Automatic standing Os – how could I not have gone off on that one? Here’s my all-time favorite. Another zillion years ago (see Burt Reynolds in Saturday’s blog), the theater now known as Great Lakes Theatre Festival in Cleveland was taking on two-parter “Nicholas Nickleby” – directed by Ed Stern, pre-Playhouse, how’s that for six degrees?
Anyway, after the dinner break on a nippy Cleveland day, the doyenne of all things social at morning daily The Plain Dealer stood to take off her coat. (She was seated in front of me, I was a witness.) The audience thought she was giving the show-to-come a standing O and within seconds there was a rolling standing O in the theater.
The crazy-good thing was it really got the crowd into the show from the very first moment.
Comments so far are great reading – keep ‘em coming!
Jackie Demaline
