This transcript was automatically generated and might contain errors.

[0:00] Ebony Vines: Welcome to Theatre Geeks Anonymous.

[0:05] Pamela Shandrow: The podcast about Broadway flops, scandals, and new work.

[0:08] Ebony Vines: I'm your host, Ebony Vines.

[0:10] Pamela Shandrow: And I'm your host, Pamela Shandrow.

[0:13] Ebony Vines: Don't forget to rate, review, and subscribe to the Theatre Geeks Anonymous Podcast.

[0:19] Pamela Shandrow: On the Broadway Podcast Network and all your favorite podcast listening apps.

[0:23] Ebony Vines: Thank you.

[0:25] Pamela Shandrow: I hate summer and um don't worry. My skin is just unhappy.

[0:33] Ebony Vines: And I don't know. Here's the problem, Ebony. I hate summer, but my skin and hair love it.

[0:42] Pamela Shandrow: My hair thrives in this humidity. The curls, beautiful. I have not had a pimple and I don't even know how long. I don't know why. Because normally humidity, I don't know, but it's beautiful right now. It's glowing.

[0:57] Ebony Vines: But my lips are really chapped, and I think that's because of the air conditioning.

[1:03] Pamela Shandrow: Oh yeah. Listen, we have to survive. I don't know what. Oh, it's been running 24-7. I can't. My bill's been, I don't even care. Like, I'm just like, I budget like a hundred dollars a month for air conditioning alone every summer.

[1:19] Ebony Vines: It's awful. Hate summer.

[1:21] Pamela Shandrow: I do too. I love that you keep sending me those Instagram. You keep sending me Instagrams that are like five Fridays away from fall.

[1:32] Ebony Vines: You're like, yes. It's the only way.

[1:35] Pamela Shandrow: It's true, because it's like five Fridays. Do five Fridays.

[1:39] Ebony Vines: Yeah. It's just a bite size away. Like that.

[1:45] Pamela Shandrow: It makes it more like reasonable, you know. And it's like, I know there there's a bunch of summer girlies that probably listen to our podcast, and we're in the minority, but I am thankful I have several friends that are not uh summer girlies because we can all we've been all complaining since May.

[2:06] Ebony Vines: Complain before, like I'm in the middle of winter going, I can't we just oh can we just skip it? Like can we just stay in this weather for the rest of our lives?

[2:15] Pamela Shandrow: I know when we okay, so I talked about my trip to Norway in the last episode, but I'm just gonna mention again that when well the first day that I was there, we we flew into Oslo, which is like just another big city. So although there are like sculpture gardens and museums and stuff like that, and it was really cool to see all of those things, it's it's just another big city that you can basically see wherever you are in the world.

[2:43] Ebony Vines: So you don't need to go to Oslo.

[2:47] Pamela Shandrow: But the heat wave had followed us, and so it was like 80 degrees when we were in Oslo. And so, but as we made our way further west, like through Bergen and then all the way to Olesund, which is where um uh about a 45 minute drive from Ole Sund is Sicelvin, which is where the family farm is where I saw where my great grandfather grew up and we stayed the night there, which is very cool. Anyway, um did I tell you any of that?

[3:17] Ebony Vines: Well, we'll catch up and tell me.

[3:19] Pamela Shandrow: No, because I want to hear about like the thing on the farm, like we haven't done like I need a whole postmortem is what I need.

[3:27] Ebony Vines: Okay, we'll chat. We'll chat okay. I'll see you next Sunday.

[3:33] Pamela Shandrow: Um but as we made our way further west, then it started to get a lot cooler, which is what we were anticipating it being. And so it was like 50s and 60 degree weather and slightly misty and a little bit rainy. Like it was so perfect.

[3:48] Ebony Vines: And it's like right on par with like Canadian, like on the same plane as k as Canada. So it was um, so it is always just a little bit cooler up there. It was so perfect.

[4:01] Pamela Shandrow: Oh you texted me the one day and you were like it was in the 50s, and I was like, And everywhere we went, everywhere we went, like the the Uber drivers or the people that would be like taking our order in the cafes, they were like, Oh, where are you coming from? And I, you know, we were all coming from different places, so we were telling them where we were coming from, California, Washington State, New York, and they said, Oh, well, we're so sorry that you know you just missed the good weather.

[4:01] Ebony Vines: And I was like, No, no, no, no, no. And like we did the um conversion, uh, because they're in Celsius there. So when so I said, when I left New York, it was 41 degrees Celsius. And they went, is that even safe?

[4:46] Pamela Shandrow: No, it's not. No, it's not. It's an and and we have to walk everywhere, and it's horrible, and we sweat and you can't breathe, and like the air quality goes down. It's terrible.

[4:58] Ebony Vines: And so this is much more preferred. So no, we didn't miss the good weather. This is the good weather.

[5:04] Pamela Shandrow: That's right. That's right. But also it was it was it it was a mind trip too because like the sun doesn't go down in the summer there.

[5:11] Ebony Vines: Right. Except for like maybe two hours, but between like 2 30 and or like between I think 12 30 and 2 30. It was weird.

[5:18] Pamela Shandrow: So like it was hard, it was hard to go to sleep, and it was it was a little bit strange, but that was clear, that was kind of cool too, in and of itself. Because we would just be like walking around and I'd look at the clock and it was 11 p.m. and I'd be like, oh my god, we gotta go to sleep. Like, what are we doing?

[5:36] Ebony Vines: That's wild.

[5:38] Pamela Shandrow: It was wild, but it was really, really cool. It was very, very cool.

[5:46] Ebony Vines: But if you want to fly into a city that is uniquely Scandinavian, Bergen.

[5:53] Pamela Shandrow: Okay. Because it's a big enough city. They have their own uh airport and like a big airport. Olesund does too. But it's a lot of people.

[6:05] Ebony Vines: No.

[6:06] Pamela Shandrow: So we flew into Oslo, trained over West through Flum.

[6:17] Ebony Vines: It's fun to say.

[6:18] Pamela Shandrow: It is fun. Um the guy that was the conductor on the train uh when he was making announcements would go, uh, the next stop we're going to make is flat.

[6:33] Ebony Vines: It's funny.

[6:34] Pamela Shandrow: It was the little thing. Um to Bergen. And then from Bergen, we flew to Olesund. Uh Oldison were picked up by my great-great uncle. I know, craziness, who drove us over to Sicelvin.

[6:49] Ebony Vines: We stayed overnight at Sicilvin. He drove us around that entire island, like saw where my great grandfather grew up, and like we we saw a bunch of pictures and like documents and talked about family and like that kind of stuff.

[7:04] Pamela Shandrow: Uh, and then he drove us back over to Oldsund for our final day. Um, and then we flew back over to Oslo and then flew out of Oslo to our respective homes.

[7:17] Ebony Vines: Yeah. That was a lot.

[7:18] Pamela Shandrow: That's planes, trains, and automobiles.

[7:20] Ebony Vines: Literally.

[7:22] Pamela Shandrow: I think it was for me, it was a little too much. For it was okay this time because like none of us had been there, so it we didn't know what to do. So we just did everything.

[7:32] Ebony Vines: But I think if I were ever to do this again, I would just kind of stick to one or two places and make them close enough together that I didn't have to travel so much.

[7:44] Pamela Shandrow: Cause there was like never a day that I wasn't on a plane, a train, or a boat.

[7:50] Ebony Vines: So it was like or in a car, exactly.

[7:55] Pamela Shandrow: So it was a lot. And even on the days that we were in a city, we were on like the hop on hop-off bus to do, you know, the sights. So it was it was a lot.

[8:05] Ebony Vines: It was a lot.

[8:07] Pamela Shandrow: But I also do kind of feel that we filled so much of the vacation that it felt like we were there for so long. Which is also something that you just don't get on a vacation so so much. Like you just kind of feel like you're there and then you leave and you're oh, it was done.

[8:25] Ebony Vines: And so, although I do feel like it happened a year ago, I also feel like last month, which is bananas.

[8:33] Pamela Shandrow: I know that is crazy. Um, but like the time that we were there felt like such a long time that we were there, so that was really cool.

[8:42] Ebony Vines: That's good.

[8:43] Pamela Shandrow: And everyone speaks English, but everyone kept mistaking me for someone that spoke Norwegian, which was kind of neat too.

[8:50] Ebony Vines: The best possible compliment.

[8:52] Pamela Shandrow: I know. Is when people think you're from where they live.

[8:56] Ebony Vines: Oh there's nothing better.

[9:00] Pamela Shandrow: Well, should we talk about theater?

[9:02] Ebony Vines: Let's talk about theater.

[9:04] Pamela Shandrow: Let's talk about this one.

[9:07] Ebony Vines: Oh, you all hopefully you all did listen to the Adela Holzer episode because you will note that we are this is our theme. Right now we're doing, we did Adela Holzer, we talked about her, and we're gonna talk about two of her shows.

[9:22] Pamela Shandrow: We've already talked about her final show, Senator Joe several years ago.

[9:26] Ebony Vines: Yes.

[9:27] Pamela Shandrow: So if you haven't listened to that episode, it's just before the Adela Holzer episode. And if you haven't listened to the Adela Holzer episode, that one is just before this one.

[9:38] Ebony Vines: So I won't be offended if you need to put me on pause and go and listen to those guys, and then you can come back.

[9:42] Pamela Shandrow: We'll wait.

[9:43] Ebony Vines: That's right. But in the meantime, um, we're gonna talk about Dude, the HIGHWAY LIFE.

[9:49] Pamela Shandrow: That's a subtitle. I didn't know. It's in parentheses.

[9:54] Ebony Vines: I know. Oh, hang on. Because Puddle is starting to whine, which means why don't we pause this really quickly? I'm gonna take him outside.

[10:01] Pamela Shandrow: Go ahead.

[10:03] Ebony Vines: Thank you.

[10:08] Pamela Shandrow: All right. So my uh resources for this are Wikipedia, of course, playbill.com, the New York Times, and Forum.broadwayworld.com.

[10:21] Pamela Shandrow: Dude, the HIGHWAY LIFE is a rock musical with a book and lyrics by Jerome Ragney and music by Galt McDermott. It is an allegory between good and evil, the conflict between mankind's creative and destructive urges, the power of love, and the joy to be found in simple pleasures.

[10:40] Ebony Vines: Dude is an everyman who loses his innocence and fights to regain it.

[10:45] Pamela Shandrow: Jerome Ragney, uh, who I mentioned before wrote the Can I just say one thing?

[10:51] Ebony Vines: Yeah.

[10:52] Pamela Shandrow: Why is the premise so ephemeral?

[10:58] Ebony Vines: Isn't that how all of the musicals in the 70s were? It's like this sounds like it's about nothing.

[11:06] Pamela Shandrow: Yeah. Well, I mean, that's just kind of that's I'll get into more of the details when we talk about the synopsis, but you're absolutely right. It's like it's about love.

[11:18] Ebony Vines: Oh bless.

[11:19] Pamela Shandrow: Okay. So Jerome Ragney was born September 11th, 1935, and died July 10th, 1991. He was an American actor, singer, and songwriter, best known as one of the stars and co-writers of the 1967 musical Hair, the American tribal love rock musical.

[11:38] Ebony Vines: I had no idea, by the way, that hair had more to the title than just hair until I just read that.

[11:52] Pamela Shandrow: Arthur Terrence Galt McDermott, or Galt McDermott, he wrote the book and lyrics, was born on December 18th, 1928, and passed away on December 17th, 2018, one day shy of his birthday.

[12:08] Ebony Vines: How old would he have been?

[12:10] Pamela Shandrow: Um let's see, 2018. So he would have been 90.

[12:17] Ebony Vines: I know.

[12:18] Pamela Shandrow: Plus his heart.

[12:19] Ebony Vines: I know. He was a Canadian American composer, pianist, and writer of musical theater. He won a Grammy Award for the song African Waltz in 1960.

[12:29] Pamela Shandrow: His most successful musicals were Hair in 1967 and Two Gentlemen of Verona in 1971. McDermott also composed music for film soundtracks, jazz and funk albums, and classical music, and his music has been sampled in hit, hip hop, song, and albums.

[12:47] Pamela Shandrow: So the synopsis, which I promised. Reba and Harold, who are actors, believe they have been cast in Richard III. Instead, they find themselves portraying Adam and Eve in a Garden of Eden-like setting, where they are tempted by Zero, the devil, and give birth to son Dude. The Forces of Good, number 33, Bred, Susie Moon, Mother Earth, and the Schubert Angels, and Evil, Zero, Miro, SO, Extra, and Sissy, try to gain control of Dude's soul. Dude grows up and succumbs to the temptations of bizarre sexual practices and illicit drugs, leaving his parents guilt-ridden until guide number 33, God, assures them that life is merely show business and everything has a happy ending.

[13:51] Ebony Vines: I know, me too.

[13:53] Pamela Shandrow: Incorrect, dude, incorrect. So here's the background. And there's, uh, I mentioned this to you before we started recording that there was so much detail in the research of this, but not a huge amount of information. So I'm gonna drown you guys in all of the detail that I found because I find it fascinating. But just know that there might not be a lot of clarification to it, but it is really interesting to kind of hear it all. So as soon as the musical Hair opened, Ragney began to work on Dude. McDermott was busy with Two Gentlemen of Verona, but finally began to compose the music. And in March of 1972, their studio cast album Salome Bay Sings Songs from Dude was recorded and released on Kilmarinoch Records.

The music was more influenced by country music than their previous musical Hair. The rehearsal period was plagued with problems. Kevin Gere, the actor who had been cast in the leading role, Dude, was unable to sing the role acceptably and had to be replaced. The script, such as it was, was far from finished. Ragney's requests of the producers were bizarre. For example, 100 butterflies to be released at the beginning of each performance, and the cast threatened to walk out.

[15:13] Pamela Shandrow: I am going to switch over to Not Since Carrie by Ken Mandelbaum, and I'm gonna read what he has written now in his book. Professionalism was seriously threatened in the late 60s and early 70s as the result of the rock musical Hair taking Broadway by storm. It was a time when Zany's and No Talents of a Sort far less equipped for Broadway than Peter Allen suddenly turned up on posters of big-budget Broadway musicals, largely because Clive Barnes, then critic for the New York Times, decided after seeing Hair that the sounds of contemporary music were what Broadway needed. What Barnes didn't realize was that those interested in writing that style generally had no idea how to write a musical. Dude, and Via Galactica, which opened about a month apart, and which both featured music by Hair's composer Galt McDermott, were the two most salient horrors that resulted.

For Dude, the enormous Broadway Theater was converted into an environmental arena. The forest-like in-the-round setting included a band placed around the house in various locations. Ramps, a central stage on top of what used to be the orchestra seats, and seats where the stage used to be. Actors roamed throughout the theater and even flew overhead. The seat locations were given cute names. The best seats, which were seven dollars, were the foothills, and one could also purchase trees, mountains, and valleys.

[16:48] Ebony Vines: I know, seven dollars.

[16:52] Pamela Shandrow: Dude, subtitled The Highway Life, with book and lyrics by Hair's co-author Jerome Ragney, seemed to be about Dude who represented every man, and his temptation by Zero who represented Satan. God here, called number 33, ultimately won out and gave Dude back his innocence. Perhaps the most incomprehensible show ever presented on a Broadway stage. It was mostly sung, but its songs were barely related and could have been performed in any order or by any character with the same result. McDermott, a talented composer, wrote his least interesting score for Dude, and the lyrics were gibberish, seldom rhyming and deficient in craft or meaning. Previews were halted after three days, so that the show's original director, Rocco Bufano, could be replaced by Hair's director, Tom O'Horgan.

Though the show seemed like pure O'Horgan from the beginning. Late in previews, the producers, Adela and Peter Holtzer, told Ragney they would close the show if he didn't make the book intelligible. But Ragney never did. And after critical drubbing with rock musical champion Clive Barnes joining in, the show closed in two weeks, losing one million dollars.

[18:10] Pamela Shandrow: In 1989, Mrs. Holtzer again joined forces with O'Horgan for a rock opera called Janitor Senator Joe, which closed after three previews at the Neil Simon. Holzer's financial ploys for the production landed her in jail. It's amazing to think that anyone involved with Dude ever thought they'd get away with it.

[18:32] Ebony Vines: I so two things. One I want to go back to the ticket prices because $7 is hilarious. And in one of the articles that I read when Adela was like at the top of her game, she was like, you know, with theater ticket prices being like 12 and 15 dollars. You know, you really have to like make sure that you're presenting something that people want to pay for. And I was like, oh, sweet angel, you don't, you die.

[19:02] Pamela Shandrow: It's 300 now.

[19:04] Ebony Vines: Okay. So that was number one. It'd be interesting to find out though what the conversion rate is. Like if you want to do the inflation rate for whatever that is in today's money. I mean, there's no way it's 300. I mean, but no, I will do that because that would be interesting. What else are you gonna say?

[19:23] Pamela Shandrow: The other thing, um, the book, right? And so, and so Ken Mandelbaum was talking about how Adela was asking for changes to the book. Not asking, telling.

[19:38] Ebony Vines: Telling.

[19:39] Pamela Shandrow: And it's fascinating because, of course, in the article that I mentioned where Dude got panned and she was still upset about it. She was like, maybe the book wasn't great, but it's like, well, the book needs to be good too. But although that's not your fault, you really did try to get him to do the changes. Although, I mean, her coming in at the very last second, I don't think made that much of a difference. I'm gonna get into some more detail on that. She wasn't the only person that pushed back against Jerome Ragney and his, so I'll get into some of the production here. Some of this is gonna be a little bit of repeat information, but I think it's still fascinating stuff.

[20:22] Pamela Shandrow: So in the Broadway theater, the musicians were divided with brass and woodwinds against the wall of one side of the playing area and strings at the other to accommodate the multimedia presentation. The theater was gutted and reconverted into a circus-like arena in the center, like a theater in the round. It was filled with fake dirt, which we'll talk about later. Ramps, runways, catwalks, columns, trapezes, trapdoors, bleachers, and various mechanical and electronic gear. All of that construction was done at a cost of $800,000, which in today's money was almost six million dollars. So just that piece of information right there, before the show goes up, just to convert the theater into what their idea of what this show wanted to be, six million dollars in today's money. Just absolutely insane.

[21:21] Ebony Vines: Performers moved freely between the round playing area representing Earth and the audience seated in flanking valleys and foothills with mountain and mountaintops beyond and treetops and trees in the mezzanine above. Heaven and hell were also represented, and the overall effect was of a circus being performed in a primeval forest. The previews were disastrous as the audience could not hear with the orchestra scattered around the edges of the theater. Despite attempts at amplification, the acoustics were still bad in the hollowed-out theater. The director and choreographer, Louis Falco and Rocco Bufano, respectively, resigned to be replaced by Tom O'Horgan, who had directed Hair and Jesus Christ Superstar.

Ralph Carter, an 11-year-old African American boy, replaced Kevin Geere, a white 23-year-old man who had originally been playing Dude. And due to Carter's age, Nat Morris was cast as Big Dude in order to sing the more mature songs. So just let that sink in as well. I just think that's amazing.

[22:32] Pamela Shandrow: Despite leaving the show, Gear's image, he was the original Dude, with his back facing the camera, was used for the show's poster. And you can see this online. So the playbill is, you can see that on Playbill.com is of Kevin Gear, his back facing the camera, is the picture on the playbill. And that was what all of the posters showed as well. Except he was not the Dude. Dude was now an 11-year-old black boy, Ralph Carter.

[23:05] Ebony Vines: That's so wild.

[23:07] Pamela Shandrow: I know, I know. I love it. Only five weeks after Dude closed, McDermott experienced another major failure with the flop musical Via Galactica. So previews were shut down, and the show went back into rehearsal. Some cast changes were made and flamboyant visual effects were added. The director and cast confronted Ragney and forced him to rewrite scenes, including most of the second act. Actors wrote some of their own dialogue, and the script finally settled down mostly by the second to the last preview. After 16 previews, the Broadway production directed by Tom O'Horgan opened on October 9th, 1972 at the Broadway Theater. Universally crucified by critics and audiences who found it incomprehensible. It ran for 16 performances.

[24:01] Pamela Shandrow: So I'm gonna list the cast. Uh, because by all accounts, they were the shining star of this. Um most of the, and I'm not gonna read all of the critics' accounts, but in all of the reviews, uh, they say that the cast were amazing, that they even though the book was very weak, they were the things that were making it work as it was.

[24:28] Ebony Vines: Were you gonna say something?

[24:30] Pamela Shandrow: Um, you go ahead.

[24:31] Ebony Vines: I I'm updating the money conversions in here.

[24:34] Pamela Shandrow: Oh, okay.

[24:34] Ebony Vines: So I can share them, but I'm changing them because I thought it was 74 and it's 72.

[24:40] Pamela Shandrow: Oh, okay.

[24:43] Pamela Shandrow: So Ray Allen played Reba and William Redfield played Harold. They were the two actors who played the Adam and Eve kind of characters. They were the ones that were the shining stars of this entire production, according to most of the critics that I read the reviews for. Salome Bay played Mother Earth. Nell Carter played Susie Moon. Ralph Carter as Dude the Boy, who also won the Drama Desk Award for the Most Promising Performer.

[25:12] Ebony Vines: Oh wow.

[25:12] Pamela Shandrow: I know. Nat Morris played Dude as the Man, also known as Big Dude to a comedy. Dolores Hall played Bred. Karen Maria Fats, or Fates, I'm not sure, as Schubert Angel, James Patrick Pharrell III as Zero, Katie Field as a Schubert Angel, Liata Galloway as Nero, Georgiana Holmes as World War II, like T-O-O.

[25:22] ⚠ About 4 minutes of audio could not be automatically transcribed.

[29:08] Pamela Shandrow: It is a fascinating read, the rest of that, but the reason I wanted to read it was going into detail about the demeanor of Jerome in that taxi cab.

[29:18] Ebony Vines: Why is it 2,000 pages?

[29:20] Pamela Shandrow: Yeah, I mean, that's a very good question. Um he did tear it down to 200 before the start of rehearsals.

[29:31] Ebony Vines: But that doesn't really read confidence in me.

[29:35] Pamela Shandrow: No, that's a I don't know books that are.

[29:42] Ebony Vines: Okay.

[29:43] Pamela Shandrow: I do, and most of them are really boring because there's too much in them. But it's, I mean, it is interesting because it's I read somewhere else too that um, and I can't I wish that I could remember where there was so much information that I took in, and I couldn't obviously put it all in this.

[30:01] Ebony Vines: Yeah.

[30:02] Pamela Shandrow: But um of the things that I read said that uh I think that it was Galt McDermott saying that he thought that dude was based on Jerome, that Jerome based it on himself. And so I think in that respect, he couldn't have pared it down more than that because he thought of it as himself, right?

[30:23] Ebony Vines: So how do you do that?

[30:25] Pamela Shandrow: Right. But then also he took it from a 2,000 page script down to 200 pages. What in that 90% that you left on the cutting room floor? Like, what was in that 90% that may have made the show a little bit more blended, a little bit more right, exactly, a little bit less illogical in Galt's words, right?

[30:48] Ebony Vines: Um the last bit of this is a bunch of reviews that I wasn't able to find when I did a Google search. But when I looked on the forums, this guy, I wish that I'd written down his username and I didn't. I'm so sorry.

[31:03] Pamela Shandrow: He posted every single one of them. He was like, hey, uh if anyone's interested in reading, here's all of the reviews. Boop, and like drop 10 or something like that. It's amazing.

[31:13] Ebony Vines: What I loved the most about them, and I read every single one so that I could find the little snippets in here.

[31:18] Pamela Shandrow: Yeah.

[31:19] Ebony Vines: But every single one of them has the most brilliant title that is just a little bit cutting.

[31:25] Pamela Shandrow: Yeah.

[31:26] Ebony Vines: I love those.

[31:27] Pamela Shandrow: Me too. Cause they just don't make them like that anymore.

[31:33] Ebony Vines: So I'm gonna read some excerpts from the first, and then I'll just like read the titles from some of them because I think they're just great.

[31:40] Pamela Shandrow: Excuse me. So the first one is dude, Much Ado About Nothing by Douglas Watt from the New York Daily News on October 10th, 1972. As you probably know, the Broadway Theater has been practically turned inside out during the past few weeks to accommodate Dude, the highway life, a musical show that opened there last night.

[32:00] Ebony Vines: All things considered, would it have been simpler to rent an empty warehouse?

[32:05] Pamela Shandrow: The Broadway has been converted into an arena theater that sets sloping down from mezzanine level to a matted round playing area, which is flanked by other seats and beyond which still more seats rise on the former stage.

[32:18] Ebony Vines: The band is spread out, brass and woodwinds on two levels at one side wall, and strings far across against the other wall.

[32:25] Pamela Shandrow: There's also runways and lots of gear, including a block and tackle arrangement to transport players high into the air, even up through a hole in the ceiling itself.

[32:34] Pamela Shandrow: This cluttered environment is dripping with microphones, many hanging over the scene like shiny tears, others handheld with long cords trickling down the aisles, and still others planted in aisle railings.

[32:47] Pamela Shandrow: In Tom O'Horgan's staging, the entire auditorium becomes a playground for the cast, whose voices boom, shriek, and occasionally purr grandly from the many speakers.

[32:58] Pamela Shandrow: The next one is entitled A Young Man Named Dude by Richard Watts.

[33:02] Pamela Shandrow: New York Post, October 10th, 1972.

[33:07] Pamela Shandrow: Everything started promisingly.

[33:09] Pamela Shandrow: The first of the players descended from the ceiling on a trapeze.

[33:13] Pamela Shandrow: Actors representing such positive and negative forces as Mother Earth, the Moon, Bread, and Zero arrived.

[33:20] Pamela Shandrow: And I thought the scene was, as some of the dialogue suggested, the Garden of Eden.

[33:25] Pamela Shandrow: It even seemed possible that Jerome Ragney, the author, was playing a dirty trick on Arthur Miller by bringing in ahead of him another play about the creation of the world.

[33:35] Pamela Shandrow: Tom O'Horgan, the director, has employed a lot of ingenious ideas for staging, and for a long time the ingenuity works.

[33:43] Pamela Shandrow: But eventually it becomes evident that in the process of production, something has been overlooked.

[33:49] Pamela Shandrow: They forgot to include a play.

[33:52] Pamela Shandrow: And I felt it grow confusing in purpose.

[33:55] Pamela Shandrow: Dude has a subtitle, which is The Highway Life, and it is one of the many things about a disappointing evening that puzzled me.

[34:03] Pamela Shandrow: What is a highway life?

[34:05] Pamela Shandrow: Mm-hmm.

[34:06] Pamela Shandrow: This next one is entitled Naive Pretensions of Dude by Clive Barnes, the New York Times, October 10th, 1972.

[34:15] Pamela Shandrow: In Coet Energy has its attractions, and there were big and powerful gobbits of theatricality hanging around all of the Broadway theater where Dude made its vow last night.

[34:27] Pamela Shandrow: But this godson of hair never quite makes it.

[34:30] Pamela Shandrow: Its pretensions are always clearer than its achievements.

[34:34] Pamela Shandrow: Yet even those pretensions are not without a certain naivete that might endear the show to come.

[34:41] Pamela Shandrow: So here are some of the other titles which made me giggle a little.

[34:49] Pamela Shandrow: Dude, it lets its hair pedigree by Walter Carr, the New York Times.

[34:56] Pamela Shandrow: Trash Basket by T. E. Calum Time Magazine.

[35:00] Pamela Shandrow: Although I would like to use that for things that are terrible.

[35:04] Pamela Shandrow: Like it's like interchangeable with dumpster fire, trash basket.

[35:08] Pamela Shandrow: It's like it's bad, but it's not dumpster fire bad, it's trash basket basket.

[35:14] Ebony Vines: Right.

[35:14] Pamela Shandrow: I mean, it's not like a dumpster fire.

[35:16] Ebony Vines: Yeah.

[35:17] Pamela Shandrow: Trash basket.

[35:17] Pamela Shandrow: It's just trash basket.

[35:20] Pamela Shandrow: Bums away by Jack Kroll, the newsweek.

[35:25] Pamela Shandrow: I had a hot take, but not really.

[35:28] Pamela Shandrow: I think at some point it got away from Jerome Ragney.

[35:35] Ebony Vines: Yeah.

[35:36] Pamela Shandrow: I think it may have become a little bit too personal, or it might have just been too big to begin with and too hard to pare down.

[35:45] Pamela Shandrow: And I think that, I don't know.

[35:48] Pamela Shandrow: I think that at any point maybe, and they did do this, right?

[35:52] Pamela Shandrow: They started previews, realized that it was not going well, stopped previews, fired a bunch of people, brought in a bunch of new people, restarted previews with a bunch of new material, and it still wasn't going well, so they still just kind of went ahead with it, right?

[36:10] Ebony Vines: Yeah.

[36:11] Pamela Shandrow: And I don't know what the solution might have been.

[36:14] Pamela Shandrow: There might not have been a solution at that point, except to just either go or stop.

[36:19] Pamela Shandrow: They decided to go.

[36:20] Pamela Shandrow: And that resulted in the flop that is Dude.

[36:23] Pamela Shandrow: And that resulted in the podcast that we're doing right now.

[36:27] Ebony Vines: So theater is theater, right?

[36:32] Pamela Shandrow: It's a fickle lady.

[36:34] Pamela Shandrow: You know, she doesn't necessarily, and here's the thing too, and I always have to remind myself of this.

[36:42] Pamela Shandrow: Because a show that I absolutely hate has been a popular mainstay in theater for decades and decades and decades.

[36:52] Ebony Vines: That's right.

[36:53] Pamela Shandrow: Yeah.

[36:56] Ebony Vines: Yeah.

[36:56] Pamela Shandrow: Same.

[36:57] Ebony Vines: Mm-hmm.

[36:58] Pamela Shandrow: Right.

[36:58] Pamela Shandrow: There's probably a lot of those.

[37:01] Pamela Shandrow: It's just, it's when it hit.

[37:03] Pamela Shandrow: It's probably who was in it at the time.

[37:05] Pamela Shandrow: It's how audiences felt in the moment.

[37:09] Pamela Shandrow: It's what they needed to see on stage in that time.

[37:13] Pamela Shandrow: Right.

[37:14] Pamela Shandrow: And that's why things succeed when others fail.

[37:19] Pamela Shandrow: It's also, I think, how they are received by critics because before social media, critics were the informers of what people went to go see.

[37:31] Ebony Vines: Right.

[37:31] Pamela Shandrow: So people like Clive Barnes had a lot of power.

[37:34] Pamela Shandrow: We've talked about that before.

[37:36] Pamela Shandrow: So he started it by saying, you know, Hair is amazing.

[37:43] Pamela Shandrow: They should write more musicals like Hair.

[37:46] Pamela Shandrow: So then they did, but then he was like, but not like that.

[37:49] Pamela Shandrow: That was awful, right?

[37:51] Ebony Vines: But you're like, wait a minute though.

[37:54] Pamela Shandrow: We tried.

[37:55] Pamela Shandrow: But it also kind of reminds me a little bit of like, you know how, okay, like on TikTok, they'll be like a viral post that will come out of nowhere.

[38:04] Pamela Shandrow: And then people will come out of the woodwork. Everyone will try to recreate what this viral moment was, but they'll just copy and paste it, or they'll they'll they'll try to just do something so similar that then you just have video after video of the same exact thing that it's just boring and nobody wants to watch them, right? Because they're just all the same thing. At least in this dude wasn't like a carbon copy of hair. Right, right. Right? It was different enough. I think Jerome had a had an idea that he felt so passionate about that he tried his best to like really do it. I just don't know that he I don't know. And I don't know how he and his partnership worked with Galt McDermott. Like I don't know how they wrote hair.

Did they do it from the together from the beginning and that was you know how they created it on stage together? Or did Jerome write it and then Galt came in at the end? Because that's kind of how it worked for Dude, right? Jerome wrote it and then Galt came in at the end. But for Dude, Galt was busy doing another show, and that's why he wasn't available to work with him on it until the very end. So if the kind of partnership they had for hair was a little bit more collaborative and hands on, it could be that because Jerome was on his own for so long, he just didn't have the kind of back and forth that he needed. I don't know. I don't know. I mean, these are all just conjecture. Because if you're writing something that's based on you, you really do need a second pair of eyes.

[39:46] Ebony Vines: Oh, completely because you're just like way too close to it.

[39:49] Pamela Shandrow: Yeah. So yeah. It's easy to go off the rails when you're doing that. Well, and if you're not used to writing on your own as well. If you're used to writing with a partner and having it be collaborative, then writing on your own can be like, I'm just gonna throw everything on the page. I don't have any idea what's going on. Here's all the ideas, right? Because there is kind of you know, like for me, I'm much better at collaborative. I'm great with ideas. I don't know how to put them on the page. So I'm gonna throw you the ideas, right? And then you can finagle them. Right. But if you just leave me in a room with ideas, I'm just gonna be like, oh, okay, I don't know how to do that.

[40:39] Ebony Vines: I'm sorry.

[40:40] Pamela Shandrow: Right.

[40:43] Ebony Vines: Yeah.

[40:44] Pamela Shandrow: Yeah, I know that makes sense.

[40:46] Ebony Vines: Yeah.

[40:47] Pamela Shandrow: Oh man. I'm still my mind is really blown by that 2,000 page book.

[40:53] Ebony Vines: Yeah.

[40:54] Pamela Shandrow: I so what did they say the inflation was? It's in the chat. So okay. $12 in 1974, which was the article that I mentioned about Adela Holzer, would be $81 in 2024, and $7 in 1972 would be $53 in 2024.

[41:17] Ebony Vines: If $7 is the high ticket.

[41:19] Pamela Shandrow: Yeah.

[41:21] Ebony Vines: $53 is the low ticket.

[41:23] Pamela Shandrow: Yeah, that's I mean $50, you can get the rear mez. Sometimes.

[41:28] Ebony Vines: That's like on a cheap day.

[41:30] Pamela Shandrow: Yeah. That's like on a buy one get one day. Or if you go on like Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday.

[41:41] Ebony Vines: Yeah.

[41:41] Pamela Shandrow: Yeah.

[41:43] Ebony Vines: But I'd say today $81 is closer to what the low rate is.

[41:48] Pamela Shandrow: Yeah.

[41:50] Ebony Vines: And then once let's do this.

[41:53] Pamela Shandrow: One million.

[41:57] Ebony Vines: Just a second. One.

[41:59] Pamela Shandrow: Because that's what she lost.

[42:00] Ebony Vines: That's what they lost, right?

[42:01] Pamela Shandrow: Yeah.

[42:02] Ebony Vines: In 2024.

[42:09] Pamela Shandrow: From 19. I I'm thinking about this whole like navel gazy type of anything that people want to make.

[42:20] Ebony Vines: It's like 7.4, 7.4 million is how much they lost.

[42:25] Pamela Shandrow: Okay.

[42:25] Ebony Vines: Okay. I'm sorry, go ahead.

[42:27] Pamela Shandrow: Well, also I would when when you were talking about numbers and it was like six million just for the set.

[42:33] Ebony Vines: Yeah.

[42:33] Pamela Shandrow: Isn't that right?

[42:35] Ebony Vines: Which is a lot back then.

[42:37] Pamela Shandrow: That's a lot. Because a lot.

[42:40] Ebony Vines: It's a lot.

[42:40] Pamela Shandrow: The total capitalization for Hamilton was 12.

[42:44] Ebony Vines: Yeah.

[42:46] Pamela Shandrow: So that's a lot of money. And and Hamilton was in 2015.

[42:52] Ebony Vines: Yeah.

[42:54] Pamela Shandrow: You know Hamilton was coming off of a show that was also a huge success for Lynn Manuel. Now, granted, they had just come off of hair, which was also a huge success.

[43:04] Ebony Vines: Yes, it was, yeah.

[43:05] Pamela Shandrow: But the gamble of this was just the conversion of the theater. So this didn't include the the cost of actually producing the show.

[43:15] Ebony Vines: That's right.

[43:16] Pamela Shandrow: Like everything else. So I don't know. Nobody even mentioned that cost because the conversion of the theater was such huge talk right then.

[43:26] Ebony Vines: It did also remind me of Here Lies Love.

[43:30] Pamela Shandrow: Okay.

[43:31] Ebony Vines: Because they did that with the Broadway Theater. They ripped out all of the seats, right? In the orchestra.

[43:36] Pamela Shandrow: Yeah.

[43:37] Ebony Vines: And they made it like a dance club. And while financially it didn't work.

[43:44] Pamela Shandrow: I I do always admire the ambition of turning the proscenium into a different space that serves the musical.

[43:52] Ebony Vines: Yeah.

[43:52] Pamela Shandrow: Instead of trying to force a musical into a proscenium space, and then it loses the depth of story when you do that.

[44:01] Ebony Vines: Sure.

[44:01] Pamela Shandrow: I know there's other musicals where that's happened with where people loved it off Broadway or off off Broadway because it was in a space that was exactly correct for what it was.

[44:12] Ebony Vines: Yes.

[44:13] Pamela Shandrow: And then when it went to Broadway, they changed it to look flashier and also to fit in a proscenium, and it lost all of its guts.

[44:21] Ebony Vines: Yeah.

[44:22] Pamela Shandrow: So um I admire them for still doing that, even though like it sounds like the thing didn't have guts to start, bless. But I, you know, at least they tried something.

[44:36] Ebony Vines: And that uh another fun fact is uh Candide went into the Broadway theater the next season.

[44:42] Pamela Shandrow: So their conversion of the Broadway Theater also then allowed Candide to convert the theater again for what their needs were, which was an again just a basic gut of the theater and changing it up.

[44:53] Ebony Vines: So that was kind of that's cool, yeah.

[44:57] Pamela Shandrow: Well, you know.

[45:00] Ebony Vines: Oh, but I didn't I have to mention because this was kind of the cool part.

[45:04] Pamela Shandrow: Yeah.

[45:05] Ebony Vines: So the they ended up using fake dirt, but when they first started the preview.

[45:09] Pamela Shandrow: What is fake dirt even?

[45:11] Ebony Vines: I don't even know. Apparently there's a difference because when they first started previews, they were using real dirt.

[45:18] Pamela Shandrow: Yeah.

[45:18] Ebony Vines: But when the actors would start to move around in it, they would be kicking it up so much that the dust would fly into the audiences' faces and they would be sneezing and like covered in dust.

[45:27] Pamela Shandrow: And so then they would like wet it down before the show, but then they would just be tramping through mud fake dust or fake dirt, which doesn't kick up, I guess, as much I like this is so comical I can't even handle it.

[45:51] Ebony Vines: I know I know I mean speaking as a performer though when they mentioned that they separated the orchestra and had strings on one side and horns on the other I was like that would have been a nightmare for a performer to like hear anything and like acoustically they were probably right like to gut that entire theater and then to have nothing sound protection at all anymore it's like oyoi your voice would just disappear and they didn't have near the acoustics or like equipment to help you with that kind of stuff back in the 70s so that would have just been awful that that'll that's wow I don't even came in at like the 11th hour so it's like how much of the original director's vision was he even able to change because it's like millions of dollars have been right like it's not really his show and so right well and I don't the thing is too though I mean by the accounting the a lot of the script had changed even until like the second to last preview.

[47:02] Pamela Shandrow: So uh quite a lot of stuff had been changed up to that point certainly also to accommodate the casting changes so who's to say oh man that that is really that's a lot of information, but it is really fascinating. There is a cast recording.

[47:20] Ebony Vines: I couldn't find it.

[47:22] Pamela Shandrow: But um there is one. I didn't look on Amazon. I'm trying not to support them right now, but you might find it there. Who knows? If you want I was I did I I didn't look this up, but I do wonder if there was an um if it only runs a minute. You know, that Jennifer Ashley Oh Tepper.

[47:43] Ebony Vines: Yeah, and she she did do a few songs from what's the one I'm doing called Truck Truckload?

[47:53] Pamela Shandrow: Yeah. So she did a couple of songs from Truckload. She's where I got so much information from Senator Joe because one of the writers was at if it only runs a minute. Um I I wonder if she I didn't even look that up to see if um she's a dude also, but well, there's the cast recording, but there is I I did mention this in there's also that uh the CD called Salome Be sings songs from Dude.

[48:18] Ebony Vines: Oh and that's like more of a concept album.

[48:20] Pamela Shandrow: Okay, okay. Salome Bay was also in the cast. There was one thing I forgot to mention in my episode that is also pertinent for this one because I'm sure she writes about dude in there. I found out that so in one of the articles when I specifically had talked about Adela Holzer um swindling a New York um publisher, the one that she swindled is the one who was publishing her autobiography.

[48:56] Ebony Vines: And I was like, she doesn't have does she have an autobiography? Like did that ever end up happening because of what she did, and she does.

[49:06] Pamela Shandrow: And it's called his money back somehow. I mean, you know, you know, and so the book is called If at First Ellipsies by Adela Holzer.

[49:20] Ebony Vines: Isn't it?

[49:20] Pamela Shandrow: Yeah. And the subtitle is The Cinderella Story of a Young Spanish Woman Who Became an American Tycoon.

[49:27] Ebony Vines: That's amazing.

[49:28] Pamela Shandrow: I am absolutely going to buy that piece of BS.

[49:34] Ebony Vines: Because you know it's filled with nothing but BS.

[49:37] Pamela Shandrow: Of course, but like that's what we loved her for. Just not the crime, the BS.

[49:44] Ebony Vines: The BS for the BS.

[49:46] Pamela Shandrow: A really good BS spinner.

[49:47] Ebony Vines: That's gonna be filled with just nonsense.

[49:50] Pamela Shandrow: Absolute nonsense. No real ages. No real timeline. It's gonna be as haphazard as and crazy as dude.

[50:00] Ebony Vines: Awesome.

[50:01] Pamela Shandrow: Alright, my dogs are whining, so I thought I'd best be off. But thanks for the listening to Dude.

[50:07] Ebony Vines: Thank you all for listening. We appreciate you as always.

[50:13] Pamela Shandrow: Bye!

[50:14] Ebony Vines: Thank you for listening to our podcast, Theater Geeks Anonymous.

[50:19] Pamela Shandrow: You can follow us on Instagram and Twitter at T G A B Way.

[50:25] Ebony Vines: And on Facebook at Theatre Geeks Anonymous.

[50:28] Pamela Shandrow: And if you want to tell us how much you love us, or you have a great story about one of the shows we've talked about, drop us a note at T G A B Way at Gmail.com.

[50:41] Ebony Vines: Until next time, geeks.