“GUYS AND DOLLS” – NATIONAL TOUR – 1976
In the summer of 1976, a national touring company of Guys and Dolls was touring the country with an all-black cast. The Broadway production originally featured such luminaries as Robert Guillaume and Norma Donaldson. The touring production starred Richard Roundtree, Leslie Uggams, Debbie Allen who would go on to international acclaim for the movie Fame. The show was a barn burner and an incredibly creative way to stage the famous Damon Runyon characters with a different twist.
There is a definitive difference between a “national tour” and a “bus and truck” of a Broadway touring show. A national tour is the A team in a full blown production normally playing major markets for multiple weeks at a time. The bus and truck is a smaller version of the show that does one nighters in smaller theatres and smaller markets. Nevertheless, the bus and truck productions are top drawer all the way in accordance with the wishes of the original playwright, lyricist and composer and so on. This is an important distinction between these two kinds of Broadway touring companies.
At the time Guys and Dolls started its tour, I became acquainted with Art Squires of Southwest Concerts. Art was the main promoter for Broadway and Vegas stars in the major markets in Texas, Denver and other markets. Art had bought the show for some of these markets so he had some sway over where the national touring production would play. Art and I shared a major passion for Broadway above all other performing arts. He was able to convince the producers of the national tour to play the Paramount for 5 shows in 3 days over a weekend. We could accomplish this feat with 3 evening performances and 2 matinees. Remember the Paramount is a 1300 seater – about half the size of the kinds of theatres showcasing a show this production heavy and their larger box office muscle. Thus, we often had to do 2 shows in one day, 3 shows in 2 days and so on to get the gross ticket sales up closer to what a larger venue could generate. The national tour of Guys and Dolls would become one of the most pivotal and critically important events in the Paramount’s attempt to avoid the wrecking ball which befell many of the great historic theatres in the country in the 1970s. Regrettably, there are only a tiny handful of people who even know who Art Squires is and the power role he played in dozens of concerts and plays that performed at the Paramount before the theatre was restored. More on that later!
Austin was abuzz with the excitement of getting a national touring show of this caliber. Even though this is the Capital of Texas and home of the University of Texas, Austin was considered a secondary market in the entertainment industry for a very long time. We just didn’t have the population base to compete with Houston, Dallas and San Antonio. When we announced the show we sold out 6,500 seats in one day. That is rarer than I can tell you. The stage was set. We had a smash hit and innovative production of a legendary Broadway musical, the theatre was sold out for all performances and we were generating incredible publicity fundamental to getting a city behind a project of the magnitude of the Paramount. The theatre was hitting on all 12 cylinders until I got a call from Actors Equity in New York.
Actors Equity Association is the organization to which all professional stage actors belong. Unlike the Screen Actors Guild which represents television and film actors. Actors Equity is tremendously powerful in Broadway theatre and every professional repertory theatre in the United States. They can shut a show down but fast if they feel the producers are not adhering to the strictest letter of the law in the AEA “bible” of rules i.e. “you will do this and you want do that” for pages and pages in mice type. They are one of about a half dozen unions governing Broadway theatres and their productions. However, they are the hammer, period. If you want to be an actor in an Equity play, you have to have your Equity card. You can get an Equity card by being cast in an Equity play. Chicken and egg stuff to be sure!
Now we had already had 2-3 Broadway bus and truck shows at the Paramount since we opened in April 1975. In the early years, we had zero money. It is a miracle we didn’t have to close the doors in the first month of us taking over the lease to the theatre from the ABC Interstate Theatre chain. And we sure as hell had less than zero money for any renovation of the theatre in any way (see Maya who originated the concept of a negative number). Therefore, musicians, dancers, comics and more played a stunning but aging theatre. Most were troupers all the way. And here’s why. The “dressing rooms” below stage and street level looked like something out of a Vincent Price horror movie. I used to call it this area of the theatre “pit and the pendulum” as a nod to Mr. Price and all things scary. We did our best to keep it clean. However, the rest rooms were ghastly and gloomy even beyond the worst dressing rooms Burlesque acts saw in the days of Vaudeville. What I didn’t know was that a company manager and some actors for one of the Broadway shows that played the Paramount in those early days had filed a complaint with Actor’s Equity. There may have been two complaints lodged. I received a letter from Actor’s Equity saying that the Paramount was, in essence, about to black balled from future Actor’s Equity productions. They were sending a representative from New York to inspect the theatre firsthand to determine of Guys and Dolls would be allowed to perform at all. Shit!
By a complete miracle, the representative was a former actor and stage manager at the University of Texas drama department when I was in the Radio, Television and Film Department at that same time. He was a very decent guy. We skulked through the pit and pendulum. Harold Goldfarb was diplomatic but said I had a problem. We started kicking around ideas for some way to overcome the issue. Refunding 6,500 tickets was more than I could bear not counting the humiliation of being black balled!
Harold then came up with the idea of putting trailers behind the theatre in the alley to double as dressing rooms. These would be similar to “honey wagons” used by the film industry on location complete with bed, shower and restrooms. That was our only option. Jeff returned to New York and sold Actors Equity on the notion. Meantime, I visited the City Council. I knew this alley was a fire lane for fire trucks. It was narrow as hell on top of it as there was a garage on the east side of the alley. The fire department said “no dice” on trailers that could not be moved if there was an emergency. Screwed again!
I then came up with the idea of using recreation vehicles which could, in fact, be moved for an emergency. Bob Miller, who owned the Porsche dealership in those days, also owned the Winnebago franchise for Austin. I knew him a little from Jack Crosby – one of the pioneers of cable television who also sat on numerous Hollywood production company boards like Orion and Imagine. I went to Bob to tell him of my dilemma to see if there was any chance he might loan us a few of his Winnebago’s. Bob was a gentleman, a pillar of the Austin community and as good a friend as anyone could ever have. He agreed to loan us 7 Winnebago’s. The Guys and Dolls cast were big – around 25 actors I think. I told Harold about my new solution to which he agreed heartily.
The play dates in Austin were during July of 1976 – the summer from hell. That meant we were going to have to run the Winnebago’s engines for a dozen hours in a row to keep the AC working. No way. The engines would overheat and the cast would literally be cooked. The only solution was to run electrical metal conduit from every Winnebago to the main power source in the theatre to run the AC without running the engines. We were right back where we started with immovable “trailers” in a fire lane. No more options and show time was approaching very fast. The fire marshal agreed to the electrical conduit as long as he could post a couple of fireman to monitor the Winnebago’s. I’m not sure what our fallback position was if they needed to get a fire truck in the alley due to a problem at the Paramount. You just don’t disconnect 150 feet of electrical metal conduit in a few minutes. Luckily, there was no emergency and the Winnebago’s saved the day. Or I should say bob Miller saved our bacon. He would not allow us to reimburse him in any way for the lease on 7 brand new Winnebago vehicles. There are many unsung heroes in the Paramount’s revitalization. Bob Miller was one because he believed in us.
Oh, by the way, 50% of the set had to be left in the Guys and Dolls trucks due to the limited amount of backstage space available at the Paramount. No one from Guys and Dolls thought to check the theatre’s specs. However, the production manager and our IATSE stage crew were veterans. Adjustments were made, the stage manager, props and riggers worked out a new scheme in time for a walk through by the actors 3 hours before curtain of the first performance. The show was so outstanding that no one in the audience ever knew half the production was in the semis around the corner.
As a result of all the publicity generated about our problems with the dressing rooms and Actor’s Equity threat to black ball the theatre for future Broadway shows, we were able to use this potentially catastrophic problem to leverage the City of Austin to grant the Paramount $120,000 in HUD funds to redo the dressing room area below the stage and for other improvements to the physical plant. We turned a potential game changing crisis in to a little windfall for the theatre. We were gaining momentum.
I’m not sure how much Art Squires of Southwest Concerts knew of this dilemma. Probably for the best! I already had a handful as it was.
Art and Guys and Dolls came at one of several pivotal points in the Paramount’s climb back to its once glorious self. He and his wife, Barbara were the ultimate unsung heroes. Please refer to a separate story entitled: “Southwest Concerts & The Paramount Theatre” for a comprehensive history of that relationship.
FYI – in the 10 years I was helming the Paramount, we never received anything less than a unanimous vote from the Austin City Council on myriad issues of consequence.
