Bradley Belongs on Broadway

Posted by Bruce Miller
Corey Bradley made his Broadway debut in the recent revival of Ragtime. But he made his stage debut 18 years earlier playing a Munchkin in The Wizard of Oz at Theatre IV. I think I'm right about that. Corey was in a lot of Theatre IV shows during his formative years in Richmond. I'm not completely sure which one came first. I'll have to do some checking.

Hannah and I had the chance to visit Corey at the stage door of Ragtime last weekend, after enjoying his terrific performance at the Neil Simon Theatre. Ragtime was on our list of shows to see because:
* it was scheduled to close on Sunday, our final day in town,
* neither Hannah nor I had ever seen Ragtime on Broadway before, and
* Chase had let us know, after his earlier trip north to catch this revival, that Corey was in the cast.

After curtain call, we went to the stage door as soon as we could clear the crowds. We figured Corey would probably be leaving early, as ensemble members often do. I didn't want to miss him.

The stage door was jammed, so I almost didn't see Corey as he made his exit onto the sidewalk and then turned right, slipping past the crowd-control barricades into the open air rather than turning left to run the gauntlet of autograph hounds.

As soon as I saw him break away from the pack, I grabbed Hannah and we dashed out onto 52nd Street to avoid the crowds, chasing Corey as he walked down the sidewalk. When we were close enough, I hollered out his name, and he turned and saw us.

It's been a few years, and I have the extra pounds and gray hair to prove it. Also the last time Corey saw Hannah, she was probably in first grade. So as we walked up, I held out my hand and said, "Bruce Miller, Theatre IV."

Corey's face lit up, he knocked my hand out of the way and gave me a big hug. "I'm so proud of you," I said. "You cast me in my first show," he beamed. "It's so good to see you. How's everything at Theatre IV?"

I know this is the exact conversation that takes place somewhere on Broadway every night, as proud teachers and directors unexpectedly visit former students and actors who've now made it to the big time. No matter how many times I have this conversation, it always tears me up (feel free to pronounce the word "tears" whichever way you choose). I'm a sentimental slob, I know, but there's something endlessly affirming about seeing kids you've enjoyed working with turn out so well.

I think Corey's last role with us was playing Tommy Djilas in The Music Man during one of our summer seasons at Collegiate. After graduating from high school, Corey earned his BFA in Musical Theatre / Dance at Elon University in North Carolina. Since then, he's achieved non-stop success, appearing in the national tours of Mamma Mia!, Fosse, Chicago, and West Side Story. In Las Vegas, he appeared in We Will Rock You and with Hugh Jackman in Hugh Jackman: In Time, directed by George C. Wolfe and choreographed by Kathleen Marshall.

In addition to The Music Man (Theatre IV), Corey's regional credits include Hot Mikado (Westchester Broadway Theatre), Showboat (North Show Music Theatre), La Cage aux Folles (North Carolina Theatre), Joseph... (Downtown Cabaret Theatre), and Ragtime (Kennedy Center).

Film and television credits include being a principal dancer in Disney's Enchanted, Sex and the City, and Spike Lee's He Got Game.

Corey asked me to send greetings to all his friends in Richmond, which I'm more than happy to do. I assured him that all of us at Barksdale and Theatre IV send all best wishes right back to him.

So many talented actors make their way through Richmond each year, and a great many of them (I'm thinking now of Matts Polson and Shofner, who close in Putnam County Spelling Bee this afternoon) return to appear in subsequent shows even as they build careers in major markets. Few theatre communities can claim this degree of success. With all the talk on other blogs of what's professional and what isn't, we should all be very proud to be exactly what we are.

I hope to see you soon at a Richmond theatre, as we all catch the current performance, perhaps, of one of Broadway's future stars!

--Bruce Miller

Hunter Herdlicka Hits Homer with Henrik

Posted by Bruce Miller
Two of the friends Hannah and I stopped to visit on our recent theatre weekend in New York were actors in shows we went to see. Hunter Herdlicka plays Henrik in A Little Night Music, and the second friend appeared in the ensemble of Ragtime, which closed on Sunday.

I'm being presumptuous when I call Hunter Herdlicka a "friend," although I certainly now consider him to be one. Hunter was a classmate and friend of Zak Resnick's at Carnegie Mellon. When Zak appeared in Into the Woods in the summer of 2007, Hunter came down to Richmond to see the show. He loved it. He and I may have met during that visit; neither one of us is sure.

When Facebook entered the consciousness of guys in their 50s like me--not too long after Into the Woods--I decided it was in Barksdale's best interest for me to "keep in touch" not only with close personal friends, but also friends of friends--professional actors and other theatre artists who had the potential to work with us here in Richmond one day.

I "friend requested" Hunter and several other of Zak's classmates at Carnegie Mellon. I did the same thing with talented theatre students at other universities. I'd send a note with the "friend request" that went something like this: Hunter - I'm shamelessly networking on behalf of Barksdale Theatre, the leading professional theatre in Richmond VA. AEA SPT. I'm the artistic director. I'm trying to strengthen connections and communication with the national talent pool. Thanks.

Truth is, most of these young theatre artists are trying to strengthen their own connections, and so a lot of them accepted me as a friend. Now I know that being a Facebook "friend" isn't the same thing as being a real friend. But in a business where networking and contacts are really important, there's nothing disingenuous about casting a wide net among respected professional colleagues.

For example, when we were casting the role of Trevor in Thoroughly Modern Millie, I turned to my Facebook friends and found Tim Ford. We wound up casting him, he moved to Richmond for the summer, was terrific in the show, and won a Richmond Theatre Critics Circle Award for Best Supporting Actor in a Musical. Now he's a friend for real.

Anyway, back to Hunter. When he was cast in Night Music, I wrote him a Facebook message of congratulations. When Hannah and I were making plans to see Night Music, I messaged Hunter again and asked if Hannah and I could stop by after the show.

Part of what I'm after is maintaining my family of professional contacts. The other part of what I'm after is scoring dad points. If you're a freshman in college and interested in theatre, it's got to be at least a little cool to have a dad who knows people in the business.

After exchanging a few nice messages with me, Hunter suggested that Hannah and I approach the stage doorman after the show, mention his name, and come backstage to say hi. We did. He couldn't have been nicer. We talked a while about Barksdale and Into the Woods. Then he showed us all around the Night Music set--really crowded by the way, even more so than the notoriously crowded Empire. We stood onstage and looked out into the house. Once we were off the set, I took his picture with Hannah, and then we all headed out into the cold.

Hunter is now an official Friend of Barksdale, and friend of professional theatre in Richmond in general. I encourage all of you to try to catch his performance in A Little Night Music. Not only is he terrific in the show, he's a heck of a nice guy. I can't thank him enough for being so friendly and gracious.

The second friend we met at the stage door of Ragtime is a young man who first began working at Theatre IV when he was around eight years old. He did several shows with us as a child, and now he's on Broadway. We had a GREAT visit. I'll tell you more tomorrow.

Thanks to all of you for your support of Barksdale Theatre and Theatre IV. We couldn't do it without YOU.

--Bruce Miller

Been to the City for a Show with No Name

Posted by Bruce Miller
I don’t know why I’m waxing at such length about our Columbus Day Weekend excursion to the Big Apple. I hope it’s not boring.

The trip itself wasn’t boring at all. We flew out of Richmond on JetBlue on Saturday morning, departing RIC at 10:05 am and disembarking at JFK at 11:18. JetBlue is the Official Airline of Barksdale / Theatre IV. This, however, was a family trip and so my family paid for the tickets in full. They were a good deal at $59 each, one way, before taxes and fees.

To get from the airport to mid-town, we took the AirTrain to Jamaica Station, and then the E train subway into Manhattan. It’s about a 45-minute commute between the jet and Broadway; it’s comfortable; it costs less than $4.50 per person if you buy the right MetroCards.

Even though we were staying at the Milford, we left the subway at 53rd and 7th. I much prefer walking down Broadway and through Times Square to get to the Milford (45th and 8th) rather than walking up 8th from the 42nd St Port Authority subway stop.

Honoring the request of our late friend, we all shouted “Martha Newell” as our feet hit Broadway for the first time this trip.

On the way to the Milford, we stopped to eat lunch at Café Edison on 47th Street between Broadway and 8th—good, cheap, fast and very NYC. From Café Edison, Terrie and Curt schlepped the bags to the Milford while Hannah and I went to the TKTS Booth for half-price matinee tickets. Hannah and I are theatre junkies who enjoy seeing two shows in a day. Terrie and Curt like to relax and walk around the city in the afternoon and only see one show a day. Different strokes.

One of the shows Hannah and I most wanted to see was [title of show]. No, I didn’t forget to fill in the title; that is the title. Our friend and fellow theatre junkie, Lizzie Holland, had been raving about this small new musical since she saw it last summer. She and her parents think it would be a perfect show for Barksdale, and since it was closing this weekend, [title of show] was next to South Pacific on the top of our “must see” list.

As we ventured toward the end of the 45-minute TKTS line, we passed a half-price ticket promoter calling out the name of [title of show]. We told her we were interested, and she gave us a flyer that allowed us to purchase half-price tickets at the box office rather than waiting in the TKTS line for three quarters of an hour. [title of show] was playing at the Lyceum on 45th between Broadway and 6th, so we walked to the theatre in about 5 minutes. Using the flyer at the box office, we not only bagged half-price tickets, we also avoided the $4 per ticket service charge that one incurs at the TKTS Booth. And we were able to put it on my credit card—something that until this week was verboten on the TKTS line.

By avoiding the wait in line, we wound up with an hour to kill, so we rejoined Terrie and Curt at the Milford. I’ve stayed at the Milford a hundred times, and always found it satisfactory. It’s the cheapest of the decent hotels in the theatre district, or the most decent of the cheap hotels. And it has lots of rooms, so when the Edison (my favorite affordable hotel) books up early, which it always seems to do, I often can still find a room at the Milford.

This time, even booking more than two months in advance and using on-line rates, the Milford cost $309 before taxes for Saturday night and $279 before taxes for Sunday. That seems really expensive to me, but it’s the best rate I could find. And the only way to get that rate was to reserve for three nights and then call back and cancel one of the three. When I tried to book for two nights, the computer indicated that the Milford was sold out.

There was a street market on 8th Avenue last Saturday, so Hannah and I checked out a few of the booths before heading back to the Lyceum for our 3 o’clock curtain. She bought her second pashmina—a real deal at only $5.

We absolutely LOVED [title of show]. With music and lyrics by Jeff Bowen and a book by Hunter Bell, [title of show] documents its own creation, telling the story of two Broadway theatre junkies who attempt over a three-week period to create a new script and score to enter into the New York Musical Theatre Festival. Bowen and Bell, who not only wrote but also play themselves in the show, determined to write an original musical rather than adapt a play or movie into a musical. They discovered almost immediately that their conversations about what to write were more interesting than the ideas they were coming up with for an original show. And so the idea to document the creation of the creation of the show itself became clearer (or as the show states, "a musical about two guys writing a musical about two guys writing a musical"). After the show was accepted into the festival, Bell and Bowen expanded the script based on their writing experiences with friends Susan Blackwell and Heidi Blickenstaff, who also play themselves in the Broadway production.

[title of show] is a classic post-modern work-in-progress, with updates reflecting the circumstances the cast and the show have experienced added to the show as it progressed from Off-Off-Broadway to Off-Broadway to Broadway. Now that it will be moving on to regional productions, it will be interesting to see if the rewriting continues.

Since I love the show, I’m asking myself the following questions:
1. Will it work as well with actors other than the original creators playing themselves?
2. Does it include too much Broadway insider information and perspective to appeal to a Richmond subscription audience?
3. Will the original creators trust the work to a small regional theatre, and if so, when?

After I answer these questions to my satisfaction, I’ll decide whether or not to pursue a Barksdale production. Right now, I can only say that the show was GREAT on Broadway. It spoke to me. I’d love to be involved in some way with a future production.

More coming soon about the other shows we saw. Till then, see you at the theatre!

--Bruce Miller

Photo note: In the show photos from [title of show], Hunter Bell (author of the book, actor playing the character "Hunter") is in the green shirt; Jeff Bowen (composer and lyricist, actor playing the character "Jeff") is in the navy or purple polo shirt, with a rolled up long-sleeved t-shirt underneath; Heidi Blickenstaff (actress playing "Heidi") has the long blond hair; Susan Blackwell (actress playing "Susan") has the pulled back dark hair.

Our Journey to "South Pacific"

Posted by Bruce Miller
As I mentioned earlier, Terrie, Hannah, Curt and I ventured to NYC for Columbus Day Weekend. I love New York, and not just cause the slogan tells me so. My mother is an NYC native, and I’ve spent my entire life visiting the homeland at least once or twice a year, often more. I’ve always felt comfortable there, and it’s important to Terrie and me that Hannah and Curt feel comfortable there too.

So we don’t really need a reason to visit the Big Apple. New York is New York, with all that that entails. For us, that’s reason enough. But if we had needed additional motivation, seeing the smash hit revival of South Pacific would have been it.

The Tony Award-winning, Lincoln Center production stars the luminous Kelli O’Hara and features Richmond’s own super-talent, Jerold Solomon. Ever since seeing Light in the Piazza, Kelli O’Hara has been Hannah’s favorite leading lady under 40. I greatly admire her as well. (I have to include the “under 40” caveat out of respect for Kristin Chenoweth, Victoria Clark and Bernadette Peters, who also head Hannah’s short list of beloved musical theatre actresses.)

When we saw Piazza (also at Lincoln Center), Hannah LOVED the show, and wanted to meet the cast at the stage door following curtain call. (I loved being able to use Hannah as my excuse for wanting to do the same thing.) For reasons I don’t know, there’s usually a much smaller crowd at the stage door at Lincoln Center than at the stage doors of other Broadway musicals. So, when Victoria Clark and Kelli O’Hara exited, there was no mob, and both of them were very gracious in talking with Hannah and me. They made a terrific impression.

When Hannah saw Kelli O’Hara in South Pacific on the Tony Awards, that Rodgers and Hammerstein classic immediately became her #1 choice of shows to see. (She’s never quite forgiven me for seeing Pajama Game, which also starred Ms O’Hara, on a business trip without her.)

And then there’s Jerold. Hannah was very fortunate to have played the Oomiak in King Island Christmas years ago at Theatre IV, under Steve Perigard’s wonderful direction. Hannah won the role fair and square, and did a terrific job. Among her costars in that production was Jerold Solomon, who played Ooloranna, the Inuit leader who conceives of the plan to carry the oomiak (a walrus-skin boat) over the mountain that divides one half of King Island from the other, rescuing the island’s priest who had been stranded in an ice-bound ship offshore.

Every week, show after show, Jerold, Jake Mosser and the other men of King Island hoisted Hannah up high and carried her all around the stage. When you’re a little girl, and it’s your first starring role in a show, and a handsome and able 22-year old man is carrying you around stage for 90 minutes, it’s got to make an impression. Suffice it to say that Jerold will always hold a special place in Hannah’s heart.

Our only problem was this. We decided to take this trip sometime in August, and by the time the decision had been made, South Pacific was already sold out for the entire month of October. You can always go through a broker to buy tickets in advance to sold-out shows, but it winds up costing an extra $35 to $150 or more per ticket. And that's money we don't have. So I decided to take a chance, and try to buy a last minute ticket from a broker on the street. This is a risky venture, to be sure, but the two times I’ve tried it, it’s worked.

Coming tomorrow – Buying Last Minute Tickets from the Stranger on the Sidewalk … and LOVING South Pacific!

--Bruce Miller

Word of the Week - SQUALL

Posted by Hannah Miller
This week’s theatre artist is the internationally renowned, Academy Award-winning film actress MERYL STREEP. This past Sunday, June 22, she celebrated her 59th birthday. Prior to her success in Hollywood, she was a highly acclaimed 26-year-old newcomer on Broadway. She thrilled her first NYC audience at Lincoln Center in the 1975 revival of the classic backstage comedy, Trelawny of the ‘Wells’.

Her Word of the Week is SQUALL, a verb she uttered and ably demonstrated during the 47 performances of her auspicious stage debut on the Great White Way.

Born with the given name Mary Louise, Streep’s first love was music. She made her vocal debut as a child singing O Holy Night in flawless French, perhaps foretelling her acclaimed ability to master any dialect. At an early age, she made plans to become an opera star and started vocal training at age 12.

As a student, she excelled academically but lacked confidence in social settings. This changed when she received a standing ovation as Marian the Librarian in her high school production of The Music Man. It was then that she “stopped feeling dorky” and was able to think of herself as a genuine performer. With new found self-assurance, she continued to act in many high school productions and ended up being named Homecoming Queen her senior year.

She studied theatre and English at Vassar, graduating in 1971. Wanting to continue her education, she enrolled in the Yale School of Drama and appeared in over 30 productions at Yale Repertory Theatre. She graduated with an MFA in theatre in 1975.

Her first big break came when she joined Joseph Papp’s New York Shakespeare Festival. Here, she had the opportunity to appear on Broadway not only in Trelawny of the ‘Wells’, but also, two months after Trelawny closed, in a double-bill of Tennessee Williams’ 27 Wagons Full of Cotton (pictured to the right) and Arthur Miller’s A Memory of Two Mondays. Her roles in these two plays couldn’t have been more different. Critics commended her versatility, and she was nominated for the 1976 Tony Award as Best Featured Actress.

She made her television debut in 1977 in Secret Service, a filming of her next Broadway production, launching her extremely successful career in Hollywood. (Secret Service is a Civil War era spy story set in Richmond. Theatre IV produced the stage version of Secret Service in the Empire in the early 90s.) In 1978, Streep won an Emmy Award for her performance in Holocaust, a miniseries.

Moving on to the big screen, Streep played small but memorable parts in Julia (appearing with Jane Fonda and Vanessa Redgrave) and The Deer Hunter (appearing with Robert DeNiro). For The Deer Hunter, she earned her first of 14 Oscar nominations. She’s won twice. Subsequent film and television projects have included Woody Allen’s Manhattan (1979), Kramer vs. Kramer (1979), Sophie’s Choice (1982), Out of Africa (1985), The Hours (2002), Angels in America (2003 - and yes, that's Meryl in one of her Angels roles pictured above and to the left), The Devil Wears Prada (2006), Mamma Mia! (now playing), Doubt (opening later this year), and 47 other productions.

First produced in 1898, Trelawny of the ‘Wells’ is a comedy about how English theatre changed during the 1860s, leaving behind over-the-top melodramas and farces in favor of more realistic “cup and saucer” dramas, paving the path for Oscar Wilde and George Bernard Shaw. During the final three decades of the 19th Century and the first three decades of the 20th, Sir Arthur Wing Pinero, author of Trelawny and many other hit plays, was among London’s five most successful and popular playwrights. He was a leader in bringing realism to popularity in England, and is best known today for his two masterworks, Trelawny and The Second Mrs. Tanqueray.

Near the end of Trelawny, Streep’s character Imogen (an actress and aspiring producer) speaks this line in the play within the play: “Miss Harrington, bring your work indoors and hear me SQUALL,” an allusion to the melodramatic acting style being lovingly satirized.

Until scanning through Trelawny, I had always thought of a SQUALL as a storm. When appearing as a noun, that’s exactly what it is—“a sudden strong wind or short violent storm.” However, when used as a verb, SQUALL refers to a human action or trait that is storm-like. Its definition is “to scream or cry loudly and harshly.”

Whether squalling, whispering or murmuring gently in a newly mastered accent, Meryl Streep is believed by many to be the finest film actress of her generation. It would be wonderful to see her return once again to her Broadway roots. Until then, we can seek out the NYC performances of her look-alike daughter, actress Mamie Gummer (pictured to the right), who recently made her Broadway debut in the Roundabout’s revival of Les Liaisons Dangereuses.

--Hannah Miller

RAPT and Other Acronyms

Posted by Bruce Miller
A grand time was had by all tonight at the annual Open House hosted by RAPT, the Richmond Alliance of Professional Theatres. The guest speaker was Peggy Baggett, Executive Director of the Virginia Commission for the Arts and one of the most able state arts leaders in the nation. Peggy informed the 100 or so attendees about Virginia’s upcoming Minds Wide Open celebration, slated for March through June 2010. The theme of this statewide initiative will be Virginia Celebrates Women in the Arts. Peggy invited all artists and arts organizations in the Commonwealth to participate.

Phil Whiteway, our Managing Director, introduced Peggy and welcomed the diverse crowd of actors, directors and other miscellaneous theatre practitioners to Barksdale Willow Lawn. Barksdale was proud to co-host the festivities for the third year in a row. Christine Walters, the head cheese at Comedy Sportz Richmond and this year’s RAPT Pres, introduced the theatre producers who were there and generally emceed the evening’s announcements.

David Sennett (pictured to the right) announced the upcoming RAPT auditions and the free audition workshop, which he generously conducts. He explained that he doesn’t act in Richmond because he “can’t afford to,” and suggested to me publicly that if Barksdale should ever become “LOA” I should give him a call. As we all retired to the lobby, several actors came up and asked me what he was talking about.

Perhaps now is a good time to review a few of the AEA (Actors’ Equity Association) acronyms so that people can understand David's announcement. I hope no one will get the wrong impression, however. AEA works tirelessly on behalf of its members, and wants each member to be gainfully employed. They never prohibit a theatre, any theatre, from meeting David’s or anyone else’s salary requirements.

Having said that, lets go wading into the alphabet soup. LOA stands for Letter of Agreement, and it specifies a particular AEA contract. In fact, Barksdale has operated under an LOA contract for several shows, Crowns at the Empire being a recent example.

At Willow Lawn, Barksdale normally contracts with AEA actors using an SPT contract (Small Professional Theatre). Our minimum SPT contract pays marginally less than our minimum LOA contract, but we are always allowed to pay more to get the actors we want.

At Hanover Tavern, we work under a GA (Guest Artist) contract, and even though Hanover Tavern has fewer seats than Willow Lawn, we pay more under the GA contract because fewer contracts are awarded for any particular show. Some Hanover shows, like the upcoming Driving Miss Daisy, have no GA contracts at all.

Another AEA contract is the TYA (Theatre for Young Audiences) contract. There were several years when Theatre IV employed actors using TYA agreements. Still another is the SA (Special Appearance) contract. Firehouse and Henley Street use SA contracts when employing AEA actors. SA contracts are similar to GA contracts except they are for smaller theatres and have no health insurance requirements.

The big daddy of the regional theatre contracts is the LORT contract (League of Resident Theatres). TheatreVirginia was the only Richmond theatre to employ actors under a LORT contract. TheatreVirginia went out of business in 2002. Perhaps it was a LORT contract that David meant to refer to instead of an LOA.

Of course, David is right in one regard. Like a lot of smaller cities, Richmond underpays its theatre artists, whether they are actors, directors, designers or administrators. Barksdale continues to work faithfully to raise all salaries, including actor salaries, to more acceptable levels. The reason we proceed cautiously and responsibly is because we are determined not to suffer the fate of TheatreVirginia (see the vacated theatre seats pictured above and to the left in STYLE's 2002 coverage of TVA's closing). No one in Richmond or at AEA wants to see another Richmond theatre go belly up.

Whatever combination of initials a theatre may use, no talented actor should be discouraged from auditioning because of the contract a theatre employs. If a theatre wants to work with an actor, and the actor wants to work with the theatre, then the actor can always try to negotiate a contract that meets his or her needs, despite its initials. No matter which contract a theatre uses, AEA doesn’t prohibit a theatre from paying more than the minimum if an actor’s unique contributions to the production justify the payment.

Also present at tonight’s RAPT Open House were two of Barksdale’s high school talents, Hannah Miller and Jack Schultz from Trinity Episcopal School. Their video coverage of the evening will be added to this post soon as the first edition of Barksdale Backstage, our new video blog commentary. Stay tuned. We’ll post the video as soon as it’s edited into shape.

--Bruce Miller

Word of the Week - HALLOING

Posted by Hannah Miller
On Saturday March 22, the world wished a very happy 78th birthday to STEPHEN JOSHUA SONDHEIM, so this edition of Word of the Week is created in his honor. This week’s word is HALLOING.

Stephen Sondheim is one of the most respected composers and lyricists of the 20th century. He has won more Tony Awards than any other composer on Broadway. Sondheim developed his love for theatre and music after attending his first musical at the age of nine. He was hooked when the curtain rose and a piano was revealed.

Never fitting easily with his parents, Sondheim spent many afternoons learning from his “surrogate father,” Oscar Hammerstein II, of Rodgers and Hammerstein fame. The Hammersteins and the Sondheims lived near each other on the upper West Side of NYC. When Sondheim wrote By George, a musical for his high school, Hammerstein spent an entire day teaching him what he could do to make the musical better. In Sondheim’s words, he “learned more about songwriting and the musical theatre” in that one afternoon “than most people learn in a lifetime.” Sondheim continued his apprenticeship with Hammerstein until he left New York to attend Williams College in Massachusetts.

In 1957, Sondheim made history by writing the lyrics to West Side Story, and then to Gypsy in 1959. Though both of these shows brought him great success as a lyricist, Sondheim knew that what he really wanted to do was compose. Three years later, he received that opportunity and wrote both music and lyrics for A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, another hit. His string of commercial success was broken in 1964 when he wrote Anyone Can Whistle, which lasted for only nine performances.

Sondheim went on, of course, to write other history-making hits such as Company, Follies, A Little Night Music, Pacific Overtures and Sweeney Todd, all in partnership with director Hal Prince. He was disappointed by the short run of their next show, Merrily We Roll Along. Following this commercial flop, he considered quitting theatre to write murder mysteries. Instead he switched directors, breaking with Prince and teaming with James Lapine (pictured with Sondheim to the left), who not only directed his subsequent musicals but also wrote the books. The first Sondheim/Lapine triumph was Sunday in the Park with George (my favorite musical), based on the artistic genius of French painter Georges Seurat, the father of Neo-impressionism. Sunday in the Park is one of only seven musicals to have won the Pulitzer Prize for Drama.

Other Sondheim/Lapine musicals include Into the Woods (produced at Barksdale last summer), Passion, and Assassins.

I study voice with Amy Hruska, and one of the songs she has me singing currently is Green Finch and Linnet Bird from Sweeney Todd. Inspired by the beautiful warbling of caged birds, the character of Johanna sings:

Green finch and linnet bird,
Nightingale, blackbird,
How is it you sing?
Whence comes this melody constantly flowing?
Is it rejoicing or merely HALLOING?
Are you discussing or fussing or simply dreaming?
Are you crowing?
Are you screaming?

When I first sang the word HALLOING, I assumed it meant something like “saying hello.” But this is Sondheim, so of course there are other layers of meaning. In 16th and 17th century England, to hallo or halloo was to shout an exclamation in a hunt when the quarry was spotted. In Coriolanus, Act I, Scene 8, Shakespeare writes, “If I fly, Marcius, halloo me like a hare.” Considering the plot of Sweeney Todd, certainly the birds were halloing when they spotted Johanna—or perhaps when they spotted the Judge.

Our word hello, issued as a greeting rather than a shout, dates from the mid-19th century, and fell into popular usage when Thomas Edison proclaimed it the appropriate way to greet someone when answering a telephone. Alexander Graham Bell preferred the phrase Ahoy, as used on ships. But by 1889, telephone operators were known as hello-girls due to the public acceptance of the Edison-inspired hello.

Today, Sondheim continues to write, create and inspire young admirers like me. His 2003 original musical Bounce has failed thus far to receive a NYC production. But in 2007, he composed incidental music for the Public Theatre production of King Lear, directed by Lapine. In that same year he had a bit part as himself on The Simpsons episode Yokel Chords.

--Hannah Miller

Word of the Week - BANDY

Posted by Hannah Miller
Welcome to the third Word of the Week. From March 3 until 7, I had the chance to spend my Junior Work Week volunteering at Barksdale. It was a great experience being with the staff for five days. Phil, Brad and Janine (my supervisors) let me spend a full day and a half working on this column. Thanks to Barksdale’s accounting, marketing, development and costume staffs for letting me share their offices.

This week’s theatre artist is EDWARD ALBEE, and the word is BANDY.

Edward Albee is often named as America’s greatest living playwright. His credo is that each of his plays should “bring its audience some special sense of awareness of the times.” He celebrated his 80th birthday this past week on March 12.

Edward Albee was adopted into an affluent family and lived a pampered childhood as the grandson of a vaudeville producer. He did not have an admirable school record. After getting kicked out of a boarding school and a military academy for bad conduct, he finally found his place at Choate where he discovered his love for writing. He wrote many poems, short stories, a play and a novel, working sometimes for 18 hours a day.

After graduating from Choate, Albee left home and spent a decade studying at several universities, working a variety of jobs, and attending theatre as often as possible. During a state of depression, he wrote his first successful play, The Zoo Story. Originally rejected in New York for being too “experimental,” the play was recognized by reader after reader and finally premiered in Berlin in 1959.

Albee then went on to write other plays that proved to be controversial in many quarters. In the preface to the first published edition of The American Dream, which was written to bring attention to the shortcomings of American values, Albee wrote that the play was "a stand against the fiction that everything in this slipping land of ours is peachy-keen. Is it offensive? I certainly hope so; it was my intention to offend ... as well as amuse and entertain.”

In 1962, Albee created even more controversy with his most successful play, Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, for which he received a Drama Desk and Tony Award. Though he was shortlisted for the Pulitzer Prize, the controversy kept him from winning.

In 1961, Albee helped found the Playwrights Unit. This project was meant to provide a jump-start to young, inexperienced playwrights, an opportunity that he did not have when he wrote The Zoo Story.

In Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, when Nick tells George that he isn’t planning on working as a professor forever, George replies, “Well don’t let that get BANDIED about. The old man wouldn’t like it. Martha’s father expects loyalty and devotion out of his…staff.”

BANDY – (ˈban-dē) verb – to bat (as a ball) to and fro, or
to discuss back and forth in a casual or offhand manner—often used with about

The verb, to bandy, comes from the game of Bandy, which began as an open air, warm weather sport in which opposing teams try to take control of the ball and land it in their opponent’s goal. In Romeo and Juliet, Act III Scene 1, Shakespeare writes, “The Prince expressly hath forbidden Bandying in the Verona streets.”

Some time in the 18th century, the warm weather version of the sport became better known as Field Hockey, and the winter version, played on frozen lakes and fens, took over the name Bandy. Ice Hockey, played in a smaller rink and with a puck instead of a ball, was developed in Nova Scotia in the 19th century. But it was in the 20th century that the verb to bandy first fell into popular usage, usually associated with the back and forth tossing of ideas or gossip.

George makes a great deal of Nick’s athletic prowess throughout Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolfe? Perhaps that’s why Albee had George, a professor who obviously relishes language, use a quasi-athletic term to describe Nick's idle chitchat.

Edward Albee is continuing to work in the theatre today. In honor of his 80th birthday, several of his plays are being performed Off-Broadway, including The American Dream and The Sandbox. Both of these are directed by, who else? -- Albee himself!

--Hannah Miller

Postscript - I was in Lancaster PA last night watching Hannah Zold's TERRIFIC performance in All Shook Up at the Dutch Apple Dinner Theatre, when the character of Dennis used the word bunk, not once but several times, to describe the life philosophies espoused by the leading character Chad. Bunk, of course, is the shortened version of our first Word of the Week, buncombe.

Word of the Week - BILIOUS

Posted by Hannah Miller

Welcome to the second installment of Word of the Week on the Barksdale Buzz. Every seven days or so, I’ll discuss a theatre legend whose birthday was celebrated during the previous week, choose a word somehow connected to the selected artist, and define it.

This week’s theatre artist is REX HARRISON, and the word is BILIOUS.

Rex Harrison is a beloved English actor of the stage and screen, best known for creating the role of Henry Higgins in Lerner and Lowe’s My Fair Lady. My Fair Lady has been produced in Richmond by both Swift Creek Mill Theatre and TheatreVirginia. Before it changed its name from the Virginia Museum Theatre to TheatreVirginia, VMT also produced Pygmalion, the classic play by George Bernard Shaw on which My Fair Lady is based.

Rex Harrison was born in Liverpool, England as Reginald Carey Harrison on March 5, 1908. On Wednesday of this week, the world celebrated his centennial. As a child, Harrison changed his first name to Rex (Latin for “King”). After he made his stage debut in Liverpool at the age of 16 and his film debut at the age of 22, his career as an actor took off. He became a star after his 2-year run of French Without Tears in London, and continued acting until just a few weeks before his death in 1990.

In response to his multiple marriages (6 wives), the press dubbed him “Sexy Rexy,” a nickname with which he was none too happy.

In 1956, Harrison starred on stage in My Fair Lady in New York and London, garnering fame on both continents. His co-star was Julie Andrews.

In 1964, Harrison won the Oscar for best leading actor in a film when he reprised the role of Higgins in the screen adaptation of My Fair Lady, co-starring Audrey Hepburn. In 1967, he earned a new generation of fans playing the title role in Doctor Dolittle. Despite his reservations about performing in a children's movie, Harrison agreed to star in the film because of the involvement of lyricist Alan Jay Lerner. Harrison stuck with the movie even after Lerner pulled out due to frustration.

In addition to his popularity with audiences internationally, Harrison was well respected among professionals. The Oscar-winning actor Jose Ferrer explained, “I've been in this business a long time, and Rex Harrison is the only actor doing comedy that I can learn from.” Impressed by his talent, Noel Coward (an acclaimed playwright and comedic actor) named him “the best light comedian in the world—after me.”

In My Fair Lady, Harrison’s character (Henry Higgins) is an expert in phonetics. While visiting the open-air market in London’s Covent Garden (the first scene of the musical), Higgins encounters an uneducated flower girl named Eliza Doolittle. In the following lines, he arrogantly tells her how much he dislikes her way of speaking.

Eliza: I have a right to be here if I like, same as you!

Higgins: A woman who utters such disgusting, depressing noises has no right to be anywhere, no right to live! Remember, you’re a human with a soul and the divine gift of articulate speech. Your native language is the language of Shakespeare and Milton and the Bible. Don’t sit there crooning like a BILIOUS pigeon.

Shortly after this encounter, Higgins bets a fellow gentleman that he can transform Eliza from a “guttersnipe” into an elegant lady by teaching her proper diction. The rest of the musical tells the story of how he does just that, with questionable results.

BILIOUS - (ˈbil-yəs) adjective - of, relating to, or containing bile; or
peevish, irritable, cranky, extremely unpleasant or distasteful

BILIOUS comes from the Latin word bilis, which means anger or displeasure. Practitioners of ancient and medieval medicine believed that health was governed by the four vital fluids or humours: blood, phlegm, yellow bile and black bile. Gasses rising up through the body from a supposed excess of yellow bile (the yellowish, greenish digestive fluid secreted by the liver) were believed to make a patient irritable. Consequently, BILIOUS now has two definitions: the first having to do with the fluid from the liver and the second having to do with a cranky dispostion. Today, of course, we know that bile has nothing to do with crabbiness.

Higgins’ analogy of Eliza “crooning like a bilious pigeon” conjures up the amusing and pathetic image of her chirping like a peevish pigeon, incapable of speaking English.

If I'm not mistaken, I believe I heard our word BILIOUS spoken onstage in Little Women, now playing at the Mill, to describe “Aunt March.”

In 1990, Harrison returned to Broadway in The Circle by Somerset Maugham, author of Barksdale's 2006 hit, The Constant Wife. In May Harrison fell ill and was replaced, temporarily it was believed, by his understudy. Three weeks later he died of pancreatic cancer at the age of 82, closing the show.

To read previous Word of the Week columns, click on “Word of the Week” in the labels below. Thanks for reading!

--Hannah Miller

Word of the Week - BUNCOMBE

Posted by Hannah Miller

Welcome to the first Word of the Week. My plan is to pick a playwright, actor or other well known theatre professional every week, someone whose birthday was celebrated during the preceding seven days. I’ll write a short bio of his or her life and accomplishments, select an interesting word from his or her work, define it, and put it out there for whatever it’s worth.

This week’s theatre artist is BEN HECHT (pictured above) and this week’s word is BUNCOMBE.

Ben Hecht was a great American playwright, an Oscar-winning screenwriter (mostly uncredited), and an internationally recognized Jewish activist before, during and after World War II. A character based on Ben Hecht was portrayed by Scott Wichmann in Barksdale’s recent comedy Moonlight and Magnolias. Moonlight is a somewhat fictionalized depiction of the emergency re-writing of the screenplay for Gone With the Wind.

Ben Hecht was born on February 28, 1894 in New York City. He moved at an early age to Racine, Wisconsin. He was a child prodigy violist and circus acrobat. He started his career as a writer in Chicago while still a teenager, working for the Journal and the Daily News. In 1923, he founded his own paper, the Chicago Literary Times, and lost all his money. During his Chicago years, he met and befriended Charles MacArthur who was working for the City News Bureau. In 1926, both men moved to NYC to pursue careers as writers of plays and novels.

In New York, Hecht received a telegram from another friend, Herman J. Mankiewicz, who had recently moved to Los Angeles. "Millions are to be grabbed out here and your only competition is idiots. Don't let this get around." He meant millions of dollars. Lured by this promise of prosperity, Hecht moved to L A and began a lucrative career as a screenwriter.

Dividing his career between Hollywood and New York, Hecht co-authored three Broadway plays with MacArthur: The Front Page (1928), Twentieth Century (1932) and Ladies and Gentlemen (1939). The first two are American classics. Barksdale produced The Front Page at Hanover Tavern in 1974, and both Swift Creek Mill and the Henrico Theatre Company have produced the musical comedy On the Twentieth Century, based on the Hecht/MacArthur play.

In his autobiography, A Child of the Century, Hecht wrote, “The American of 1953 is a cliché-strangled citizen whose like was never before in the Republic. Compared to the pre-movieized American of 1910-1920, he is an enfeebled intellect. For forty years the movies have drummed away on the American character. They have fed it naïveté and BUNCOMBE in doses never before administered to any people. They have slapped into the American mind more human misinformation in one evening than the Dark Ages could muster in a decade."

BUNCOMBE – (bŭng'kəm) noun – empty or insincere talk, claptrap, hogwash, nonsense

The word originated during the debate in the U S Congress regarding the Missouri Compromise, circa 1820. Felix Walker, an old and fading moutaineer representing Buncombe County, N C, rose to speak after the question had been called. With numerous congressmen begging him to sit down and be quiet, he persisted in delivering a lengthy lecture that had nothing to do with whether Missouri should be admitted to the United States as a slave state or a free state. In his ramblings, he said he felt compelled to “make a speech for Buncombe,” despite having nothing to add to the debate. Today, BUNCOMBE is frequently shortened to BUNKUM or BUNK.

Despite earning his fortune from the movies, Hecht had little respect for American filmmaking. He thought most movies were as meaningless as Felix Walker’s Congressional ramblings, nothing but a load of BUNCOMBE.

Hecht died of a heart attack at the age of 70 on April 19, 1964, while working on the script for the first movie version of Casino Royale, a “pointless” satire (according to critics of the day) in which the character of James Bond was played by multiple actors including David Niven and Peter Sellers. It sounds like exactly the kind of movie that inspired Hecht's grumblings.

Nonetheless, Hecht will go down in theatre history as co-author of two classic American comedies, The Front Page and Twentieth Century.

--Hannah Miller

Taking Four Young Women to Broadway

Posted by Bruce Miller

The theatre gods (and The League of American Theaters and Pro-ducers) smiled on my daughter Hannah and me in mid-October. For a couple months, Hannah and her friends had been planning a theatre weekend in New York. (Hannah and her friends are in the foreground of the photo shown above, standing with four of the stars of A Chorus Line: Heather Parcells, Katherine Tokarz, Deidre Goodwin and Will Taylor.)

When their high school drama teacher was unable to accompany them on their dream tour of Broadway, they recruited me and another dad, Tony Oates, to serve as drowsy chaperones. Tony is a former Theatre IV Board member and the father of the young Tony Oates who was in our production of The Wizard of Oz last spring.

My daughter and her pals (Lizzie Holland, Rebekah Hupp and Nathalie Oates) are all very responsible young women—juniors at Trinity Episcopal High School. I was looking forward to spending time with them and getting to know my daughter’s friends.

The airfares were paid, the hotel rooms were booked, and the tickets were secured (at a discount via Broadway Box). Then on the Tuesday before our departure, labor negotiations broke down between the stagehands and the producers. For a few days it looked like the producers would call for a lockout, causing most Broadway theatres to shut down just about the time we were scheduled to be taxiing to the gate at JFK.

But fate was on our side. The labor dispute was put on hold, and everything went according to Hoyle.

Upcoming holiday travelers may not be as fortunate. On Oct 21, one week after our return to Richmond, the stagehand members of Local One voted unanimously to empower their leadership to call a strike during the month of December, when Broadway ticket sales are at their peak. Local One has never staged a strike before, and they have promised to give advance notice if they decide to call for one now. In the interim, negotiations are continuing between the stagehands and the producers. Hopefully everything will be resolved.

The last strike to close down Broadway lasted four days in 2003, and was called by the musicians union. Should a strike occur this December, the producers have promised full refunds and/or exchanges for all ticket holders.

Anyway, back to our October theatre weekend. We flew JetBlue, leaving Richmond at 6 a.m. Saturday morning and pulling our chairs up to the table for blueberry pancakes at the Evergreen on 47th Street by 9 a.m. For more info on how to get from JFK into Manhattan, click the label at the foot of this post that says “NYC on a Budget,” then scroll down through this post and you’ll come to “A Broadway Weekend – Part II: NYC on a Budget” (March 29, 2007).

We flew home on Sunday night at around 10 p.m. It was a whirlwind weekend, but we were able to see three shows in two days, spending only one night away from home.

I learned two new things this trip that were not included in my March 29 blog post.

Number One – There is now a $25 MetroCard that gives you twelve rides on the AirTrain (normally $5 each) instead of five. You buy the new $25 card at the appropriate machines just before you exit the AirTrain terminal on your way into Manhattan. Using this card, each of our AirTrain rides cost $2.17 instead of $5, saving the six of us $35 on the arriving and departing AirTrain trips. This $25 MetroCard doesn’t work on the subways, only on the AirTrain. You can still buy the $20 MetroCard for the subways, which actually gives you twelve subway rides instead of ten.

Number Two – When traveling with parties larger than four, and using either of the above mentioned MetroCards for the AirTrain or the subway, you can let four people through the turnstile on one card, but then you have to wait 18 minutes before using the card at this same stop for persons number five and six or more. It’s a crazy rule, because if you go to the clerk to explain the problem, they immediately issue you a new MetroCard that allows the remaining people to go through. Clearly they don’t mind you using one card for groups larger than four, but the turnstile computer won’t let you until you trade your MetroCard in with the clerk.

We arrived at the Millennium Broadway Hotel at around 10 a.m. The Millennium can be accessed from both 45th Street and 44th Street, and is located mid-block between Broadway (7th) and Avenue of the Americas (6th). They let us check our bags and suggested that we return at noon for an early check-in. The regular check-in time is 4 p.m., but we were able to check-in to three of our four rooms by 12:15.

The Millennium is a terrific bargain right now. It is a relatively new and very comfortable hotel (downright Ritzy by my standards), and currently offers some great deals that you can discover at http://www.millenniumhotels.com/millenniumnewyork/index.html. I recommend it highly.

In future posts, I’ll talk about the shows we saw, the street festival we visited, and some of the Barksdale/Theatre IV alum who are now starring on the Great White Way.

And if and when I hear any news about the possible strike, I’ll be sure to pass it along via this blog.

--Bruce Miller

(Added Sat. 11/10 - The Stagehand's union went on strike today, shutting down over 2 dozen Broadway productions. See this MSNBC article for details.)

Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon

Posted by Bruce Miller

In response to a recent blog entry (Summer Stock Memories - Part II [Aug 19]), a curious reader commented as follows: “I don’t mean to be dumb, but what the heck is Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon?” The question, of course, is not dumb at all.

Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon is a game. I understand it’s now even a board game. I've never seen the board game, but the photo to the right and above, found on the internet, seems to indicate that a board game version does indeed exist.

For years it was a boardless trivia game, inspired by the career of the talented actor, Kevin Bacon, pictured to the left. It required no equipment other than a knowledge of and interest in theatre and film.

The game was originally inspired, I believe, by the brilliant John Guare play, Six Degrees of Separation, which was itself inspired by the interconnectedness theories espoused by the Hungarian author Frigyes Karinthy in 1929, and the subsequent "small world" research conducted by Harvard-based American social psychologist, Stanley Milgram, in the late 60s and early 70s.

The basic idea is that everyone in the world is interconnected. If you are separated from your friend by one degree, then you are separated from your friend’s friends by two degrees. Milgram’s research suggests that when we extend this theory forward to six degrees, everyone in the world is connected to everyone else—and by a fairly short chain.

John Guare’s play is a funny, thought provoking and deeply moving examination of what this means when we look at our daily lives and social responsibilities. It’s one of my two or three favorite plays in the world. If The Little Dog Laughed works well on the 2007-2008 Signature Season at Barksdale Willow Lawn, expect to see Six Degrees of Separation appearing in a forthcoming seaon not too far down the road.

Anyway, back to Kevin Bacon. Inspired by these same theories, the game depends on the belief that every actor in the world can be connected to every other actor in the world by a chain of cast mates. The object of the game is to discover the closest connections in the shortest amount of time.

Let me give you an example: I recently mentioned Charlie Dacus, the child actor who just appeared in Bye Bye Birdie at Dogwood Dell. Can we link him to Sir Laurence Olivier, the “greatest English-speaking actor of the 20th Century”?

After about 5 minutes, here’s the chain I discovered. Charlie Dacus was in Theatre IV’s The Wizard of Oz with Jan Guarino (one degree). Jan Guarino was in Swift Creek’s Once Upon a Mattress with Phil Whiteway (two degrees). Phil Whiteway was in Theatre IV’s West Side Story with Blair Underwood (three degrees). Blair Underwood was in L A Law with Jill Eikenberry (four degrees). Jill Eikenberry was in Arthur with Sir John Gielgud (five degrees). Sir John was in Richard III with Sir Laurence Olivier (six degrees).
And yes, I have noticed that Kevin Bacon appears nowhere in the chain noted above. But he doesn’t have to, at least the way I’ve always played the game. The game is called Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon simply because, as college kids were inventing and playing the game in the 90s, Kevin Bacon’s name kept coming up because he tends to have been in lots of movies with lots of diverse actors, including his wife Kyra Sedgwick. That's Kevin and Kyra in the photo to the right.

While at the University of Virginia, a grad student named Brett Tjaden created the Oracle of Bacon website and computer program to determine if Kevin Bacon was, in fact, the Center of the Hollywood Universe. Tjaden entered data for the 800,000 plus actors listed in the Internet Movie Database (IMDb) to see which actors had the closest connections to the largest number of other actors. He determined that whereas Kevin Bacon was in fact in the top 1% of all film actors in terms of his close connections to all other film actors, he was beat out by Rod Steiger (pictured to the left), Dennis Hopper and Donald Sutherland for the top three spots.

Some people play the game by giving each actor a Bacon Number. If you are Kevin Bacon himself, your Bacon Number is 0. If you have appeared in a cast with Kevin Bacon himself, your Bacon Number is 1. If you have appeared in a cast with someone who has a Bacon Number of 1, then your Bacon Number is 2.

Richmond All-Star Robyn O’Neill (pictured to the right with Pat Carroll) has a Bacon Number of 3. You can read her comment to my previous blog post (Summer Stock Memories – Part II [Aug 19]) to count the connections. The only Richmond actors who I know have a Bacon Number of 2 are John Glenn, Pat Carroll, Sam Wells and Kelly Scallion. John (pictured to the left in The Man Who Came to Dinner at Company of Fools) works in Idaho with Demi Moore, Pat was in E. R. with Noah Wyle, and Sam and Kelly were in Miss Rose White with Kyra Sedgwick. Demi and Noah were in A Few Good Men with Kevin, and Kyra is married to Kevin and appeared with him in Murder in the First. So, if you’re a Richmond actor and you’ve appeared with John, Pat, Sam or Kelly, you also have a Bacon Number of 3.

To a certain extent, my wife and daughter, set designer Terrie Powers and Hannah Miller, have you all beat. When Miss Rose White was filming in Richmond, Kevin Bacon, Kyra Sedgwick and their child (children?) all lived in a rented home by Byrd Park. When Hannah was a baby, Terrie used to take her to the Byrd Park playground. One evening Terrie came home very excited, because she and Hannah had just spent the entire afternoon playing in a Byrd Park sandbox with Kevin Bacon and his son. Terrie was a huge Kevin Bacon fan, but just like I had done years before with Arthur Miller, she never let on that she knew who he was. So they sat there for a couple hours playing and talking as two parents. If she’d done the “fan thing,” he probably would have left.

All reports are that Mr. Bacon himself is not particularly into the celebrity game. When interviewed about the Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon, he good-heartedly replied, "I felt as if I was the brunt of some massive joke at my expense: 'Can you believe this loser can be connected to Marlon Brando and Katharine Hepburn?'"

A "loser" he certainly is not.

On a final note, if you’re a fan of The Closer starring Kyra Sedgwick (and if you aren’t, you should be), you’ll know that Kyra’s dad is now being played by Barry Corbin (pictured below and to the right), who was with us here in Richmond as a special guest star last October for Virginia Arts & Letters Live at the Empire. So if you performed in that iteration of VALL, your Bacon Number is now a 3.

All those who want to accept the challenge of discovering the other Richmond actors with Bacon Numbers of 2—I know there must be some—please do so in a comment to this blog.

--Bruce Miller