Seasons of Love

One of my former students from the 1970s (when I was a high school teacher) e-mailed me out of the blue to say that some students were saying nice things about me on that Classmates.com site. So I linked on and was soon smiling as I remembered those lovely kids of yore, which sent me to my bookcase to take down some of the old yearbooks and mark-books. The latter yielded two yellowed pieces of paper I didn’t expect to find.

I can tell both from the mark-book and what’s on the paper that I wrote it in 1970 and that it was undoubtedly spurred by the fine experiences I’d had at Trinity Square Repertory Theatre in Providence, Rhode Island. The plays and productions there were so exciting that I was suddenly just as interested in regional theater as I was in Broadway shows. The idea that a theater in the middle of nowhere could do such thrilling work — very different from, but often just as good as, Broadway — got me on a regional theater kick that has lasted for a lifetime.

What also fascinated me, and this was reflected on the paper, was the role of a regional theater’s artistic director. How, I wondered, would I do if I were entrusted with that task of choosing six shows for a season? What plays would I pick that would make for exciting seasons and entice enough theatergoers to keep the wolf from the door? Well, that’s what this paper was: my list of seasons that I would plan as a regional theater’s artistic director.

As many of you know by now, I have a thing for the alphabet, and I’m very grateful that Mr. Antrobus gave it to us. Perhaps you’ve seen my annual wrap-up (I just did one on June 9) of “The Season from ‘A’ to ‘Z,'” in which I listed everything from Antonio Banderas to Zanna, Don’t! Those who attended the Mandy Patinkin discussion that I moderated at Musical Theatre Works last year will recall that I introduced the singer-actor by listing, in alphabetical order, 26 roles or shows with which he was associated. (I was lucky that Patinkin once portrayed Quasimodo — and that he did an album called Experiment, which I finessed for my “X.”)

So that’s the way I scheduled my “first” 26 seasons: from “A to “Z.” My inaugural 1971 season — Season “A” — would offer Ah, Wilderness!; Another Part of the Forest; Antigone (by Anouilh, of course); All’s Well That Ends Well; Andorra; and Allegro.

Not until I studied the paper for a few minutes did I realize that I had worked hard to create balanced seasons and that I used a template from which I never varied. I would always start with an American comedy and follow it with an American drama. Next would come a world classic from hundreds of years ago. Then I’d do a modern European comedy, followed by a modern European drama. Finally, the season would end with a musical.

Hence, Season “B” included Butterflies Are Free; Billy Budd; The Birds (no, not the Hitchcock, but the Aristophanes); Blithe Spirit; The Birthday Party; and Babes in Arms. Season “C” offered Come Blow Your Horn; The Children’s Hour; The Cherry Orchard; Caligula; The Chalk Garden; and Candide. (Note that this was before Hal Prince rescued that musical from relative obscurity in 1974. Like so many others, I guess I had a rescue fantasy going on — that my theater would find the solutions that would turn Candide from a 73-performance flop to a big hit.)

Needless to say, when you’re doing shows alphabetically, the tail wags the dog. When it came to Season “Q,” I was so desperate for titles that I scheduled Quarante Carats (the original French title for the 1968 hit Forty Carats) and Queen High, a 1926 Broadway musical about which I knew nothing. These two were followed by four blank spaces. For Season “X,” which I imagine some people would mistakenly assume was our 10th season, all I had was Xmas in Las Vegas — a 1965 four-performance flop by Jack Richardson — and five blank spaces. Understand that I’d never seen it or even read it, but there I was scheduling it.

I was rather surprised how easily Season “V” (which I imagine some people would think was our fifth season) came together: Visit to a Small Planet; A View from the Bridge; Volpone; Venus Observed; The Visit; and Valmouth. (Don’t know that one? Too bad. Sandy Wilson of The Boy Friend fame wrote two beautifully poignant numbers for it.) But who’d expect so many blue-chip titles from the usually obscure letter “V?”

Some seasons came together with the lick of a pencil. You know I just have to mean Season “S,” given that there are more titles of shows that start with that letter than any other. Hence, Scuba Duba; The Skin of Our Teeth (it’s the least I could do to thank Mr. Antrobus for the alphabet); The Sea Gull; Separate Tables; Shall We Join the Ladies?; and She Loves Me. What was Scuba Duba, you ask? Well, if you were living in that era and paying attention to Off-Broadway, you’d know it. The 1967 Bruce Jay Friedman comedy concerned a husband (Jerry Orbach, later Judd Hirsch) on vacation with his wife, who ruined the trip by running off with a black man. By today’s standards, it would be considered awfully racist.

Which brings up a good point: What I find fascinating is that I never took into consideration that the times would be a changin’ as the years went on or that what was then fashionable wouldn’t necessarily be in 1989, when my Season “S” would roll around. What’s more, I was awfully naive in planning 26 years in advance, for at least two reasons: (1) Lord knows, there are regional theaters that don’t make it to the quarter-century mark; and (2) Newer works by newer playwrights, some of whom had not even been born when I made my schedules, would be available. Seventeen years after our inaugural season, I’d be able to do the 1983 hit Quartermaine’s Terms. But who knew that was coming in 1970? (I was pleased, though, to see that I was interested in giving new plays a chance: I had been given a script of Murray Schisgal’s Ducks and Lovers, which had been optioned for Broadway but not yet produced there. I liked it so much that I made it my opening production of Season D.)

Anyway, not 24 hours after discovering the paper, a funny thing happened at an opening night party: I ran into Jack W. Batman, one of the producers of Enchanted April, who told me that he was involved with the fondly remembered La Salle Music Theatre in Philadelphia some decades ago. Given that I saw a terrific Follies there (not to mention a nifty Out of This World), I asked him to tell me more about it. So he started recalling days of yore and got to the season when the troupe did Finian’s Rainbow, The Fantasticks, and Fiorello! “That,” he said, “was our ‘F’ season.” And I slowly nodded with great understanding at his thinking that way.

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[To contact Peter Filichia directly, e-mail him at pfilichia@aol.com]