See What Dorothy Dehner Says About Me
As I have explained, by the spring of 1949 the plugging away ended, for I discovered the truth of my disability and began lead a normal life. My cousin Joan Gray, then a very successful photographic model in New York who had been studying acting, decided she was ready to gain on-stage experience so she arranged an audition with a professional summer stock company: The Barn Playhouse, in Bolton Landing on nearby Lake George. On the appointed day, I met Joan’s train in Schenectady and drove her to Bolton Landing for her audition.
Joan did not join the company, but I did - as the one-man publicity department. Mainly my job (the first since my discharge from the Army) was to plaster the Eastern Adirondacks from Glens Falls to Fort Ticonderoga with posters announcing the current show and to arrange special events, such as hay rides, with the bell captains of the local lakeside hotels that would bring guests to the playhouse. I was paid $50 a week plus room and board at the Kings Inn hotel, on whose property the summer theatre, cum barn, stood.
The cast and members of the company were encouraged to mingle with the audience in the hotel bar after each evening’s performance. As an incentive to draw the cast into the bar, drinks ordered by company members were half price. However, to receive the discount, we had to sign for the drinks rather than pay in cash. The bar patrons included many fine looking young ladies of drinking age who were staying a nearby hotels with their parents, and who were very interested in meeting young men. I thought I was in heaven. Today, I would call it a target rich environment.
At the end of the first week when I lined up with the rest of company at the box office to receive my pay, I was stunned when Joe Crosby, the owner and producer of the Barn Playhouse, said from behind the little window, “You did pretty good Bob, you only owe me ten dollars.”
“My God,” I thought as I reached for my wallet, “I bought 60 bucks worth of drinks at fifty percent off.”
Obviously, I was making up for lost time much too eagerly.
Joe Crosby believed that a truism of theatre is that you cannot have a successful play until some newspaper critic gives the show a good review. Since the local Glens Falls newspaper had neither a drama critic or theatre column, Joe arranged for me to write a review for the paper under the name of Dorothy Dehner. Dorothy and her husband Dave Smith were year-round residents of Bolton Landing who were well known in the area. They were also ardent supporters of the Playhouse.
The Barn Playhouse gave performances Tuesday through Sunday evenings during the ten-week summer season. No performance was given on Monday evening so that the scenery for the new show could be setup. Thus, each Tuesday evening was opening night of a new show.
The director and the cast of actors were young, unknown, and non-union but very talented and very professional. Each Wednesday morning, I would sit in the box office using the only typewriter on the premises and write an “opening night” review of the new show and deliver it to the newspaper in Glen Falls in time for the evening edition. As I wrote, the actors would greet me with joking remarks about what I should write as they passed in and out of the theatre during rehearsal of the next week’s offering. Everyone in the company knew I wrote the review.
Of course, I had only good things to say about the show. The trick was to find different expressions of goodness and ways to make the review interesting. One means I used was to feature one or two actors in each review and describe their performance and fictional backgrounds.
One evening, about half way through the season, the resident leading man rushed up to the company table in the hotel dining room, while most of us were having dinner, waving the Glens Falls newspaper. Oblivious to the reality of the situation, he proudly exclaimed with great excitement, “See what Dorothy Dehner says about me.”
From this experience I learned: (a) People will deceive themselves into believing whatever they desire to believe regardless of known facts, and (b) In print you can be anyone you want to be and no reader will know differently.
Joan did not join the company, but I did - as the one-man publicity department. Mainly my job (the first since my discharge from the Army) was to plaster the Eastern Adirondacks from Glens Falls to Fort Ticonderoga with posters announcing the current show and to arrange special events, such as hay rides, with the bell captains of the local lakeside hotels that would bring guests to the playhouse. I was paid $50 a week plus room and board at the Kings Inn hotel, on whose property the summer theatre, cum barn, stood.
The cast and members of the company were encouraged to mingle with the audience in the hotel bar after each evening’s performance. As an incentive to draw the cast into the bar, drinks ordered by company members were half price. However, to receive the discount, we had to sign for the drinks rather than pay in cash. The bar patrons included many fine looking young ladies of drinking age who were staying a nearby hotels with their parents, and who were very interested in meeting young men. I thought I was in heaven. Today, I would call it a target rich environment.
At the end of the first week when I lined up with the rest of company at the box office to receive my pay, I was stunned when Joe Crosby, the owner and producer of the Barn Playhouse, said from behind the little window, “You did pretty good Bob, you only owe me ten dollars.”
“My God,” I thought as I reached for my wallet, “I bought 60 bucks worth of drinks at fifty percent off.”
Obviously, I was making up for lost time much too eagerly.
Joe Crosby believed that a truism of theatre is that you cannot have a successful play until some newspaper critic gives the show a good review. Since the local Glens Falls newspaper had neither a drama critic or theatre column, Joe arranged for me to write a review for the paper under the name of Dorothy Dehner. Dorothy and her husband Dave Smith were year-round residents of Bolton Landing who were well known in the area. They were also ardent supporters of the Playhouse.
The Barn Playhouse gave performances Tuesday through Sunday evenings during the ten-week summer season. No performance was given on Monday evening so that the scenery for the new show could be setup. Thus, each Tuesday evening was opening night of a new show.
The director and the cast of actors were young, unknown, and non-union but very talented and very professional. Each Wednesday morning, I would sit in the box office using the only typewriter on the premises and write an “opening night” review of the new show and deliver it to the newspaper in Glen Falls in time for the evening edition. As I wrote, the actors would greet me with joking remarks about what I should write as they passed in and out of the theatre during rehearsal of the next week’s offering. Everyone in the company knew I wrote the review.
Of course, I had only good things to say about the show. The trick was to find different expressions of goodness and ways to make the review interesting. One means I used was to feature one or two actors in each review and describe their performance and fictional backgrounds.
One evening, about half way through the season, the resident leading man rushed up to the company table in the hotel dining room, while most of us were having dinner, waving the Glens Falls newspaper. Oblivious to the reality of the situation, he proudly exclaimed with great excitement, “See what Dorothy Dehner says about me.”
From this experience I learned: (a) People will deceive themselves into believing whatever they desire to believe regardless of known facts, and (b) In print you can be anyone you want to be and no reader will know differently.
posted by Bob Baker at 5:53 AM
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