“I consider myself a worker,” said David Greenspan, who has been an actor, writer and director in New York for nearly 30 years. “I’m facing the same things that workers are facing throughout the country.”Their stories remind me of why I gave up acting and concentrated on writing...and learned that knowing how to type is an asset beyond the theatre.
Mr. Greenspan is right of course. It really doesn’t matter whether you write plays or pave highways when you’re buying groceries. But there is a notable, and curious, difference. Every night thousands of theatergoers fill seats in Manhattan to watch theater people at work for a couple of hours, without really thinking of it as work.
But it is work, work that is supposed to pay rent, buy food and sustain people (and in some cases families) for the long periods of anxious unemployment that are an inevitable part of a performer’s life. Given what stage actors make and what New York costs, staying afloat has always required improvisation, shrewdness, discipline, luck and a kind of obstinacy that some people call passion and others call craziness, and is probably a little bit of both.
But these days it is harder than ever. Government support for the arts is meager, leaving nonprofit theaters squeezed and scrambling to cut expenses — and cast sizes — while the cost of living in New York has skyrocketed. What follows (see links below) are five working New York City theater professionals talking about the part of the show business life that happens offstage.
The Journeyman: Chet Carlin
The Character Actor: David Greenspan
The Critics' Darling: Roslyn Ruff
The Earner: Damian Baldet
The Comeback: Joan Macintosh
- The Good Doctor: A man of many talents and with a fascinating background continues to help where he can.
Name the one University of Toledo trustee who has saved lives on the operating table, speaks multiple languages, struggled with chemistry, and whose world travels include time spent with Afghanistan’s murderous Taliban just months before Sept. 11.- There's No Bathroom on the Right? Misheard song lyrics are a hoot.
The answer is S. Amjad Hussain, retired surgeon, medical professor, and accomplished author and columnist for The Blade since the mid 1990s. He also is a past president of the Academy of Medicine of Toledo.
Gov. Ted Strickland appointed Dr. Hussain to the UT board earlier this month, after two other trustees’ terms expired July 1. UT trustees are appointed to nine-year terms.
Not surprisingly to his colleagues and friends, the man they call “Amjad” greeted his appointment with excitement, modesty, and overflowing enthusiasm.
“Institutions make a difference in the lives of people, and for that reason I am excited about this opportunity. I have this old medieval concept of universities being the center of a city, the center of civilization,” said Dr. Hussain, a bushy-haired 70-year-old of medium height who favors tweed jackets and a warm smile.
“I would like to sit back and learn — and contribute what I can.”
Few who know him have any doubt that he has a lot to contribute. His expertise is apt to be highly useful as the transition between the merged UT and former Medical University of Ohio boards continues over the next few years and the board shrinks from 17 members to nine.
University trustees tend to be business people or former politicians. Dr. Hussain, a Pakistani native who has lived here for more than 40 years, breaks that mold.
In many ways, he is regarded as sort of a walking human university by those who know him. He is able to speak knowledgeably on subjects from heart transplants to hunting techniques.
His pleasant and instantly recognizable voice carries flavors of both Pakistan and the British who ruled his nation as a colony when he was a boy.
“I think this is a perfect appointment. He is a good person, a good citizen,” said UT President Lloyd Jacobs, who has known Dr. Hussain for three decades.
President Jacobs added that having a medical doctor on the board “should be helpful with health-care issues,” especially coupled with his other qualities. “He’s broadly educated, highly committed to our community, and is a citizen of the world.”
Fellow UT board member John Szuch, chairman of Fifth Third Bank (northwestern Ohio), was also enthusiastic. “One of UT’s thrusts is outreach to India, China, and other places. How could we have gotten a more knowledgeable trustee?
Fayme Reinhart first heard her husband utter the woman’s name when they were newlyweds, back in 1982.For the record, I still think it's "you and me and Leslie." Hey, it was the '60's.
“The only girl I ever loved is Donna Wayne/ Looking for a brand-new start,” he sang.
“What did you say? “ she asked.
He repeated the line.
“I can’t believe you said ‘Donna Wayne,’ ” said Ms. Reinhart, 48, of Richland, Pa.
She broke into uproarious laughter and kindly told him: “The lyric is ‘The only girl I’ve ever loved has gone away/ Looking for a brand-new start.’ ”
Then and only then did Tom Reinhart, 54, realize he had been singing “Rhythm of the Rain” wrong all of his life, but even today he jokes with his wife, “I’ll always love Donna!”
“I’ve never let him live it down,” she says.
The aurally challenged not only walk and sing among us, they are us. Cotton swabs and earwax removal systems won’t help. Misheard lyrics afflict us all.
As a 13-year-old at summer camp, Justin Luzar remembers hearing a friend sing “Strong man’s oatmeal” instead of “Stroke me/ Stroke me,” to Billy Squier’s “The Stroke.”
“We all looked at each other like, ‘Did he just say what I think he said?’ and then simultaneously busted out laughing,” says Mr. Luzar, 38, of Scott Township, Pa. “We then mocked him mercilessly for the rest of the summer.”
Poor enunciation, unfamiliar or foreign words, and utter inanity are reasons some song lyrics perplex so many, says Gavin Edwards, a Rolling Stone magazine contributing editor who has compiled four books of misheard lyrics, ‘Scuse Me While I Kiss This Guy and Other Misheard Lyrics, He’s Got the Whole World in His Pants and More Misheard Lyrics, When a Man Loves a Walnut and Even More Misheard Lyrics, and Deck the Halls With Buddy Holly and Other Misheard Christmas Lyrics.
“I don’t think today’s lyrics are more confusing [than those of previous eras], but I think enunciation has gotten much worse among rock singers, “ he says. “I think many — but not all — rappers have crisper diction, so maybe the trend is heading the other way.”
When two prime-time TV game shows aired this summer, NBC’s The Singing Bee and Fox’s Don’t Forget the Lyrics song lovers could turn their song lyric knowledge into prize money.
“I think it shows that song lyrics are our lingua franca, even when we don’t know what the singer’s saying,” says Edwards, whose most recent book is, Is Tiny Dancer Really Elton’s Little John?: Music’s Most Enduring Mysteries, Myths, and Rumors Revealed.
Sylvia Wright coined the term for misheard lyrics — mondegreens — in a 1954 Atlantic magazine article. As a girl, Ms. Wright thought the lyrics to a folk song were “They had slain the Earl of Moray/ And Lady Mondegreen.” The correct lyrics are “They had slain the Earl of Moray/ And laid him on the green,” Edwards explained in one of his books.
One day as a kid in the early ’70s, Richard Borden found his basketball practice was going to prevent him from hearing the weekly radio music countdown list. So, he asked his mother to listen to the radio and write down the song that reached No. 1 on the singles chart.
When he got home, he found a notepad upon which his mother had written, “Ain’t No Mountain Hyena,” instead of “Ain’t No Mountain High Enough.”
“Still makes me smile when I hear that song and sing, ‘Ain’t No Mountain Hyena,’ to it, “ says Mr. Borden, 45, of Cranberry Township, Pa.
In another inaudible tale from the 1970s, Patty Iriana recalled playing a Pictionary-type game on the blackboard in algebra class.
A classmate drew a picture of a ghost talking on a telephone.
“When nobody could guess what the answer might be, and thinking he stumped us, he revealed the answer to be ‘Death I Hear You Calling’ by Kiss,” says Ms. Iriana, 44, of Forest Hills. “We just laughed.”
It’s “Beth I Hear You Calling.”
Like many who crooned to the Young Rascals’ “Groovin’,” Debbie Meyers, 49, of Pittsburgh, thought the lyrics spoke of some fantastical trio in which, “Life would be ecstasy, you and me and Leslie” instead of the correct “Life would be ecstasy, you and me endlessly.”
- Doonesbury: How do you like your stake done?
- Opus: Lola's journey continues.
