The astonishing whilrlwind of seven day stock. This has apparently become a thing of the past, but I know of no better way to learn your craft. I can only liken it to immersion classes in a foreign language, where one moves into a house where only the language you're learning is used. If you don't learn quickly, you'll starve! There I am in the shop near the beginning of the first season with fellow apprentice Stephanie "Snuffy" Sell. While I had little but walk-ons, I watched from the wings as some extra-ordinarily talented people plied their craft: The late Peter Harris, Don Barton, Lois Kibbee, Beth Brickell, Ray Girardin, Ed Wright, Jean Le Bouvier, Mary Hara. The TD was Bob Stegmiller, who became a fixture in Northeast Ohio, designing shows and outfitting theatres everywhere until his untimely death a few years ago. You couldn't ask for a better classroom.

We used to do a show a week, though the first week I spent as an apprentice at POG, was a two-week run of "Take Her, She's Mine," a typical comedy of the day (1964). We ran that particular show for two weeks, not because of it's special merits, but because Sallie Sexton, the producer had ordered a new tent and it was to be delivered late. So we opened in the old tent and at the end of the first week struck the set, the seats, the grid and the tent, put up the new tent, re-installed the grid and the lights and the speakers and the seats and the sets all in the time from the Saturday night curtain until the Monday night performance!

And such colorful personalities. Dear Susie Robison and Morris' house made for theatre parties. Sally Jones Sexton, one of the most fascinating people I've ever had the pleasure to work for; Janie Dunscombe--one of Ballanchine's original girls--ditto. And of course,

The second season included Arthur Kopit's Oh Dad, Poor Dad... starring none other than Christine Jorgenson. She (and I do mean she) was very professional, albeit not exactly Julie Harris. We ran that show for two weeks, expecting to capitalize on her considerable notariety, and the first week, we did amazing business, but the people who came to gawk, saw not a freak, but a tall, almost shy, and not all that dynamic actress. The box office fell off the second week, but Christine had such a nice time with our merry little band that she agreed to return for the final show of the year for scale to do Dame Western. No star complex there.

Returning to my childhood love of puppetry, I played Rosalinda the piranha fish, and since we were in the round, I spent the entire show under a table.

Christine, quite an accomplished photographer in "real" life, whatever that is, snapped this photo of me and the fish under the table with available light. And she graciously gave me the autographed photo above. Classy lady.

Actually I was an apprentice for only a couple of weeks. We went through, as I recall, three prop masters in those first two weeks. I got the job (and the princely salary of $40/wk!) and lasted two years propping and doing walk-ons. At the end of which time, I got my Equity card.

And then, there was Ray Sovey. I learned more about design concepts sitting next to him than from any textbook ever written. He came on to design the last show of the first season ("The Jest"), and happily came back to design the entire next season. Then in his early seventies, Ray had designed more than 120 Broadway productions, including "Green Grow the Lilacs," "Gigi," "Tovarich," "The Great Sebastians," "The Chalk Garden," "Our Town," "St. Joan," "Strictly Dishonorable," "The Heiress," "Art and the Bottle" and many more. He was the true American Eclectic. And he taught me always to serve the piece.

And many other practical things. I used to sit beside him while he was working on some costume or other as he gave me a list of furniture he wanted me to get for the next show, and he'd make little sketches on my pad with whichever hand was free. And he'd say something like, "Now, if you can't find this which would be ideal, then look for such and so and we can paint it and cut off the whosis and it will mix. The line is the important thing and the size." And then he'd make a little perfect line sketch of the shape he wanted and I would go find it. And his sense of color! And character. And materials.

The picture on the right is of me as Will Spray in one of the shirts Ray made for everybody in the huge cast of Tom Jones. We were, after all in a 600 seat tent in central Ohio in August. Ray knew that heavy wool would have killed us all, but he needed something that would drape properly and hold up for the length of the run (which was two whole weeks since it was the last show of the season.) Ray, of course, found the perfect material for the shirts: shroud cloth! Exactly the right texture, but three times as light as any cotton then on the market, sturdy enough to hold up to the athletic goings on and the color of unbleached muslin.

There was always something seemingly effortless about Ray's designs that always evoked the play he was working on. Whereas, if you see a Mielziner design, you know instantly who designed it, when you see a Raymond Sovey design, you know instantly what show it is for. One of my life's ambitions is to get far enough ahead to research and write the definitive biography of Ray's work. In his day, he was known as "the dean of Broadway design." And now he is nearly forgotten. A travesty.

The shows were: