Post 288 - December 24, 2020

Day 288…

It’s Christmas Eve.

For the first time in a very long time, even though the month has gone by quickly, it feels like we are ready for the holiday. It’s meant to rain today and tomorrow and get up into the 60’s (16-17C) which is a little strange, but maybe it will keep folks indoors.

About a year after I graduated from college, I got a job as a production assistant on a reading of a one-act musical called The History of the American Musical Theatre. Charles Strouse, who wrote Annie and Bye Bye Birdie wrote it.

I can’t really remember anything at all about it except that there was this incredibly beautiful girl in the cast. Almost the same age as me, she looked a little bit like a blonde Julie Andrews, and she sang like her too.

I couldn’t take my eyes off of her which annoyed the heck out of my then girlfriend who was in the cast, too. (In retrospect, my then girlfriend need not have worried about THAT.) This girl looked as if she were from another time, which was mesmerizing enough, but her voice was what was truly remarkable. Clear and pure beyond measure.

I think that the musical might have been performed during a festival somewhere - I want to say Hartford Stage but I may be making that up.  Wherever it was, I only worked on the rehearsals for it in New York and then never heard another word about it again. I looked it up just now and can’t find any record of it - Charles, himself, doesn’t even mention it on his webpage.

Several years later, I got hired to be on my first Broadway musical, The Secret Garden.

I took over in the middle of the run as the Assistant Stage Manager. Mandy Patinkin had already been replaced by Howard McGillin and Daisy Eagan, who won a Tony as Mary Lennox only overlapped with me for about a week or two before she left as well.

Starring as Lily, however, was the same angelic woman that I had worked with on the reading, Rebecca Luker. By that time, we were both about 30 years old.

I was completely starstruck by the entire experience and I couldn’t believe that I had finally made it to Broadway. I loved everything about it and couldn’t wait to get to work every day. It was impossible to be star struck around Rebecca, though, because she was never anything but completely open and friendly.

At the very top of the show, the curtain raised to reveal an arrangement of picture frames, the largest of which was actually a kind of swing that held Rebecca as Lily. She sang the first lines of the show from that frame as the ghost of Mary Lennox’s aunt.

At places, Rebecca would come out, we’d lower the frame, which was called the Egg, to the deck and she’d get into it. While we were waiting for the overture to start, we’d chat. About anything. Everything. We always laughed a lot.

Inside the Egg where nobody else could see it, she had taped a picture of her then very-handsome boyfriend - naked. (My ex-girlfriend had long since figured out what it was that she actually needed to worry about in terms of me.)

As the music started, I’d take her water bottle and signal that she was ready to get raised, and up the Egg would go in time for her to be revealed.

One day, we got into a deep discussion about something that made us both really laugh. I was a few seconds later than usual giving the signal to raise the Egg. As I scurried away to get offstage and the Egg started up, she whispered something, but I couldn’t hear her. There was only the front curtain between us and the audience so we had to keep our voices down.

“What?” I whispered back.

In a louder whisper she said “What’s my first line?”

“Clusters of crocus,” I whispered back.

“What?” she asked?

“Clusters of crocus!” I answered as loud as I could from near the wing. We were almost at the point in the overture where the curtain would fly out to reveal her.

“WHAT?!” she asked as loud as she dared over the orchestra.

Now, the curtain was starting up so I had to be offstage or else the audience would see my feet.

“CLUSTERS OF CROCUS!!!” I barked out in a hoarse yell.

JUST in time. She glanced at me off stage left after she sang the line and I mimed wiping sweat off my brow. She smiled and gracefully turned back out front to continue, the audience none the wiser.

After that, every day that I was on the deck, no matter what we were talking about, I’d pointedly look at her just before I left and she’d say, “Clusters of crocus,” and we’d both laugh.

Last year she was diagnosed with ALS and yesterday, she passed away.

She was so kind and so nice. Always funny and warm. I have been lucky enough to work with some truly lovely people and she may have been one of the loveliest.

We never worked together again after that show, but we ran into each other from time to time over the years. If there is anyone in show business who is nicer than Rebecca it might be her husband Danny Burstein. The outpouring of love for the two of them from the Broadway community over this last day has been remarkable and entirely fitting. They are an indelible part of all of us.

In many ways, she was spared the worst of that horrible disease by passing before it progressed to the end. If there is any comfort to be taken from her early death, it is that.

There’s reportedly a new variant of the virus in South Africa that is said to be even more virulent than the mutation from southeastern England.

Scientists believe that this variant may affect younger people more. It is possible, however, that the data leans this way because of the spiking of cases in general among 15-25-year-olds recently who have been celebrating the end of the school year there by holding large socially irresponsible parties across the country.

There is also the fear that the large number of mutations in this strain may make it more resistant to vaccines and more able to re-infect people who have already recovered from the virus.

Several countries, including Germany and, as of this morning, the United Kingdom as well, have now issued travel bans against South Africa.

The President does not have time to take any action to protect us here because he has been busy pardoning even more criminals.

26 more of his cronies were pardoned yesterday including his former campaign manager Paul Manafort and his buddy Roger Stone both of whom figured prominently in the Mueller investigation which was investigating their connections to the Russians during the 2016 election.

He also, unsurprisingly, pardoned his son-in-law’s father and commuted his sentence from a 2005 conviction.

Charles Kushner pleaded guilty and was convicted and sentenced in 2005 for 18 counts that included tax evasion and making illegal campaign contributions. During the investigation, when he found out that is brother-in-law was assisting law enforcement, Kushner hired a prostitute to seduce him, recorded the encounter, and sent it to his sister - the man’s wife.

By all means, lets clear these good people’s names.

He also vetoed a defense spending bill yesterday and is still threatening to veto the stimulus bill. Both bills passed in the two houses with numbers that can override these vetoes.

Congress and the Senate will meet next week to vote. Will the President’s supporters - Republicans who voted for these measures - really vote against him? Who will break? Who will stay the course to the bitter end?

I’ll have to make sure that we have enough popcorn standing by.

Rebecca Luker may have passed beyond, but her voice will live on. A new album of hers charting her friendship with another performer named Sally Wilfert is going to be released tomorrow.

Listening to her sing every night during the run of The Secret Garden was an astonishing gift.

At one point in the show she had to sing a duet with the boy who played her son. The boys who played the part were all at exactly the age when their voices would start to change. When that change was fully underway, they, wrenchingly, would have to be replaced by younger boys. Rebecca would always do her best to harmonize with the increasingly bizarre notes that would start to come uncontrollably out of them at the end of their runs. It can’t have been easy.

What I remember most of all, though, is the sound of her singing the opening of the show by herself. Perhaps it was because, after that near-miss, I felt somewhat responsible for it.

More likely, though, it is because the combination of the beautiful writing and her lovely voice really is just unforgettable.

Clusters of crocus,
Purple and gold
Blankets of pansies,
Out from the cold.
Lilies and iris,
Safe from the chill.
Safe in my garden,
Snowdrops so still.

RIP Rebecca Luker.