35“I remember when I was, like, a sophomore”: “Meryl Streep: The Fresh Air Interview,” National Public Radio, Feb. 6, 2012.
35“Welcome, O life!”: James Joyce, A Portrait of the Artist as a Young Man (New York: B. W. Huebsch, 1916), 299.
36At two o’clock in the morning: Booth’s recollections throughout are from an author interview, July 10, 2014.
38By 1967, nearly two-thirds: This account of Vassar’s transition to coeducation comes largely from Daniels and Griffen, Full Steam Ahead in Poughkeepsie.
39“How unthinkable”: Ibid., 29.
39A survey in the spring: Ibid., 34–35.
40“Vassar to Pursue Complete Coeducation”: Vassar Miscellany News, Oct. 4, 1968.
40“Vassar Men—Facing a Comic Doom”: Susan Casteras, Vassar Miscellany News, Oct. 11, 1968.
40“genuine sense of identity”: Diane de Dubovay, “Meryl Streep,” Ladies’ Home Journal, March, 1980.
43“Read Miss Julie”: Susan Dworkin, “Meryl Streep to the Rescue!,” Ms., Feb., 1979.
43“You can’t do that!”: Evert Sprinchorn’s quotations are from an author interview, Apr. 7, 2014.
44“Tonight she’s wild again”: From Evert Sprinchorn’s translation, which was used in the Vassar College production. Collected in Robert Brustein, ed., Strindberg: Selected Plays and Prose (New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, 1964), 73.
44lilac scent: Author interview with set designer C. Otis Sweezey, Sept. 26, 2014.
44“She just seemed much more mature”: Author interview with Judy Ringer, Apr. 12, 2014.
44“I don’t remember her having any particular investment in it”: Author interview with Lee Devin, Apr. 7, 2014.
45“It was a very serious play”: “Meryl Streep: Inside the Actors Studio,” Bravo TV, Nov. 22, 1998.
45“She is the first neurotic”: Michel Bouche, “Don’t Miss ‘Miss Julie’ in Vassar Performance,” Poughkeepsie Journal, Dec. 13, 1969.
45“I loved my father”: In Brustein, ed., Strindberg: Selected Plays and Prose, 99.
45“modern characters, living in a transitional era”: Ibid., 61.
46“Being the only man”: Daniels and Griffen, Full Steam Ahead in Poughkeepsie, 124–25.
46“The men came my junior and senior years”: Commencement address delivered by Meryl Streep at Vassar College, May 22, 1983.
47“That was the Garden of Eden”: In Brustein, ed., Strindberg: Selected Plays and Prose, 85.
49“They really didn’t want us here”: Except where noted, Streep’s recollections of Dartmouth come from Mark Bubriski, “From Vassar (to Hanover) to Hollywood: Meryl Streep’s College Years,” The Dartmouth, May 19, 2000.
49Meryl’s classmate Carol Dudley: Dudley’s recollections are from an author interview, May 5, 2014.
49“I got straight A’s”: Commencement address delivered by Meryl Streep at Vassar College, May 22, 1983.
50“highly symbolic”: MG.
50“Living the Revolution”: Commencement address delivered by Gloria Steinem at Vassar College, May 31, 1970.
51“I don’t even think that question is valid”: The Dartmouth, May 19, 2000.
52“Men of all degrees”: George Lillo, The London Merchant, Act IV, Scene ii.
52“Meryl Streep coos, connives, weeps”: Debi Erb, “Meryl Streep Excels in ‘London Merchant,’” Miscellany News, March 12, 1971.
53“Even in production”: Author interview with Philip LeStrange, May 21, 2014.
54“I had never given it to anybody before”: Author interview with Sondra Green, May 21, 2014.
54“I’d never made myself cry”: “Meryl Streep: Inside the Actors Studio,” Nov. 22, 1998.
55“You lackey! You shoeshine boy!”: In Brustein, ed., Strindberg: Selected Plays and Prose, 95.
56Meryl sang jazz standards: E-mail to author from Marj O’Neill-Butler, July 10, 2014.
57Left to their own devices: Author interview with Peter Parnell, May 28, 2014.
57“It was really quite idyllic”: Author interview with Peter Maeck, May 22, 2014.
57“dilettante group”: MG.
58“This just shows what kind of cross-section”: Jack Kroll, “A Star for the ’80s,” Newsweek, Jan. 7, 1980.
58“The quality of mercy”: William Shakespeare, The Merchant of Venice, Act IV, Scene i.
58“You want to provide for her?”: Recalled by Levin, Dec. 16, 2014.
CONSTANCE
61“I feel instinctively”: Christopher Durang, “New Again: Sigourney Weaver,” Interview, July, 1988.
61“The first year sent me into therapy”: Kate McGregor-Stewart’s quotations are from an author interview, Feb. 10, 2014.
61“They didn’t take your strong points”: Linda Atkinson’s quotations are from an author interview, Jan. 22, 2014.
62“When I was in drama school”: Hilary de Vries, “Meryl Acts Up,” Los Angeles Times, Sept. 9, 1990.
63green pajama pants: Durang, “New Again: Sigourney Weaver.”
63“I’m sullen in the hallways”: Author interview with Sigourney Weaver, June 9, 2015.
63“I didn’t know what was happening”: William Ivey Long’s quotations are from an author interview, Jan. 19, 2014.
64“Every class at the drama school”: Walt Jones’s quotations, except where noted, are from an author interview, Jan. 30, 2014.
65“It was all fans and flutterings”: Author interview with Robert Brustein, Jan. 14, 2014.
65“stagnant ponds”: Robert Brustein, Making Scenes: A Personal History of the Turbulent Years at Yale 1966–1979 (New York: Random House, 1981), 8.
65“My plan was to transform the place”: Ibid., 10.
65“the liberal on a white horse”: Author interview with Gordon Rogoff, Jan. 16, 2014.
65“I wanted to develop an actor”: Brustein, Making Scenes, 15.
65“blasphemous ritual sacrifice”: Ibid., 104.
66“I had tried to be a mellow”: Ibid., 90.
66“You know the Sara Lee slogan”: Thomas Meehan, “The Yale Faculty Makes the Scene,” New York Times Magazine, Feb. 7, 1971.
66official Drama School bulletin: Class schedules and descriptions can be found in the Yale Repertory Theatre and Yale School of Drama Ephemera Collection, HAAS, Box 16.
67“The things that I honestly really think about”: Rosemarie Tichler and Barry Jay Kaplan, Actors at Work (New York: Faber and Faber, 2007), 291.
68“Tom Haas was Meryl’s bane”: Author interview with Robert Brustein, Jan. 14, 2014.
68“one of the luminaries”: Steve Rowe’s quotations are from an author interview, Feb. 16, 2014.
69“I was knocked out”: Alan Rosenberg’s quotations are from an author interview, March 10, 2014.
70“She was more flexible”: Ralph Redpath’s quotations are from an author interview, Jan. 13, 2014.
71“What do you mean, you dreadful man?”: Jean-Claude van Itallie, trans., Anton Chekhov’s Three Sisters (New York: Dramatists Play Service, 1979), 9.
72“Center stage was a sofa”: Michael Posnick’s quotations are from an author interview, Jan. 16, 2014.
73“He said that I was holding back my talent”: Mel Gussow, “The Rising Star of Meryl Streep,” New York Times Magazine, Feb. 4, 1979.
73“Everyone was saying, ‘They’re awful’”: Albert Innaurato’s quotations are from an author interview, Jan. 10, 2014.
74“I knew this girl was obviously destined”: Michael Feingold’s quotations are from an author interview, Feb. 11, 2014.
74“I took special note”: Brustein, Making Scenes, 152.
74“languorous sexual quality”: MG.
75“hardly ever visceral”: Allan Miller’s quotations are from an author interview, July 28, 2014.
75“They expressed their vociferous”: E-mail to author from Walt Jones, March 30, 2014.
75“How come I’m sleeping with the director”: Recalled by Miller, July 28, 2014.
76“He delved into personal lives”: MG.
<
br /> 76“It was a bloodbath”: Several other students remembered a “bloodbath” as well. Miller, for his part, had no memory of the evaluation and said that Streep was “a pleasure to work with.”
77“It’s a curious sensation”: Robert Brustein Collection, Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center at Boston University, Box 34.
78“rife with factionalism”: Brustein, Making Scenes, 168.
79“Every year, there’d be a coup d’état”: Diana Maychick, Meryl Streep: The Reluctant Superstar (New York: St. Martin’s Press, 1984), 37.
79Cast as an old woman: Recalled by Jones, Jan. 30, 2014.
80“We rehearsed it for a couple of weeks”: David Rosenthal, “Meryl Streep Stepping In and Out of Roles,” Rolling Stone, Oct. 15, 1981.
81“deadly piranha”: Brustein, Making Scenes, 240.
82“Constance: The Brothers Karamazov”: Christopher Durang and Albert Innaurato, The Idiots Karamazov (New York: Dramatists Play Service, 1981), 22.
82“Have you ever seen Meryl be good?”: Recalled by Christopher Durang, whose quotations, except where noted, are from an author interview, Sept. 26, 2014.
83“had it in for Meryl”: Rosenthal, “Meryl Streep Stepping In and Out of Roles.”
84“That was the most unpleasant thing”: Recalled by Durang, Sept. 26, 2014.
84You may ask: Durang and Innaurato, The Idiots Karamazov, 51.
85“Meryl was totally disguised”: Brustein, Making Scenes, 188.
85Things came to a head: The events in this section were recalled by Rosenberg, March 10, 2014.
86The Limits to Growth: Recalled by Streep in the interview tapes for Diane de Dubovay’s March, 1980, profile in Ladies’ Home Journal, provided to the author by the de Dubovay family.
86“I later found out”: Terry Curtis Fox, “Meryl Streep: Her ‘I Can’t Wait’ Jumps Right Out at You,” Village Voice, May 31, 1976.
88mortifyingly unprofessional: Stephen Sondheim gives his perspective in his book Finishing the Hat: Collected Lyrics (1954–1981) with Attendant Comments, Principles, Heresies, Grudges, Whines and Anecdotes (New York: Knopf, 2010), 285–87. Brustein recalls his own frustrations and campus responses to The Frogs in Making Scenes, 178–82.
88“The echo sometimes lasts”: Aristophanes, Burt Shevelove, Stephen Sondheim, The Frogs (Chicago: Dramatic Publishing Co., 1975), 8.
89“a splashy M-G-M epic”: Mel Gussow, “Stage: ‘Frogs’ in a Pool,” New York Times, May 23, 1974.
89“How many plays about women”: Brustein, Making Scenes, 218.
90“I just can’t get into all this chick stuff”: Julie Salamon’s excellent Wendy and the Lost Boys: The Uncommon Life of Wendy Wasserstein (New York: Penguin Press, 2011), 135.
90“There was something about Wendy”: Ibid., 126.
90“She’ll never pass you a poison apple”: Wendy Wasserstein, Bachelor Girls (New York: Knopf, 1990), 78.
90“To me she always seemed lonely”: Salamon, Wendy and the Lost Boys, 177.
91Summer Cabaret: Recollections of the Summer Cabaret from Walt Jones, Jan. 30, 2014.
92“straight-out, unabashed performing”: Gussow, “The Rising Star of Meryl Streep.”
92“If I were not protected”: Ibid.
93“I cut scene in Kraków”: Recalled by Feingold, Feb. 11, 2014.
93Elzbieta Czyzewska: Bruce Weber, “Elzbieta Czyzewska, 72, Polish Actress Unwelcome in Her Own Country, Dies,” New York Times, June 18, 2010.
93without the direction of Tom Haas: Haas became the artistic director of the Indiana Repertory Theatre. He died in 1991, after getting hit by a van while jogging.
94“You can get out of my school!”: Recalled by Atkinson, Jan. 22, 2014.
94“She’s supposed to be a whore”: Recalled by Long, Jan. 19, 2014.
94“You’re limited, and it frees you”: MG.
94“The star role is the translator”: Mel Gussow, “Play: ‘Idiots Karamazov,’ Zany Musical,” New York Times, Nov. 11, 1974.
95“distressing job”: Brustein, Making Scenes, 190.
96the red tie: Ibid., 198.
96“More resistant”: Recalled by Rowe, Feb. 16, 2014.
96“the same cruel contempt”: Brustein, Making Scenes, 199.
96“You just want the New York Times to kiss your ass”: Recalled by Redpath, Jan. 13, 2014.
96“Torn scares everyone”: Ira Hauptman’s dramaturgical log for this production of The Father can be found in the Yale School of Drama Production Casebook Collection, HAAS, Box 1.
97“The competition in the acting program”: Andrea Stevens, “Getting Personal about Yale’s Drama School,” New York Times, Nov. 12, 2000.
97“I’m under too much pressure”: Ibid.
97“Rip would never stand for it”: Brustein, Making Scenes, 199.
98“You’re going to graduate in eleven weeks”: Stevens, “Getting Personal about Yale’s Drama School.”
98“surprise” and “disappointment”: Brustein, Making Scenes, 192.
98“Jealousy and meanness of spirit”: Ibid., 191.
98“Genghis Khan presiding”: Ibid., 194.
99“lovers want more rehearsal time”: Robert Marx’s dramaturgical log for A Midsummer Night’s Dream can be found in the Yale School of Drama Production Casebook Collection, HAAS, Box 1.
100“the culmination of everything”: Brustein, Making Scenes, 201.
100“The production falters a bit”: Mel Gussow, “Stage: Haunting Shakespeare ‘Dream,’” New York Times, May 15, 1975.
100“That kind of grab-bag”: Jack Kroll, “A Star for the ’80s,” Newsweek, Jan. 7, 1980.
101“The Rep is home”: Robert Brustein Collection, Howard Gotlieb Archival Research Center at Boston University, Box 8.
ISABELLA
103“Unfortunately, the jobs selling gloves”: Michael Lassell, “Waiting for That ‘First Break,’” New Haven Register, July 13, 1975.
104I’m twenty-six: Mel Gussow, “The Rising Star of Meryl Streep,” New York Times Magazine, Feb. 4, 1979.
104“Gawd, where’s Meryl?”: Susan Dworkin, “Meryl Streep to the Rescue!,” Ms., Feb., 1979.
104“I want you to meet someone”: Tichler’s recollections are from Kenneth Turan and Joseph Papp, Free For All: Joe Papp, The Public, and the Greatest Theater Story Ever Told (New York: Doubleday, 2009), 363–64; and from an author interview, June 25, 2014.
105“Off with the crown”: William Shakespeare, Henry VI, Part 3, Act I, Scene iv.
105“I grew up right here in Houston”: Terrence McNally, Whiskey: A One-Act Play (New York: Dramatists Play Service, 1973), 48.
107“Well, you can’t make a Hamlet”: Biographical information about Joseph Papp is drawn from Helen Epstein’s indispensable Joe Papp: An American Life (Boston: Little, Brown, 1994). This quotation appears on p. 11.
107“an irresponsible Commie”: Ibid., 158.
108“We seek blood-and-guts actors”: Ibid., 167.
108“He always felt under duress”: Gail Papp’s quotations are from an author interview, June 19, 2014.
109“expansionist period”: Epstein, Joe Papp: An American Life, 345.
109“one of the lily white subscribers”: Ibid., 296.
110“should follow, to the closest detail”: Arthur Wing Pinero, Trelawny of the “Wells” (Chicago: Dramatic Publishing Co., 1898), “A Direction to the Stage Manager.”
110“Tryout town, USA”: The history of the Eugene O’Neill Theater Center is available at its website: www.theoneill.org.
111“glossy enameled cinderblock”: Grifasi’s recollections of the summer of 1975 were delivered in a speech honoring Streep at the O’Neill’s Monte Cristo Awards, held in New York City on Apr. 21, 2014.
111“motley, idiosyncratic bunch”: Jeffrey Sweet, The O’Neill: The Transformation of Modern American Theater (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2014); Foreword by Meryl Streep.
112A “dull” achievement: Ibid.
112She and Grifo borrowed a car: Grifasi’s an
d Tichler’s accounts differ slightly; Tichler remembers Streep getting stuck on a train.
112They’re not going to hire me: Rosemarie Tichler and Barry Jay Kaplan, Actors at Work (New York: Faber and Faber, 2007), 305.
113“Ninety-five percent of actresses”: Turan and Papp, Free for All, 363.
114“I got three bills a month”: Commencement address delivered by Meryl Streep at Vassar College, May 22, 1983.
115“I thought that I had really failed”: Mary Beth Hurt’s quotations are from an author interview, July 16, 2014.
115“The curvaceous, desperately subtle flirtation”: Turan and Papp, Free for All, 364.
115“a pale, wispy girl”: John Lithgow, Drama: An Actor’s Education (New York: Harper, 2011), 275–76.
116“And from that moment”: Tichler and Kaplan, Actors at Work, 305–6.
116“Mr. Antoon has transposed”: Clive Barnes, “The Stage: Papp Transplants Pinero’s ‘Trelawny,’” New York Times, Oct. 16, 1976.
117“The lights are no sooner up”: Walter Kerr, “‘A Chorus Line’ Soars, ‘Trelawny’ Falls Flat,” New York Times, Oct. 26, 1975.
118hunky Playgirl centerfolds: Dave Karger, “Oscars 2012: Love Story,” Entertainment Weekly, March 2, 2012.
118“Well, when we get to do movies”: Recalled by J. Roy Helland at “Extreme Makeover,” a panel discussion at the New Yorker Festival, held in New York on Oct. 11, 2014.
118“He wasn’t just a guy”: Author interview with Jeffrey Jones, June 26, 2014.
118“Forget about being a character actress”: Terry Curtis Fox, “Meryl Streep: Her ‘I Can’t Wait’ Jumps Right Out at You,” Village Voice, May 31, 1976.
120“As she made small talk”: Lithgow, Drama, 277.
120“She was so slim and blond”: Arvin Brown’s quotations are from an author interview, Apr. 8, 2014.
121“I’ve lost m’ white kid purse!”: Tennessee Williams, 27 Wagons Full of Cotton: And Other Plays (New York: New Directions, 1966), 3.
121“a tall, well-upholstered”: Julius Novick, “The Phoenix Rises—Again,” Village Voice, Feb. 9, 1976.
123“Che brutta!”: “Meryl Streep: The Fresh Air Interview,” National Public Radio, Feb. 6, 2012.
124“What is it—love and Good-bye?”: William Gillette, Secret Service (New York: Samuel French, 1898), 182.
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