Guest Comment from John Deserves an Audience

Hi David,

I was a crew member for two of the shows (whole summers in fact) in which you appeared in what was in those days called "Theatre in the Park": "Guys and Dolls: and "The Pajama Game".

In fact, I spent several entire summers of my teen years at Malkin Bowl. I am still friends with many of the people I worked with in those years. Quite a few of us went on to careers in the theatre, including myself.

I am sure you remember the dressing rooms in the bowels of the bowl. My only interest in those rooms was the many hundreds of signatures on the walls of all the people who appeared in shows or worked on them over the decades. Amongst those scrawled signatures was one of "Robert Goulet".

All the signatures were lost in a tragic instance of bureaucratic well-meaning in the '80s when the parks board sent someone in to repaint all the interior walls. We who spent so much of our young lives in that place were devastated at the news.

I still think of that decrepit old theatre as a crucible of learning and sanctuary for a generation of musical theatre people (onstage and backstage) that are still practicing their craft. It was my Hogwarts.