The Theatre Part I

The Westport Country Playhouse where Uncle L began his career in Theatre while in junior high school.

My children's book series is getting close to launch as the illustrator has only to add colouration to the completed sketches and then we're off!

A couple of sketched pages now undergoing colouration. We hope to have Book 1 out by mid-September.

As I have mentioned previously, our book series will have a philanthropic component part of whose mission will be to support The Arts and in particular, Theatre, which has been fighting an uphill battle.

Don't Go Gentle cast
Norm Woodel (Judge Lawrence Driver), Benjamin Sprunger (Ben), Andrew Muwonge (Rasheed), Echaka Agba (Tanya) and Robyn Coffin (Amelia) in the Haven Theatre Company's "Don’t Go Gentle."
(Dean La Prairie photo from The Chicago Tribune)

Saturday night I attended a fine production of Don't Go Gentle. It bothered me that a Saturday night production wasn't sold out. Chicago has a fine international reputation as a Theatre Town yet far too often I attend excellent productions with empty seats. The Den will be doing something about this and I feel especially compelled to do so on account of my Uncle L's wonderful legacy in the field of Dramatic Arts.

Uncle L has a thunderous laugh and tells a story better than anybody I've ever heard.

My Uncle L had a very fine career in Theatre, Television (winning two Emmys), and Movies having been President of American Playhouse until it had to close due to lack of funding.  They brought high quality theatrical productions to Public Television and relied on public funding and foundation grants as a non-profit entity.  Back then, it carried a lot of prestige for actors to be in an American Playhouse production and Uncle L had a reputation for being very persuasive at convincing big name movie stars to work for scale.

From left: Auntie J, Uncle L, Uncle S (behind), Grandfather 'Pete', FRL, and Mum with Pete holding 'Bambi'.
August 1961.
 A tale Uncle L tells to perfection was as the long suffering uncoordinated youngest brother
of accomplished athletes and son to a Nixon Republican who remarked his Theatre pursuits were for 'sissies'.
Vindication came one day during the mid 1970s in Los Angeles when Pete, in town on business, was taking his youngest son to dinner. Uncle L said he was bringing a 'friend'. That 'friend' turned out to be Faye Dunaway whose career was then at its apex.

After American Playhouse had to close, Uncle L went to Hollywood and became President of Fox Searchlight Pictures. His tenure at Fox Searchlight was a successful one culminating in Best Picture Oscar nominee The Full Monty. Uncle L had by then tired of life in Hollywood where he never felt he fit in and longed to return to the East Coast so convinced the higher ups at Fox to let him leave Fox Searchlight and produce The Full Monty as a musical on Broadway. It was a critical and commercial success and would have been spectacularly so had it not been for the box office phenomenon The Producers starring Matthew Broderick and Nathan Lane that swept all the Tonys and box office sizzle that year leaving everything else in its wake.

Guess Who Uncle L's Bringing to Dinner. This is the little gal Uncle L surprised his father Pete with. In an instant,
Uncle L went from black sheep to Family Star as the boys at the Club and on the Metro North Bar Car got to hear
about Pete getting fresh with 'Bonnie'.

Uncle L is retired now after several years of lecturing at Yale but still in excellent health and living a quiet life in beautiful Northwestern Connecticut.

Post performance cocktail at The Red Lion.

I'll be hatching a plan to lure him out of genteel seclusion.