Those Were The Plays

I just read Curtis Armstrong's memoir.  If you don't know his name, perhaps you know his most famous role: "Booger" in Revenge Of The Nerds. In fact, the book is called Revenge Of The Nerd.  He tells you everything you'd want to know about working on that film, as well as on Risky Business and Moonlighting.

I didn't know he was from Detroit.  It made the book more personal for me, especially his early years.  For instance, he started a theatrical troupe in Ann Arbor.  They needed a place to perform and found a "run-down suburban mall called Arbor Land."

I remember Arborland, and he's right, it would have been a miserable place to perform.  But hey, the rent was free.

He also notes his first professional acting gig when he was 23:

For the record, it was in the role of Puck in A Midsummer Night's Dream, directed by Terence Kilburn, at Meadow Brook Theatre in Michigan. (You probably didn't see it.)

But I did, Curtis.  Meadow Brook was a fine regional theatre and my parents took me there regularly.  On the campus of Oakland University in Rochester, Michigan, it was a great place to see the classics, and well as 20th century Broadway hits.

I remember his Puck.  At that point, all Armstrong wanted to do, he says, was work in theatre, going from town to town, like so many others he met at Meadow Brook.  He lists a number of these actors and their names brought back memories.

Cheryl Giannini--a lovely women I saw in a number of shows. I particularly liked her Rosalind in As You Like It. William LeMassena, another regular who I remember best as the lead in Harvey.  G. Wood, who played Prospero in The Tempest.

All these actors did occasional movie or TV work--look at G. Wood as General Hammond in MASH.  But it was in the theatre where they really got to stretch--and not just regional theatre, they all did Broadway.  And it's their live work where audience members like me got to see something special that will stay with us.