mct-tribute

A Tribute to

RUTH SCHUDSON

Presented by Milwaukee Chamber Theatre to benefit the Ruth Schudson Leading Lady Fund

Monday, October 24, 2011Broadway Theatre Center

2 A Tribute to RUTH SCHUDSON

Conceived and assembled by Judy Martel & C. Michael Wright

Welcome: Dan Mooney

The Dining Room by A.R. Gurney Carrie Hitchcock

Musical Interlude #1 Molly Rhode, Chase Stoeger

Don Juan in Hell by George Bernard Shaw Susan Sweeney

84, Charing Cross Road by Helene Hanff Norman Moses, Jenny Wanasek

Faith Healer by Brian Friel Mary MacDonald Kerr

The Immigrant by Mark Harelik April Paul, Sheri Williams Pannell

Musical Interlude #2 Molly Rhode, Chase Stoeger and friends

Mrs. Warren’s Profession by George Bernard Shaw Laura Gordon, Betsy Skowbo

The Wit and Wisdom of our Leading Ladies Michelle Lopez-Rios, Raeleen McMillion, Molly Rhode, Sara Zientek

The Road to Mecca by Athol Fugard Flora Coker, Laura Gray

The Trip to Bountiful by Horton Foote Raeleen McMillion, James Tasse, Jacque Troy Kimberly Akimbo by David Lindsay-Abaire Gladys Chmiel, Chase Stoeger

Well by Lisa Kron Marti Gobel

Musical Interlude #3 Molly Rhode, Chase Stoeger and more friends

Closing: Dan Mooney

These vignettes were directed by the following individuals: Laura Gordon, Mary MacDonald Kerr, Michelle Lopez-Rios, Judy Martel, Molly Rhode,

Jenny Wanasek, Sheri Williams Pannell and C. Michael Wright.

TRIBUTE ENTERTAINMENT


By Margot Peters

DRIVING MISS DAISY marks Ruth Schudson’s seventieth year on the stage--not counting her third-grade appearance in THE SNOW QUEEN as a Daffodil. I first saw her in Milwaukee Chamber Theatre’s 1983 DEAR LIAR playing the Edwardian actress, Mrs. Patrick Campbell, opposite Montgomery Davis’s Bernard Shaw. Enchanted, I sent them a copy of my biography Bernard

Shaw and the Actresses. A year later, the Milwaukee Sentinel asked Ruth to review my biography Mrs. Pat: The Life of Mrs. Patrick Campbell. This called for a meeting. Over coffee at George Webb’s, our friendship began.

It’s now March 16, 2011 and I’m interviewing Ruth for an article about her appearance in Chamber’s DRIVING MISS DAISY. The restaurant is more upscale than Webb’s, though not as good. All Ruth wants to talk about is Colin Firth in The King’s Speech.

AN INTERVIEW WITH RUTH

Ghosts (1986)

Androcles and the Lion (1996)

Dear Liar (1983)


Peters: He was fabulous, wrenching, true. But now to Ruth Schudson. Monty hired you for it, people swoon over it. I’m talking about your voice. I’ve seen you in--what--sixty plays? And always that voice!”

Schudson: My mother’s voice was like mine. My parents were Bella Letwin and David Boris Shechtman. After the Russian Revolution in 1917, they lived in fear and poverty, waiting their turn to emigrate, reaching America in 1921. My parents spoke Yiddish at home, English with a Yiddish accent.

Peters: Which makes me even more curious about your voice.

Schudson: I must have been influenced by my father, who was an actor and director in Russia, touring shtetls (Jewish villages). When I decided to go to Chicago’s Goodman School of Drama, my father was both proud and sad: he knew acting is a tough life. But acting was the only thing I wanted to do. Back to your question about my voice. Mary Agnes Doyle was a Goodman teacher and her Daily Dozen Diction Drills was my bible. I dug it out for THE TROJAN WOMEN at Alverno College. Hecuba’s first speeches--all those sibilants and demands for breath control! Mary Agnes Doyle saved me. Hecuba, not incidentally, was one of the most challenging roles I ever played. The enormity of the horrors that poured down on her--one on top of the other--were devastating, and she had not only to survive them but express her feelings in the highest classical language.

Peters: Goodman was one of the top actor training schools in the country.

Schudson: Geraldine Page, Shelley Berman, Karl Malden and Carrie Snodgrass were all graduates. I attended 1944 to 1947. There were no acting jobs, so a group of us started a company that Woodstock [Illinois] subsidized. We put on a different play each week, built our own sets, made our own costumes, scrounged for props--and were paid a whopping $25 a week. Gerry Page and Shelley Berman, unemployed in New York, came to Woodstock just for a chance to act. In 1949 I got a directing fellowship at Goodman and graduated in 1951 with an MFA. After a gig in Seaside, Oregon, I came back to Milwaukee to rest. But then I read that the Milwaukee Players were doing O’Neill’s MOURNING BECOMES ELECTRA. I auditioned and was cast as Lavinia. I also did some acting and teaching at Alverno, though bookkeeping was my “real” job.

Peters: My second big question: why didn’t you go to New York? I’ve never attended a Schudson performance without the person next to me saying, “Why isn’t she on the New York stage!”

Schudson: I once took a bus to New York to see Goodman friends. They introduced me to the Actors Exchange, a room where crowds of hopefuls sat waiting for casting call announcements. All those desperate people, waiting, hoping. “Uh, uh,” I thought. “I just want to work with good people, I don’t need everybody in the world to know about it.” I made a good choice. The Milwaukee Rep grew here, and along with it, smaller professional theaters. Today we have wonderfully talented actors, directors, designers and tech people who, I think, are second to none.



Peters: I agree.

Schudson: Then I married Army [Armand Schudson] in 1955. I’m very lucky to have had the best of both worlds: a wonderful family and the privilege of working with so many dedicated people. Army, my daughter Nia, and my son David have always been supportive, though the kids didn’t like to see bad things happen to me onstage!

Peters: I don’t mind that in the least. One of your best roles was Mrs. Warren in MRS. WARREN’S PROFESSION. Your daughter finally rejects you: that’s bad. You were wrenching in the tragic THE TRIP TO BOUNTIFUL. And downright nasty in LOST IN YONKERS.

Schudson: I’ve never played a role more unlike me than the Grandmother from Hell in YONKERS. My two grand-nephews played the grandchildren she so mistreated. Monty Davis, the director, wouldn’t let me hug them during rehearsals for fear some softness might emerge in her character. I had to dig deep in her to find the reasons for her behavior and use that to help me play the cruelty.

Peters: Reminiscing, I first saw you in 1974 as Mrs. Gibbs in Milwaukee Repertory’s OUR TOWN, a theater experience I remember to this day. When did you begin acting for the Rep?

Schudson: In 1956, back when the Rep was the star-system Fred Miller Theater on Oakland Avenue. I appeared with Fay Bainter in KIND LADY and Edward Everett Horton in THE WHITE SHEEP OF THE FAMILY. In 1963 the Fred Miller became the Milwaukee Repertory Theater, with a


Lost in Yonkers (1994)

Ruth interview continues on page 8.


Driving Miss Daisy (2011-2012)

Well (2008-2009)

Talking Heads (2007-2008)

Joe Egg (2006-2007)

The Old Lady Shows Her Medals (2005-2006)

Misalliance (2004-2005)

Kimberly Akimbo (2004-2005)

Hay Fever (2004-2005)

84, Charing Cross Road (2003-2004)

Under Milk Wood (2002-2003)

Heartbreak House (2001-2002)

Present Laughter (2001-2002)

Ancestral Voices (2001-2002)

Medea (2001-2002)

Back to Methuselah (2000-2001)

Filumena – A Marriage Italian Style (2000-2001)

Pygmalion (1999-2000)

The Winter’s Tale (1999-2000)

The Gin Game (1999-2000)

Mrs. Warren’s Profession (1998-1999)

A Chronology of Ruth Schudson’s Appearances with Milwaukee Chamber Theatre

Madame de Sade (1998-1999)

Too True to be Good (1997-1998)

Angels in America, Part II: Perestroika (1997-1998)

The Trip to Bountiful (1996-1997)

Love Letters (1995-1996)

Androcles and the Lion (1995-1996)

Arms and the Man (1995-1996)

A Perfect Ganesh (1994-1995)

Dear Master (1994-1995)

Lost in Yonkers (1994-1995)

Caesar and Cleopatra (1993-1994)

Charley’s Aunt (1993-1994)

The School for Scandal (1993-1994)

The Millionairess (1992-1993)

Timon of Athens (1992-1993)

Lettice and Lovage (1992-1993)

Farfetched Fables (1991-1992)

Misalliance (1991-1992)

The Lady’s Not for Burning (1991-1992)

CHRONOLOGY

84 Charing Cross Road (2004)

The Trip to Bountiful (1996)


CHRONOLOGY


The Doctor’s Dilemma (1990-1991)

Saint Joan (1990-1991)

Arsenic and Old Lace (1990-1991)

The Cocktail Hour (1990-1991)

The Inca of Perusalem (1989-1990)

Heartbreak House (1989-1990)

The Road to Mecca (1989-1990)

O’Flaherty V.C./The Admirable Bashville (1988-1989)

John Bull’s Other Island (1988-1989)

The Immigrant (1988-1989)

Murder in the Cathedral (1988-1989)

Memoir (1988-1989)

Major Barbara (1988-1989)

Faith Healer (1988-1989)

Clarence (1987-1988)

Gertrude Stein and a Companion (1986-1987)

Dear Liar (1986-1987)

Man and Superman (1986-1987)

Ghosts (1986-1987)

Suite in Two Keys: Come into the Garden A Song at Twilight (1986-1987)

You Never Can Tell (1984-1985)

Arms and the Man (1984-1985)

Lettice and Lovage (1992-93)




The Dining Room (1983-1984)

Don Juan in Hell (1982-1983)

Dear Liar (1982-1983)


Dear Liar (1978)

Don Juan in Hell (1975)



Ruth interview continued from page 5.

resident acting company, then moved downtown to the Todd Wehr Theater at the Performing Arts Center. That’s where you saw OUR TOWN.

Peters: And during that run you met your fate!

Schudson: Yes.

Peters: Monty Davis had come to Milwaukee with a Princeton BA to work at the Skylight and Rep. He told me your Mrs. Gibbs bowled him over: your clear, warm speaking voice, your intelligence with the text.

Schudson: I don’t know about that, but one night he cornered me backstage and said, “I want to do Shaw’s DON JUAN IN HELL. Will you do it with me?” I said, “Sure.” We started with two boards and a passion-- one performance on Father’s Day 1975 at Vogel Hall. Then one day over scrambled eggs at the Oakland Cafe, he asked, “Do you know DEAR LIAR?”“Yes.”“Let’s do it.”

Peters: And Milwaukee Chamber Theatre was born.

Schudson: I’ve acted with other companies--Princeton’s McCarter Theatre, Melody Top, Penninsula Players, Madison Rep, Next Act and Skylight among them. But yes, Milwaukee Chamber Theatre was home. Judy Martel, the Chamber’s production stage manager, recently sent me a “Happy Birthday, Ruth: 68 plays and counting.” DRIVING MISS DAISY will be my sixty-ninth Chamber performance.

Peters: Of those sixty-eight, I’ve missed only CAESAR AND CLEOPATRA and JOE EGG. Call me a fan. I’m curious to know, though, which roles have been favorites.

Schudson: Many. For MCT, in no particular order: Mrs. Warren, Mrs. Higgins (PYGMALION), Helene Hanff (84, CHARING CROSS ROAD), Carrie Watts (THE TRIP TO BOUNTIFUL), Grace (FAITH HEALER), Mrs. Dowey (THE OLD LADY SHOWS HER MEDALS), Mrs. Alving (GHOSTS).

Mrs. Warren’s Profession (1999)

Ruthie & Monty



Peters: That’s seven from a long career. Others?

Schudson: Plays done at Alverno College, when I was young. THE TROJAN WOMEN, LONG DAY’S JOURNEY INTO NIGHT, SKIN OF OUR TEETH, and KING LEAR with Morris Carnovsky. Skylight performances: A LITTLE NIGHT MUSIC, OKLAHOMA, FIDDLER ON THE ROOF, MY FAIR LADY. At the Milwaukee Rep OUR TOWN and DEATH OF A SALESMAN. Jeffrey Hatcher’s THREE VIEWINGS and MURDERERS, which I did for Next Act. Hatcher has a way with words. And, like playing Helene Hanff, I could slip on the role of Virginia in THREE VIEWINGS like a favorite sweater. I knew these women and loved spending all that time with them.

Peters: Some omissions surprise me. How can DEAR LIAR not have been a favorite? That’s when I fell in love with you and Monty! Or ROAD TO MECCA?

Schudson: I loved working with Flora Coker in ROAD TO MECCA. I’d go to Theater X plays to see her and get my honesty fix.

I must ask Flora about acting with Ruth.

Coker: “It was new for me to leave the bosom of Theater X, but nobody could possibly have been more welcoming than Ruth and Monty. Yet everything was hard for me, and the director, Maggie Thatcher, practically had to come onstage and do the role for me! We made it in the end, thanks to Ruth. She was calm and easy and so smart. There is everything to learn from her.

Peters: That I believe. But, Ruth, I want to ask about the parts that got away. What roles would you have loved to play?

Schudson: Miss Moffat in Emlyn Williams’ THE CORN IS GREEN. Olga in THREE SISTERS. Nina in THE SEAGULL. Especially Helen Hayes’s great role in VICTORIA REGINA.

Peters: Miss Moffat and Queen Victoria were made for you. Ethel Barrymore played Miss Moffat on Broadway. Watching Bette Davis in the film, one critic said: “There was just a huge hole where Ethel Barrymore should have been.” Never would he have said that of you.

The Road To Mecca (1990)



But Ruth still waxes eloquent about Colin Firth. She is not a self-advertiser. I must go elsewhere.

Richard Halverson: I first met Ruth when we played together in THE MIRACLE at the Milwaukee Rep in 1988. We next acted together in THE SCHOOL FOR SCANDAL that inaugurated the Chamber’s new Broadway Theatre Center home. What struck me about Ruth’s acting was that when I was holding forth as Sir Peter she turned her complete focus on me, never going out of character but giving me all her attention. Wonderful, I thought--but does this get across to the folks in the balcony? When I finally watched her in another play from the audience, I saw it did. She was playing to the speaker onstage but telegraphing her reactions to everybody in the house. And she does this without ever overacting but by being crystal clear in her diction and her characterization. And she always seems to have such fun!

Peters: Except in Madame de Sade, perhaps.

But I want to ask Angela Iannone about acting with Ruth.

Ianonne: We began rehearsing MEDEA the week after September 11 and we were all grieving--as the nation was. Ruth was playing the Nurse who opens the play, sets the tone, then almost never leaves the stage. As Medea, I knew that whenever I turned to her or caught her eye, she would be there. She was completely generous with me. Her announcement and description of the death of Jason’s intended bride was a masterwork. In THE OLD LADY SHOWS HER MEDALS, Ruth’s work with Marcus Truschinski as Kenneth Dowey took us all to school. Audiences love her. There is a palpable lifting of feeling when she comes onstage.

I ask Jonathan Smoots about acting with Ruthie (we are becoming familiar). After all, they appeared together in the Chamber’s THE LADY’S NOT FOR BURNING, MISALLIANCE, HEARTBREAK HOUSE, MRS. WARREN’S PROFESSION and MAJOR BARBARA.

Smoots: I also directed Ruth in DEAR MASTER, with Monty Davis as Flaubert and Ruth as George Sand. Ruth was on top of everything, took direction as though she’d never acted before. She is ego-less, like a sponge. Monty was slow, but Ruth was eager: “Tell me how to do this!” She is so solid, so present, everything you want in an acting partner. You always know she is capable of saving you.

But--leaving Ruth to sip water at our lunch while the waitress presses dessert--I turn to a veteran who--as Schudson says, “Knows where all the bodies are buried.”

Judy Martel: If Monty was the soul of the company, then Ruth has been the heart. They founded MCT in 1975, with a shared passion for the great language of the theater. I met Ruth in 1985 when I did my first MCT show, Noël Coward’s SUITE IN TWO KEYS. Ruth played two roles and found one particularly annoying. Monty told her she had to find a way to love the character. Ruth said, “No, I don’t.”



Peters: Ruth is always cited as the spirit of cooperation. Then why did Monty call her Dame Ruthie and why do I call her La Schudson?

Martel: Ruth is the antithesis of a diva, but she knows how to quietly make her needs known. One time, when the dressing room area was a mess, she asked for a broom so she could tidy up. Needless to say, the dressing room was cleaned! During rehearsals of LOST IN YONKERS, Monty was obsessed with finding the right arm chair for Ruth, who would spend much of the play sitting in it. Every day a new chair arrived and was rejected. The day before opening a chair appeared that Monty pronounced perfect. Ruth sat in it and pointed out to him that her feet didn’t touch the floor. He reluctantly conceded. And twenty-six years later, she is happy to remind me of a performance when I was late ringing the phone.

Peters: As I said, La Schudson.

Smoots: Yet you could tease Ruth. There were always “short jokes” with Ruth, especially when she got her new knees.

Peters: She calls herself “vertically challenged.” Monty told her he couldn’t cast her in THREE TALL WOMEN because of all the references to height--even though Ruth suggested low furniture and doorknobs. When her knees were at their worst, I rented us a B&B in Niagara-on-the-Lake for the Shaw Festival and was horrified to discover that both our rooms were at the top of a steep staircase. Ruth took each step as a mental challenge. She made it to her bedroom, a tiny room under the eaves. When her head brushed the sloping ceiling she said, “Finally I feel tall.”

Our waitress is hovering, she wants to quit for the day.

Peters: What else?

Schudson: Just that in these last years I feel as though I’ve won the Trifecta. Playing in WELL with Angela Iannone, Laura Gordon directing. The marvelous time I had making Mary Sweeney’s film Baraboo. And then Jeffrey Hatcher’s delicious MURDERERS at Next Act. Now DRIVING MISS DAISY. I feel very, very lucky.

Well (2008) Pygmalion (2000)

Program compliments of

mct-tribute

Documents

molly rhode

ruth schudsonconceived

ruth schudsonpeters

im interviewing ruth

biography bernard shaw

tribute entertainment3

george webbs

mothers voice