Interview with "Lend Me a Tenor"'s Frank Creasy - Part 3

This is the final installment in a three-part interview with Frank Creasy, one of the stars of Lend Me a Tenor. We greatly appreciate his taking the time to talk with us. The picture to the right is a recent promo shot Frank made for the Virginia State Fair.

Q - You've played some terrific parts over the years, and your current role in Lend Me a Tenor is certainly among them. Are there any dream roles that you'd still like to play?

A - Can I send you the complete list in an Excel spreadsheet? Okay, okay...truth be told, I’ve had some dream roles already, such as George Schneider in Neil Simon’s Chapter Two at CAT (that's a role I’d like to do again, actually). And although I love character parts and I love comedies (see previous question and answer in yesterday's installment), I’d like to have the chance to tackle the role of Johnny in Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune by Terrence McNally. Probably without the nudity. As a “man of a certain age,” I’m not sure that would appeal to ANYONE. But I absolutely love the play and the role.

Q - Have you dabbled in any other arts activities?

A - Believe it or not, I did a semester with the modern dance company at Longwood. You’ll notice I’ve never been asked to dance in any Richmond theatre productions; I guess that speaks to my skill as a dancer more than anything else I could say.

Q - Does your wife Carol (pictured with Frank to the left) share your interest in the arts?

A - Carol sang in the UVA women’s chorus and still has a lovely voice to match those beautiful eyes. She also did all the interior design and decorating in our home. Guests always ask who we hired. "I didn’t hire someone," I tell them, "I married someone."

Q - When you're not at work at Anthem, or acting in a production at a Richmond theatre, what are your other interests? What other aspirations have you pursued?

A - I was a “jock” in school – wrestling was my thing, and during my first year of college at George Mason (before Longwood), a pinched nerve in my neck led to an x-ray. That’s when I learned about an injury two years before that had caused a dislocated cervical vertebra. I'd been wrestling for two years with a dislocated vertebra! I'm very lucky that I didn't wind up in a wheelchair. I quit wrestling after that, under doctor's orders. I got healthy, took up acting after transferring to Longwood, and the rest, as they say, is history.

Q - Why do you think theatre has held your interest all these years?

A - I just really enjoy it, I guess. I come to the theatre to have fun. But I approach what I do very seriously. It could be a farce like Lend Me a Tenor (the picture to the right shows Frank with Tenor co-star Jan Guarino), or a violent epic like The Spanish Tragedy (Henley Street Theatre), or a brand new avant garde piece where I’m playing an apartment building, like I did in Crumble (Lay Me Down, Justin Timberlake), a show I did last year at the Firehouse. Whatever show it is, first and foremost, I try to be entertaining and interesting because the people who work hard and pay for their tickets deserve that.

I try to be versatile, to honor the play and the role and the direction, to create a character who is unique, who has a little bit of “Frank” in him, but is still, hopefully, different from anything else I’ve done before. I'm not really interested in rehashing a previous performance or falling back on some schtick from my acting “bag of tricks."

To me, my highest achievement would be for an audience member to see my name in a playbill and think, “Frank Creasy is in this play. That should be fun. Wonder what he'll do this time.”

Reacquainting Myself w/ Frankie's Meatloaf

Posted by Bruce Miller
About 15 years ago I was privileged to direct Terrence McNally’s lovely two-hander Frankie and Johnny in the Clair de Lune in the Little Theatre at Theatre IV. It starred Irene Ziegler and John Moon, and boy were they great.

People remember it as a Theatre Gym production, but it wasn’t. It was back in the days when Theatre IV staged full fledged adult seasons of its own in the Little Theatre. Frankie and Johnny was a part of these seasons, as were our productions remembered with equal fondness: Crimes of the Heart, A Shayna Maidel, our first Shirley Valentine, Gary Hopper's Hamlet, and Stand Up Tragedy.

One of the many fun aspects of Frankie and Johnny is the cooking that happens onstage. Just as in Shirley Valentine, every night the actress playing Frankie makes a Western omelet, and the actor playing Johnny makes a meatloaf sandwich. One of my jobs was to make the meatloaf that emerged each night from the fridge and was sliced for the sandwich and devoured on-stage.

I relied on the old tried and true meatloaf recipe that my dad gave me when I went off to college. It’s quick and easy to make, it’s relatively cheap, it freezes well so you can make a large batch and save some for later, and it tastes wonderful.

Roy Proctor apparently had a Pavlovian response while watching John Moon slice the meatloaf, slather it with ketchup, slap it between two slabs of bread, and then slowly slide it down his gullet. With saliva flowing, Roy asked me for the recipe. He later ran it in the T-D using the name my father gave the entree when he first presented me with the recipe card. My father had passed several years earlier, so I let the slightly embarrassing name stand in his memory.

Miller’s Mighty Meatloaf

2.25 lbs ground beef—as lean as you can get
4 slices whole-grain bread
1 large sweet onion, minced
1 green pepper, minced
2 medium carrots, minced
2 stalks celery, minced
1 egg
½ cup 2% milk
1 can condensed tomato soup
2 tsp salt
½ tsp oregano or Italian Seasoning
¼ tsp pepper
2 cloves garlic, minced

Cube the bread slices (the older the bread the better) and dry them for about 10 minutes in a warm oven (100°). Mince the onion, pepper, carrots and celery. Remove the bread and preheat the oven to 350°. Crush the dried bread cubes into crumbs. Mince the cloves of garlic. In a medium-large mixing bowl, combine all ingredients and kneed them until they are thoroughly mixed. Lightly coat the interiors of two 5” x 9” glass loaf pans with vegetable oil spray. Press the mixed ingredients into the two pans. Bake for 1 hour 15 minutes. Remove from oven. Insert a knife between the sides of each loaf and the pan. Allow to cool for 5 minutes. Remove each loaf using two pancake turners, and place the loaves on paper towels to drain. Each loaf serves 4 hearty appetites, and can be cut in half and frozen if desired.

Now that times are lean again and Barksdale is facing some significant recession-driven cutbacks (including my salary), I pulled out the old recipe card today and whipped up a pair of meatloaves for the two omnivores in my family. At least it made me feel like I was being proactive. We're eating half a loaf tonight and freezing the other three halves for later. At a cost of about $1.25 per hearty serving, it’s still a great deal.

And now when I cook it and eat it, I remember not only my dad but also that delicious production of Frankie and Johnny. Meatloaf by the light of the moon. What could be better?

--Bruce Miller