Because this was a musical by Arthur Miller. Arthur Miller took his failed play, The Creation of the World and Other Business, and turned it into a musical called Up from Paradise. And it was his version of the Genesis story.

[29:30] Kevin David Thomas: Oh.

[29:33] WALTER BOBBIE: And Dan Sullivan was directing. Adam and Eve were played by Alice Playton and Austin Pendleton. Lonnie Price was Kane. I forget who was Abel. I was Lucifer. Len Carey was God. It was extraordinary. And it was written for a Woodwin Quintet. Oh my god. And then we came to New York and we did it at the Jewish Theater Company, which I I don't know that it exists.

[30:00] Kevin David Thomas: Jewish rap.

[30:02] WALTER BOBBIE: Yes, that's right. And you couldn't get a ticket. The critics just wouldn't give Arthur Miller a break. But it was true music, huh? Stanley Silverman. Stanley Silverman who's written opera, written a lot of film stuff, and was always the creative musical uh standard uh musical guy for um the ontological hysterical for Richard Foreman's ontological hysterical theater company. But again, there I am and off from paradise, and nobody ever heard of it, but I'm in the room with this amazing gathering. Arthur Miller that's on the show with Arthur Miller. And there, you know, I'm sitting there with Arthur Miller, who was a great man. I mean, he was just a sensational human his humanity just poured out of it. He was a large uh imposing man. He used to call me Waller.

[30:52] WALTER BOBBIE: Waller. And I remember at one point, and here I am. I'm going, who the hell do you think you are? And uh I'm you know written my term paper in Arthur Miller as a kid, yeah, and now he's standing in the room with me. And I said, Arthur, you know this line I have where I say, enough, enough. Do I have to say it twice? It seems like too much. And he said, I only type it twice, say it three times. And I went, oh, oh. So I went, enough, enough, enough. And he went, see, that's better.

[31:24] WALTER BOBBIE: Oh my god. But it was a kind of thrilling and presumptuous for me to go up to Arthur Miller with a line note, and then we fixed on the and and he instead of saying, You idiot, you presumptuous little twit, he just dealt with me seriously and improved it. That's it's great.

[31:44] Kevin David Thomas: Yeah, it was pretty special.

[31:45] WALTER BOBBIE: That's I w I've I've always actually that is a show that I actually would like to do again in a small theater.

[31:51] Kevin David Thomas: Oh yeah.

[31:52] WALTER BOBBIE: Because I think it's kind of a a gem. That I think is a buried little gem. It's it's very sweet, it's very pure, and it's a story that we all know, but musically it's quite surprising. Was a recording ever made of that?

[32:06] Kevin David Thomas: No.

[32:06] WALTER BOBBIE: Oh, that's a shame. Well, bring it back. You guys, where have you been digging in it? Where have you been finding?

[32:11] WALTER BOBBIE: I forgot I did have. Uh Guys and Dolls. Uh yes. How did that come about?

[32:22] WALTER BOBBIE: Well, you know, I've known Jerry for a long time. And Jerry and I actually did Greece together because he replaced uh he did the national company, but then he replaced off Broadway uh Tim Myers. So I've known Jerry forever. And um, and then you know, I was we were hanging out with Chris Durang when he did Sister Mary and his career just changed, you know. It was remarkable, but he was a wonderful New York actor. And um and I remember I was I was really I really kind of needed a job. And he called and offered me uh anything goes at Lincoln Center. And I was going through a personal loss in my life, my partner was dying and all that stuff, and I thought, oh wow, it's so thoughtful.

[33:16] WALTER BOBBIE: And I did um what's his name in anything goes, the British guy. Oh, Sir Sir Evelyn. Sir Evelyn, yeah. In the in the uh Lincoln Center, Lincoln Center, yeah. And then Jerry asked me to do to come into Assassins because Terry Mann had an opening in his contract where he had to be away for two weeks or three weeks or something to do something at Playwrights Horizons. So Jerry said, Would you come in and replace Victor for that just that period? And I said, Well, if you'll put me into it. And so suddenly there I was in repl in Assassins for three weeks with Dead Monk and Victor Garber and the whole thing. I know every place I you know, I keep landing in it. You know what I mean? And and they all dealt with me like, come on aboard. You know, because that original cast at Playwrights Horizons was remarkable. Special.

[34:14] WALTER BOBBIE: And then when I got the call for anything goes, I mean for anything goes for uh uh fors, I said, does Jerry know about this? Because traditionally the show's always been played by a hefty kind of guy. Right, totally and um and Jerry said, and they said, Yeah, Jerry wants to see you. And I said, Okay. So I came in, you know, I got ready, I trained, sang my brains out, and he cast me. Then it really wasn't such a slam dunk. It was really, you know, Geisentals was uh remarkably difficult because a lot of Jerry did a lot of things which were fresh and original, like, you know, casting me, yeah, like he cast me and and uh um uh J.K. Simmons, you know, these two guys, and took the heavy set guy and made him Stubby K. Stabby KK and made him uh uh what's his name?

Um like the Harry the Horse Guys uh and a lot of the stuff when you go back to the original script, you know, he's always coming in eating a sandwich, carrying a hoagie and all this stuff, and I go there I was, you know, actually skinny at that time, and walking in with this, you know, food and eating and going to the grocery, and then none of it made any sense.

[35:34] WALTER BOBBIE: And um because there's not really much, you know, talk about a personality role, there's not really much on the page to investigate. Totally. He walks in and he's the fat guy who sings later on. Yeah, got three of the best songs in the show. Sure. But it is not defined by motivation or any of that stuff, it's just a great part. Right. And finally, um, we were leaving the rehearsal hall, and I remember Jerry saying, Would you wear a fat suit? And I said, No, I won't. I said, Jerry, if this doesn't work, it doesn't work. But I I can't do that. And uh we I was lost. I think we both were, because I was a friend and whatever. And then we came to Broadway, and they changed my costume every day for a week, and then and he just and Jerry stopped in some ways directing me or trying to figure it out, and he just it was the greatest trust act ever.

He just left me alone with the audience for about you know, because Jerry gives notes, notes, notes, notes, notes. And I think we had a really tough conversation, and then there was like three days where he just let me figure it out. And uh, I mean, I will be forever grateful to him. And we ended up having a remarkable experience.

[36:54] WALTER BOBBIE: And I ended up but I had to find a different way in because it wasn't gonna be I I wasn't gonna be able to define the role by being the sight gag, you know.

[37:02] Kevin David Thomas: Yeah, totally.

[37:04] WALTER BOBBIE: And just by being the guy who looks like that. And I ended up having a great time. But what should have, you know, people say, oh, that'll be just a rolling off a log. And the guys and dolls is tricky because it's such good material unless you do it well, as the last revival proved, you know, you can you can do a bad production of My Fair Lady, you know.

[37:24] Kevin David Thomas: Yeah, yeah, uh, so it was great.

[37:28] Kevin David Thomas: What did you discover in those three days? I mean, how did you did you just play around? Did you just kind of like try this, try that?

[37:35] WALTER BOBBIE: No, are they reacting? It was front of an audience.

[37:36] WALTER BOBBIE: I just tapped into what I thought this guy's spirit was. And his zest and his innocence. I thought he's the one guy who just likes hanging out for these guys. He probably doesn't even gamble. He just likes being there. They let him in the club. You know, yeah, totally.

[37:55] Kevin David Thomas: Did you eventually lose all of the, you know, the apples and the food and all that stuff? Did that go away?

[38:00] WALTER BOBBIE: All that went away. That all goes away. I had a bunch of costume changes, and William Ivy Long put me in one suit, and he changed my hat and shoes. And the first time I went on there, he had me in like white shoes and a straw boater, and I thought, Oh, I felt like Harold Hill. I thought we got trouble right here. We got trouble right here in Ruggedland. And then he changed my hat and my shirt and my shoes every day, and we put together this costume, and I was listening to the audience, and I found the joy in this part. And I don't know, I mean, Jerry and I got through what I think was a tricky moment for both of us.

[38:40] Kevin David Thomas: Yeah.

[38:41] WALTER BOBBIE: But mutually trusting each other, we got through. Oh, yeah. And that's beautiful. You know, I trust him completely. This then leads to, I believe, one of your first directing experiences in New York while you're doing Guys and Dolls, is that right? You did a Grand Night for Singing?

[38:57] WALTER BOBBIE: Yes. How did that come to be? Did you always want to be a director?

[39:03] WALTER BOBBIE: Yes. You always, yeah. But I couldn't, I really couldn't get, as they say, arrested. I really, it's hard to change how people hold in our business easily. And especially if you know, I've had to change how people perceive me for a long time. Because when you do that many musicals, then people don't call you on for plays.

[39:22] Kevin David Thomas: Exactly.

[39:23] WALTER BOBBIE: So I went to California for, you know, a while. I did a lot of television drama and then Hill Street Blues and LA Law, whatever those shows were. And the Equalizer, I mean, any of this. Anyway, I suddenly came back to New York and I was doing, you know, Shaw at Circle in the Square.

[39:48] Kevin David Thomas: Yep.

[39:48] WALTER BOBBIE: And I also stopped doing commercials.

[39:51] Kevin David Thomas: Oh because uh...

[39:51] WALTER BOBBIE: You know, there's no way to because I was very lucky with commercials. I did a lot of commercials, and commercials back in the day were how you could afford to work at Playwrights Horizons, for example, between jobs. But when people see you on camera going, "Gee, honey, how'd you get it so clean?" Yeah, you know, they don't think, "Oh yes, yes, we should have him in for that show up." You know, we're doing Coriolanus.

[40:18] Kevin David Thomas: Right.

[40:23] WALTER BOBBIE: So, the time that I spent in California was really valuable, not just for the way other people perceived me, but for the way I perceived myself. And then I came back and I did Driving Miss Daisy. And suddenly I was not just doing musicals, but I had to, and I just wouldn't even audition for a musical for five years.

[40:46] Kevin David Thomas: Wow.

[40:48] WALTER BOBBIE: Absolutely. Because I, you know, you only, you can tell the world what it is you have or interests you or whatever. Totally. And remarkably, it worked, and I got to do a bunch of plays, and then I felt safer going back and doing musicals, and I felt that way as a director too. I really, you know, it's like after, you know, after High Fidelity, yeah, I just went, you know what? I gotta get in the sandbox again. I only want to do new plays, I'm going downtown.

[41:20] Kevin David Thomas: Wow.

[41:20] WALTER BOBBIE: And I went down with my, you know, dear trusted friend David Ives, and we did three great plays at CSC. I worked at MCC and EST and every alphabet you can think of.

[41:33] Kevin David Thomas: I was amazed at how many off-Broadway theaters you worked at. I mean, you hit them all. Manhattan Theater Club and Playwrights Horizons and Roundabout CSC.

[41:42] WALTER BOBBIE: I did, and I just would do new plays. And then I thought, you know, I want to do another musical, and so I'm doing one. I think only you can help guide your following. But anyway, yeah, so Grand Night for you, obviously at the end of the day. Oh, so granted, you know, here's the Hammerstein and all of that. There I am. I'm in a hit Broadway musical in a killer part, yep, and I know that I really want to direct because the Rogers and Hammerstein Estate offered me this 50-minute review at the Rainbow and Stars. It's not like I was an out-of-work actor; I didn't know what to do. I was trying to kill some time.

[42:25] Kevin David Thomas: Yeah, no.

[42:25] WALTER BOBBIE: And I actually went to Jerry Zaks and I said, "Jerry, will you give me a three-week leave of absence to do this?" And Jerry, who understood because he transitioned himself, he's been remarkable at so many points in my professional career. Jerry has been for me there as such a loyal friend and colleague. I just, I get choked up every time I talk about him. And Jerry let me out. He gave me a three-week leave of absence, and I went and took all this material and found a way to rethink it and refresh it and do it not in the ways it was originally contextualized. So I wanted to hear the, I wanted to make sure the audience would hear the lyrics again.

[43:09] Kevin David Thomas: Yes, of course.

[43:10] WALTER BOBBIE: For some reason, every major New York theater critic came to that review of the Rainbow and Stars. And so all the first drink critics were there, and they suddenly went, "Oh, he can direct."

[43:23] Kevin David Thomas: That's amazing.

[43:25] WALTER BOBBIE: So I went from, "That's amazing. I can whatever," to like suddenly I was doing, you know, a Chris Tarang play at EST, suddenly I was doing the first Encores, I was doing a play at Manhattan Theater Club. And then they offered me the artistic directorship. And then what happened is, and then Todd asked me to do an expanded version at the Roundabout, which we did. Anyway, by the time I was offered the first show at Encores, which was Fiorello, all those people had been saying to me for years, "Oh, you know, you should direct. You should direct." I called them all. Because I had been working in the middle of town for 25 years, and suddenly I actually could go from never having directed in New York City to opening up my phone book, and I called Jerry Zaks, and I said to Jay Ben, your casting director, I said, "If Jerry says yes, everybody will come."

And Jerry thought about it, and he said yes to playing Fiorello. And then I called Faith Prince and Adam Arkin and Donna McKechnie and Ben Phil Bosco. They all came. And I thought to myself, if I could get them to come on and off stage, it's gonna be fine.

[44:51] Kevin David Thomas: Oh yeah.

[44:53] WALTER BOBBIE: And I remember the first day of rehearsal, Jerry's watching me and watching me, watching me. And at the end of the day he came up to me and he said, "It's gonna be okay."

[45:04] Kevin David Thomas: Oh my god.

[45:05] WALTER BOBBIE: Wow. And it was like, you know, I get choked up here on that. I do. What a friend. What a great group of friends who all came out for this. Were you offered Fiorello or were you told we'd like to do a show in concert? Do you have any ideas?

[45:19] WALTER BOBBIE: No, I was offered Fiorello. The original artistic director of Encores is, oh my god, I can't believe we have to tape this. We have to cut this. Okay. Oh, what's it? Ira Weitzman. The original artistic director of Encores was Ira Weitzman, and he put together that first season. And I'd known Ira from Playwright's Horizons forever, and Ira actually offered me also, you have to remember that Ted Chapin was on the board and he had been around the whole Grand Night for Singing thing.

[45:54] Kevin David Thomas: Yeah, he gave you the book.

[45:55] WALTER BOBBIE: And so suddenly they offered me, and they didn't know what it was going to be. But suddenly there I was at Encores, and you know, I called John Lee Beatty and Richard Pilbrough, and I called William Ivy Long to do the clothes, and it was just, I was doing a first-rate. I went from nothing to having a huge theater full of relationships too, of how important those are, you know, over time how people over time trust them. And the thing I've always remembered is to try to pass that on and help new and emerging people find work, and you're the template. I mean, Fiorello is pretty much the template of how they're going to proceed to do Encores shows then for the next 20 years or so, right?

[46:44] WALTER BOBBIE: Well, I think when they asked me to do, because the second when they asked me, then they asked me to do the next one, I said nope, I spent a long time figuring out Fiorello, and I don't want to just rush and do any more this season. And then they offered me the artistic directorship. And I said, I will take the artistic, I'd be honored to do it, but we have to have something in the budget for playwrights. We can't go in there and have the actors cutting. We can't have people, we can't have the directors making this cut.

[47:14] Kevin David Thomas: Good for you.

[47:14] WALTER BOBBIE: Because the original one, I had called my friend again, John Weidman, because I've known him from Assassins, right? Anything Goes. And I said, "John, your dad wrote this. I need to cut it down. Would you please help me?" So John edited his own father's book, and I realized when I went to that next season, that I wanted real writers respectfully dealing with the masters of the American musical theater. So in those first few years, we had everybody from Chris Durang to Terrence McNally to John Guare. I mean, we just, David Ives came along, and then that was just bliss. But we always had playwrights coming in to edit the work, and then David Ives became such a master edit; he did a lot of it after a while.

But you go over the roster of playwrights who came there to edit Encores in those years, and you see that there was, and if I have to take credit for anything that I initiated, I just said it's critical because the first year I think I was the only one who brought in a playwright to edit.

[48:22] Kevin David Thomas: Oh, interesting.

[48:23] WALTER BOBBIE: And I think because we didn't quite know what we were doing, you know what I mean? And I think we're...

[48:26] Kevin David Thomas: Of course, yeah.

[48:29] WALTER BOBBIE: But yeah, and that was just amazing. Was Chicago your second season there or your third?

[48:35] WALTER BOBBIE: Third season there? And yeah, by the time I got there, I thought I've got, because here the first season I put together was season two, and it was Call Me Madam. Oh, and I was gonna direct it. And I got closer and closer to it, and I thought, no, I can't direct this. And I fired myself. Because I realized that all the artistic directors that I really respected around town, people like Andre Bishop and on and on, and Todd and Joe Papp, they don't direct. And I thought I need to focus on identifying what we're doing here and identifying our mission. And it's not about me having a vanity house. It also became important for me, once I started to direct, to go and to appreciate my colleagues and not compete with them.

You know, and I remember the first time I met Mark Brokaw at the Young Playwrights Festival. And I was, I wasn't in his show, but I sat there and I went, God, this is so well done. And one of the first people I hired to do Out of This World was Mark Brokaw, who really hadn't done musicals, but I thought he has such great visual imagination, he's gonna do a great job. And my friend Andrea was in it, Andrew Martin. So I fired myself, and by the time we got to the third season, I thought I have to give myself a show.

[50:14] WALTER BOBBIE: Um and so I I gave myself Chicago once again. Once again something seems to be working.

[50:24] Kevin David Thomas: Oh my gosh.

[50:25] Robert W. Schneider: What was it like working with Candor and Ebb? I should ask you that.

[50:31] WALTER BOBBIE: You know, we that nobody knew what Encores really quite was. We were quite, I mean the first Encore, the first Fiorello, we were s there was a snowstorm, and for some reason everybody showed up. They climbed over the snow and they showed up for that first Fiorello, and we went, holy mack. Because it looked like a party. The cast alone, you couldn't get that cast on Broadway. Of course, it's special. It's an event. It is an event, yeah. You know, uh Marilyn Cooper doing Seven Lines, you know, every one of them. You know, I it was like it was it was what we call overcast because you couldn't really get that company. So it was fantastic. Um but what was your question?

[51:11] Kevin David Thomas: Uh were you working with Candor and Ebb on the show?

[51:13] WALTER BOBBIE: Oh, and what happened when we got to Chicago is that we met with Candor and Ebb, and um, and they just said, Well, let us know who's in the cast. We'd like to know. They want to okay. And because we were gonna edit it, uh Fred really wanted me to hire Tommy Thompson. The Tommy and Fred were just great. Yeah, loved him. And you know, and Tom was like his nephew. Do you know what I mean? They had such a wonderful, it was almost like family. And so I did, and he felt confident knowing that Tommy was overseeing the edit of the script. But other than that, they came to opening night and went, what the hell just happened? They couldn't believe it because I think, you know, I could never have gone into Broadway producer's office, even the Weissler's office, and argued or pitched that production.

It had to just happen. And then and then because the original people some people might not remember, but the original wasn't exactly a blowout hit when it was originally. It was also very, yeah, it was a very different production.

[52:18] Kevin David Thomas: And it was a very, very different production.

[52:20] WALTER BOBBIE: It was uh it was uh it was a subtitle of musical vaudeville, and every scene was done like an homage to a different vaudeville performer. It was a very complex visionary, um, but uh it was a different production. And I think that we found when Anna and I got together, I said, I don't want to mount that. Uh I what I want to do is I want to honor Fosse and his entire career, but not revive his. So we incorporated image, I mean, like originally you know, cell block was done with women running around with holding bars with lights in them and all that stuff. And I said, I'd like I want to do that number like all of his great chair numbers. So let's just have six chairs and interrogation lights above them.

It's gonna look like it's a Fosse number, but that's not the way they did it originally. I remember saying seeing um Pippin, and I'd never seen ladders on the proscenium. So I said, I said, John Lee, can I have a ladder? He said, How about two? And suddenly, instead of being drunk on a piano doing Funny Honey, I yeah, so there were things from all of Fosse's visual imagination, including how we did the courtroom, that weren't his production, but it was clearly an homage to his taste, you know, and I said to William Ivy Long, I I only want I want Fosse's two favorite colors in the show, black and flesh. And uh so everything was geared toward honoring his aesthetic, yeah, his sensibility, and even his style, as Anne very beautifully did, but without and now and I always felt like the three of us directed it.

I remember I remember his uh the late great agent Sam Cohen, who represented Candor and Ebb and Fosse, and Annie and BB and Jimmy, but I remember he saying, you know, if Fosse was alive today, this is probably how he would do it. Because even by the time he got to the end, by the time he got to what was it, Big Deal, he'd become increasingly a minimalist. Increasingly lean in terms of his uh visual requirements to tell a story.

[54:36] Kevin David Thomas: And it's been running now for how many years?

[54:38] WALTER BOBBIE: On Bronx 19. We're gonna celebrate twenty years in uh in September.

[54:44] Kevin David Thomas: That's right.

[54:44] WALTER BOBBIE: Yeah, and yeah. Congratulations.

[54:48] Kevin David Thomas: Um do you go back to it often?

[54:50] WALTER BOBBIE: Oh, I had a full company rehearsal two weeks ago. Absolutely. I go back there and I say, you know what? My name's still on the poster, let's get to work. And we went we did right yeah, full company. No, I do I do that several times a year. I go back probably every few weeks. I leave notes. I have great we have a great staff. I just had auditions a couple of weeks ago because I'm gonna get busy in case we need somebody in the coming months. I've just seen a whole bunch of people so that I can say yes, hire him, hire her. No, we're very hands on. I I I am very proud of how we maintain that production. I never s I'm never afraid of people going to seeing a nineteen year old show. It doesn't look that amazing. Yeah, I saw it earlier. I mean yeah, you know, a couple of weeks ago and it still looks like it opened yesterday. It's it's incredible.

[55:38] Kevin David Thomas: Did you see it?

[55:39] WALTER BOBBIE: After my rehearsal or before?

[55:43] Kevin David Thomas: That's what I heard.

[55:45] WALTER BOBBIE: Yeah, so I did. Do you ever um not tell them you're going to see the show? You know, or sometimes start acting a little more.

[55:50] Kevin David Thomas: No, no, no, always.

[55:51] WALTER BOBBIE: Yeah. Oh, I never and the house management and the sound guy knows not to say anything. And what happens is it's the curtain's going down, I sneak in and I sit somewhere. And so I always actually see what's going on. And about a month ago, I went in and I saw what was going on, and I was displeased. And uh and and we had a we and and we addressed it and it's great. But I have to say that's the first time in years when I uh I thought I felt like I caught them, and it was during the holidays, maybe they had too much cheesecake or something, but still, my name's on the poster, and people paid money. Uh so no, they never know I'm there.

[56:34] Kevin David Thomas: That's so you've stuck with you stuck with I know your name's on the poster, but you stuck with this for 19 years. What is it about this story that still appeals to you? Why do you like going back to watch it? Why do you like to go back and give notes beyond?

[56:47] WALTER BOBBIE: Well, so the thing is, you know, the thing this is a rare lifetime experience in the theater to have something run for 19 years. So it's like dislike, it's like, oh my god, it's it's a it's a gift, and it's like disrespecting a great gift. And I think the reason it keeps running is because it's very, very good material, it's very sturdy material, it is material that lets you completely reinvestigate its nuance, its implications, and the newspaper constantly brings it back to life. I mean, what I like about the show is not just its theatricality, the sublime score, which doesn't have one even mediocre song in it, and it is for me thematically rich. It's about the manipulation of the press, and it's about getting away with murder. You know, I started the rehearsal last week, um, and I said I was talking about because the judgment had just come down on the guy who has the uh who had too much money. What is that case? What is it called?

[57:52] Kevin David Thomas: Oh, affluenza.

[57:53] WALTER BOBBIE: Yeah, I said I said, you know, today Chicago just got reinvigorated. Yeah, we have the affluenza defense. And that's what Chicago is about. It's about the min that the someone could actually go into a courtroom and say, this child had too much money and therefore he wasn't capable of making good decisions. So he decided to run over four people while he was drunk. Uh I think the the judgment of the jury should be, you know, so you know the front the headlines reinvigorate this theme on a daily basis or a weekly basis at least. So I find that it's not just a good story that i all of these ideas, it's an idea it's a story with an ideas, and these ideas are hooked on to a rather compelling mount m uh uh uh storyline and uh a score that just doesn't stop and uh a theatricality.

That's why I kind of wanted to strip everything away because I think that you don't need anything to tell for this story to be a rich rich experience. It's a great show that's beautifully constructed.

[59:01] Kevin David Thomas: Um what were some of your other favorite shows that you directed at Encores?

[59:05] WALTER BOBBIE: I mean, we uh you know you're so synonymous with Chicago, but there's I I I loved Golden Boy. I think Golden Boy is one of those scores where every song is a gem. There are no hits in that show. No, not there's solid. But as as it goes along, it is and I loved, I loved what we what we did with that show. And I actually loved what uh Wayne Salento did with that show. I thought he and I were great cup great for that material and he nailed it. And I'm I'm very proud of what we did with Zorba. I thought it was quite remarkable. It was wonderful. I was, I was uh I was a little irritated, I have to say, uh by the press response. Uh because I I think it's sort of I think it is kind of a gem. And I thought they were hard on uh my cast.

I felt so lucky when it was a good cast. I saw it and it was a fabulous cast. So I don't know what I mean. And also I like it. What's his name? Bradley accused us of trying to do something that was going to move to Broadway. I think it's a good one. Whoa, whoa, whoa. No, that's not what it's about. The thing is, you know, we that we had we had a wall with the orchestra sitting on it. Yeah, yeah. And everybody had a pair of miners clothes. The show before had 300 costumes. Yeah. Somehow I I don't know whether he thought I was trying to do Chicago again, but I was very angry, and also because I think John Tuturo was a revelation. Santino Fontana. I mean it was a it was a sensation. I saw it twice.

I loved it. I thought it was great. I always loved going to Encores when they and in some ways I feel that way about Zorba. Um when you see a show that didn't quite uh uh work uh and you do a good you do a good version so that people can see what it was. I mean I'm I'm always happy when you go to Encores and you see uh, you know, uh things like Juno, and it's a fantastic thought. Great school. You know, uh Lost in the Stars, for example. These are shows that can't be revived on Broadway, so that I I I value when the press and the audience, the audience more and more goes and realizes they're gonna get to see something that's never gonna be revived. You're gonna hear it with the 30-piece orchestra with the original orchestrations and vocal arrangements.

Don't carp about this. Stay home if you don't want to see it. But these I think are precious and rare. Yes, it's wonderful to do no no no net, and that's fun. But it's more remarkable in some ways to do Juno. Oh, yeah. And to do it so well, or uh the one my friend, my dear Mark Bruni did last year, Pipe Dream. He did a remarkable concert of Pipe. And you go, this show can't be revived, will never be revived. No one's spending $10 million on it. Go. And so I think of Encore as something you just sign on to. I I call it the most expensive lecture series in town. It's not about, oh, is it gonna move? Should it move? Is it good enough? It's not about that. You're gonna get to see Pipe Dream. Shut up.

[1:02:16] Robert W. Schneider: Well, thank you so much.

[1:02:17] WALTER BOBBIE: Oh, thanks.

[1:02:18] Robert W. Schneider: You were great.

[1:02:19] Kevin David Thomas: Thank you.

[1:02:20] Robert W. Schneider: I'm Robert W. Schneider.

[1:02:22] Kevin David Thomas: And I'm Kevin David Thomas.

[1:02:22] Robert W. Schneider: And today on Behind the Curtain Broadway's Living Legends, we were speaking to the wonderful WALTER BOBBIE.

[1:02:27] WALTER BOBBIE: Oh, I started out being the legendary WALTER Effervescent.

[1:02:31] Kevin David Thomas: Effervescent.

[1:02:32] WALTER BOBBIE: I interrupted your own.

[1:02:33] Kevin David Thomas: No, no, no.

[1:02:34] WALTER BOBBIE: No, but again, I'm getting out of here.

[1:02:35] Kevin David Thomas: No, I love it.

[1:02:36] WALTER BOBBIE: I'm getting out of here.