by Patti Lupone
In my second year, René Auberjonois came back to teach at Juilliard. Nancy Nichols, who had become one of my dearest friends, and I were moping in his class. “What’s the matter with you?” he asked. We told him that we wanted to go see Delaney & Bonnie at the Fillmore East.
“Just go to the stage door,” René said, “and ask for John Ford Noonan. Tell him Wimpy sent you.” John was a playwright, and his play How Boston Won the Pennant had been produced off-Broadway.
Nancy and I went down there, knocked on the door, and a big, burly guy in overalls answered. “We’re looking for John Ford Noonan,” we told him. “Wimpy sent us.”
“You found him,” Noonan answered, and let us in. Nancy and I sat backstage at the Fillmore East every Friday night for the entire year. We saw every great rock-and-roll band. I had so much fun and did everything I could to forget the tormented hell days at school.
Our class would lose actors every year. They would be “eliminated” by the faculty. The end of the year was always filled with tension, anger, and tears. Some kids would be eliminated because they stunk, others left because they couldn’t take the insanity anymore. David Schramm was John Houseman’s favorite male actor. David didn’t much care for Brian Bedford, a new acting teacher. I can’t remember exactly what happened, but there were words between David and Brian, and a dramatic exit from the class by David. The entire Group 1 was called into Mr. Houseman’s office. He was appalled by our ungratefulness, our lack of respect for Brian Bedford. The lecture and rant went on for about a half hour. At the end of it Mr. Houseman said, “I’m eliminating Group 1. That’s all. Fuck you. Good-bye.”
Lizzie in Next Time I’ll Sing to You, 1973.
ESTATE OF DIANE GORODNITZKI
It was shocking and funny all at the same time. I realized that it was nothing more than an empty threat. At the time the Drama Division consisted of just us, Group 1, and Group 2, the class behind us. Surely Mr. Houseman would never throw us out, leaving himself only that class in the school. Group 2 was a knee-jerk reaction to the lunatics in my class. Most of Group 2 was as gray and mundane as we were off the wall.
In that second year, we started a singing class with Roland Gagnon, who was the choral master of the American Opera Center (AOC, the Opera Division) at Juilliard. He was another one of my favorite teachers. Roland was an ex-priest, a deeply intellectual man with a spectacular wine cellar in his apartment hall closet. He would invite my classmate/boyfriend Kevin Kline and me to dinner. We would eat and drink a gourmet experience that he would prepare, then sit in his living room and have philosophical discussions—well, he and Kevin would have them. I always felt stupid next to those two, but Roland and I communicated on another level. We would make each other laugh.
Being invited into his life was so enriching. His singing classes and the dissertations at the end of them lifted me up and deepened my commitment to this thing I was doing with my life, which, of course, included singing. Early in our second year, Roland asked whether any of us wanted to sing in an opera with the American Opera Center after school. Three students did. I didn’t because we were already at school for thirteen hours a day. I had to get out of that building and remember who I was. The opera was Saverio Mercadante’s Il Giuramento. At the end of the school year the AOC’s production of the opera and the Juilliard Orchestra were chosen by Gian Carlo Menotti and Thomas Schippers to represent America at the Festival of Two Worlds in Spoleto, Italy. I begged Roland to let me go.
He did, so two other classmates, Sam Tsoutsouvas and Norman Snow, and I joined the Juilliard Orchestra, the American Opera Center, and the principal soloists from the New York City Opera for the trip to Italy. At the airport, we were well taken care of. All we had to do was show up at the assigned terminal and all of our needs were met. Our sponsor saw to every last detail. The Texas man was a lover of the arts, extremely rich, and a drinker. We were all herded onto the private Pan Am charter, and once we were airborne, the flight attendants broke out the alcohol. As we were approaching the Rome airport, they attempted to auction off the rest of the booze. Pan Am still hadn’t unloaded all of it by the time we got off the plane. Bleary-eyed, drunk, and jet-lagged, I arrived in Europe, the place I had longed to be since I was sixteen years old.
We boarded several buses for the journey to Spoleto in the Umbria region. We were assigned guest quarters in homes all over the town. When I was finally settled in my host home on a beautiful street in beautiful Spoleto, a cellist from the orchestra and I went to the local market. We bought the local salami, bread, cheese, olives, and wine, and went to a hillside to eat, drink, and revel in the good fortune bestowed upon us. We got happily shitfaced all over again. It was the beginning of the most glorious month of my young life. Il Giuramento was only performed every two and a half days, so my classmate Sam and I had several days free to hitchhike all over Italy, which we did. One night we left after the performance crazily thinking we’d get a ride somewhere. We ended up sleeping in a field while I fended off the advances of Angelo, a cute Spoleto boy we befriended who thought I was a cute, loose American girl, which I was. Sometimes we’d leave at dawn not knowing where we were going but always getting someplace by train or car, having had the best time along the way. In fact, the performances of the opera got in the way of our good times. We ever so slightly resented having to come back to Spoleto.
Situated on an Umbrian hilltop, the town itself is quite beautiful and dates from the ninth century B.C. It had the most massive aqueduct, which had become the place to commit suicide. These people were indeed committed. Before they jumped, they carved their names into the stone of the aqueduct—not easy to do. The town has cobblestone streets, beautiful churches, several theatres, and a small amphitheatre. Andrei Serban was there, having directed the Public Theater’s production of Arden of Faversham, acted by East Village hippies and a couple of real actors. It was experimental theatre at its worst. Peter Brook saw it and picked up the majority of the actors and took them to Iran to develop Convocation of the Birds. I was incredulous and unbelievably jealous.
In that magical month, I fell in love with a dancer named Charlie Hayward, I learned the Italian “basta Angelo,” I ate myself into oblivion, and I had upstaging contests with Sam right behind the principal tenor while he was singing his big aria. I never wanted to go home, back to the place where I was constantly being judged. I was free for the first time in my life—free of emotional bonds, free to be myself without a history. It’s one of the most profound experiences I’ve ever had, one that shaped me artistically, released me emotionally, and because I was an Italian in Italy, assured me I was normal, even beautiful, in my Italian-ism.
I returned for my third year and continued the arduous training Juilliard had become famous for. That summer I made my professional debut at the Young Vic in London. The New York Public Theater mounted an adaptation of Euripedes’ Iphigenia at Aulis to occupy the vacant Young Vic Theater while their company was touring. Somehow I think Euripides might not have been too happy with what had been done to it. His play had become a rock musical with twelve Iphigenias. I joined the cast after three girls left for Leonard Bernstein’s Mass at the Kennedy Center. I remember rehearsing at the Public playing catch-up. These women were a tight ensemble and not necessarily thrilled to see a new face. The only thing I was given to do was a lyric at the top of the show: “Grip your oars and pull hard … pull hard and grip your oars.” This adaptation was a big hot mess, but what was exciting was the fact that we were actually going to be onstage in London. Again, I couldn’t believe my luck.
On the day we were flying, I went to the airport and, because I’d never taken an international commercial flight before, I didn’t check in at the ticket counter. The only other flight I had taken had been my chartered Spoleto excursion. When it came time to board, I didn’t have a boarding pass. There was a bit of a flurry, the company manager did his best to get me a seat, but there was a gate attendant who was hell bent on not letting me on that flight. Someh
ow I was snuck on with the help of the flight attendants, but when the gate attendant patrolled the aisles counting heads, she found me and threw me off the flight. I don’t even know how I had the presence of mind to go to the airport and get on a flight the next day, but I did. There must have been a ticket waiting for me. I arrived in London, found the hotel they put us in, and began a wild ride in seventies London. I befriended two girls in the company and the three of us prowled the London streets together.
The company was made up of blacks, Hispanics, and whites, with the whites being in the minority. The best-known cast member was Nell Carter, who had already made her Broadway debut. We all had to dress in a large chorus dressing room. I don’t know why, but all twelve of us were in one room amid racks of costumes. Everybody had a dressing table except the white girls, who were standing and making up. One night as we were getting ready to “grip our oars and pull hard,” Nell Carter said to her makeup mirror, “Who’s got a knife? I wanna stick somebody tonight.” The white girls slithered back against the wall. The show went on and nobody got shanked. We did have the best time in London. My two new friends, Pam and Julian, and I hooked up with Roland Joffé, who’d go on to direct The Killing Fields, but who at the time was Sir Laurence Olivier’s assistant at the Old Vic. The three of us moved in with Roland for our remaining time there. We had an apartment, we had an English friend/lover, and for some inexplicable reason, Harry Nilsson showed up at our show. Pam, Julian, and I went out with Harry. I had been in love with him forever, was such a huge fan, and here I was chatting him up in his hotel room as if we were the best of friends. I couldn’t believe it. I can still see the hotel room and his beautiful blondness.
While we were in residence, the Young Vic celebrated its second birthday, and all of English acting royalty showed up at the party. Among the crowd I spotted Sir Laurence Olivier and Joan Plowright. It took every ounce of courage I had to approach Laurence Olivier, but when we were face-to-face, I was so intimidated I couldn’t even speak. He did shake my hand, but I got so depressed at my lack of composure that I fled the party.
Our show stunk, but we were a rock musical cult hit in London. Go figure. We finished our run, I came home to return to school, but I wanted so badly to stay in swinging London.
The workload shifted in our third and fourth years at Juilliard. We spent less time in the classroom and a lot more time performing both at Juilliard and around the state of New York under the aegis of Lincoln Center. For our first Lincoln Center tour, the class was split in half, and my half performed a version of The Foibles of Scapin by Molière. There were seven of us touring in a station wagon with a white prop box on the roof of the car. We traveled all of New York State performing this truncated version of Scapin in elementary, junior high, and high schools. Our version of the play was basically this: All the actors came onstage at the top of the show, introduced their character to the audience, told the audience what Acts I and II were about, and then acted an abbreviated version of Act III. This wonderful play lasted one class period.
Scapin, the Drama Division’s first road show, 1971.
ESTATE OF DIANE GORODNITZKI
We would more often than not perform in the morning, and on one particular occasion we were at a Catholic girls’ school. As we were describing our characters to a rapt audience, Sam Tsoutsouvas started laughing out loud, which sent ripples of laughter through the rest of us. When we finished the introduction and left the stage, the stage manager came backstage yelling, “What’s so goddamn funny?” Sam, still laughing with tears in his eyes, said, “I listened to the prologue for the first time today, and even I don’t understand it.” It was true. We’d never bothered listening to the prologue. After the show, we stood around and said it out loud again, making a conscious effort to comprehend it. It didn’t make sense. Every time we listened to it after that, no one could keep a straight face.
We played Scapin for two years. Something happened to me while I was in rehearsal for it. I was cast as Zerbinette, a character required to enter laughing, then sustain and build the laughter into hysterics through the entire speech she gives to Scapin. It requires substantial comedic technique. Rehearsal was going well—so well, in fact, that I was chosen to represent the new Juilliard actor at the TCG (Theatre Communication Group) yearly gathering of regional theatre artistic directors. I nailed the speech at a performance level, but when I went back into rehearsal, I couldn’t find the character again, couldn’t maintain the laughter, and I couldn’t figure out why or how I had lost it. I’d basically been pushed into performance too soon while I was still discovering the character, a very dangerous thing to do to a young, inexperienced actor. I didn’t know how to get back into rehearsal mode. The performance was so successful that I tried to re-create it, but I didn’t know why it had been successful. I didn’t know the character yet. I lost confidence and eventually I was taken out of the part. The director gave me the ingenue role, which didn’t suit me. I was taken out of that part and given the smallest role, the messenger. The humiliation was deep, but it taught me a very valuable lesson. Rehearsal is for discovery and development of character. It can’t be rushed, because it’s all so tenuous. Patience, time, accrued knowledge, and careful preparation will ensure a consistent performance. The experience scared the bejesus out of me, but failure teaches.
Boris Tumarin, the Russian director whom we all adored, then cast me as Catherine in A View from the Bridge. This production on the main stage in our third year was a huge success. Mr. Houseman’s dream of a repertory ensemble was taking shape. We grew up and found our trust and support in one another. We became an ensemble of actors. We were all in the same play using the same technique and trusting one another on stage as we had never done before. I’ll never forget Boris’s dramatic curtain call and the ovation we received. I don’t think anyone expected this level of professionalism from us. I was again reminded of my responsibility to my craft as I had been with Esther Scott and the success we achieved at the NYSSMA convention in high school.
I was now becoming one of the school’s leading ladies, and the next part I was cast in was Lady Teazle in the Restoration play The School for Scandal. Gerald Freedman was the director. Ultimately I succeeded in the role and even became the poster girl for The Acting Company—my face as Lady Teazle adorned The Acting Company posters and press releases for three years—but getting there was a trial because I was crippled with fear. I lacked the courage to admit I didn’t know anything about Restoration and its very particular language. I’d never said so many words in one sentence before. It was more complicated than Shakespeare. It was so bad that at the final dress rehearsal, Gerry said to me, “If you’re an actress, act. If not, put a bushel basket on your head and get off the stage.” The final humiliation came at the end of the play on our opening night. In the blackout, I was supposed to cross stage right and exit through the set door to prepare for the curtain call. I was in such a fog through the entire performance that I walked off the raised platform onto the deck of the stage and didn’t know where I was. It was pitch black. When I realized what had happened, I started pounding on the set wall, screaming, “Help! Let me in! Don’t let me die out here!” Somehow I was talked back onto the stage and through the door before the lights came up. After the performance, still in costume, in a complete daze, I walked the hallway of the Drama Division’s third floor. I saw Marian Seldes, her arms outstretched, beckoning me. We hugged cheek to cheek. She said, “Yes.”
David Ogden Stiers as Joseph Surface and me as Lady Teazle in The School for Scandal, 1972.
ESTATE OF DIANE GORODNITZKI
I said, “I don’t know, Marian, I was so confused.”
“I’m sure you were,” she responded and sailed away.
On our Easter break, one of my classmates, Gerry Gutierrez, suggested he direct three of us—Kevin Kline, Sam Tsoutsouvas, and me—in Act 1 of the musical The Apple Tree as a surprise for Mr. Houseman. We were classical actors. We didn’t do musicals, but we rehe
arsed and presented “The Diary of Adam and Eve” to the other classes, to our teachers, and to John. It’s based on a Mark Twain short story, adapted by Jerry Bock and Sheldon Harnick. It’s so tender and funny and heartbreaking. Kevin and I were a couple, so this play was extremely poignant for me. We were a huge success. Mr. Houseman hadn’t considered that some of us could sing, and he was delighted. That was when we started to do musicals, the first being Brendan Behan’s The Hostage.… I was left off the cast list.
However, I wasn’t left off the cast list of The Robber Bridegroom, a brilliant musical based on a Eudora Welty novella. Once again, Kevin and I played opposite each other. I was entrenched in my love for him onstage and off. It wasn’t always easy. We were young. We were playing opposite each other on several occasions. He was so handsome and I was so insecure even when we were a couple. Everybody wanted Kevin. He loved all of the women, sometimes at my expense. But I was addicted to him and always came back—until one day I just couldn’t anymore.
Kevin and I had met in my third year of Juilliard. It was his first. John Houseman had brought three new actors into our class. They had already graduated from college and were called “advanced students.” (“Advanced in what?” the rest of us demanded.) They were resented and we were threatened. When I finally met Kevin, I thought he was Pinocchio and he thought I was a Long Island cheerleader, which I was. One day in an Art Appreciation class I came in late and took a seat next to Kevin. There was heat, and the next thing I know we couldn’t keep our hands off each other. It was the beginning of a seven-year relationship that endured several breakups and left an indelible mark on my life. Kevin was my first great love.