"Annie"
Charles Strouse, Martin Charnin, Thomas Meehan
Umpqua Community College, 1988
I joined the cast of Umpqua Community College's annual summer musical about two weeks into rehearsals at the behest of my friend and neighbor, the late Steve Biethan.
I had moved to Roseburg, an ailing timber town in southern Oregon, the previous October to join the staff of the daily newspaper, the News-Review, and found myself playing timpani for a performance of Orff's "Carmina Burana" by the Vintage Singers, Steve's fine chamber choir, the following April.
Steve was musical director for the summer musical at the college, where he was a professor of music, so he brought me into the show. In short order, I found myself shoe-horned into six different roles: an Apple Peddler in the Hooverville scene, one of the butlers in Daddy Warbucks' household, a taxi driver and then a tuxedo'd dancer in "N.Y.C", Henry Morgenthau in FDR's cabinet, and Jimmy Johnson -- "radio's only masked announcer," on the Bert Healy show. Because the butler was a recurring character, I had to do something like eight costume changes.
Actually, there were elements of three different characters in Jimmy Johnson for that production. First, I was Jimmy Johnson in name and appearance; then, I also served as the sound effects man, clomping shoes on a table, holding up the "Applause" sign (I still have that prop), and so on; and finally, I leaped up to the mike and sang the radio show's theme song, "You're Never Fully Dressed Without a Smile," because the actor who played the star of the show, Bert Healy, wasn't really a singer.
That's my big moment at the mike in the photo at top, with Jerry Counsil hovering behind me as Healy, the character that normally sings the song in "Annie." At left is the Roosevelt's cabinet scene ("...you're only a day a-wayyyyy...") with Gerrard Cress as FDR and me at right as Assistant Secretary of the Treasury Henry Morgenthau.
Many years later, in the spring of 2008, a young fellow approached me at an audition in Portland and asked, "Are you David Loftus?" I had no idea who he was. Turned out his name was Ryan Duncan, and he had played one of the orphans in this 1988 production of "Annie" two decades before!
WHAT THEY SAID
"Many in the audience were whistling and cheering by the end of the first number. And even though the first nighters included a hefty segment of vociferous families and friends, you'd have to be mean as that witchy old Miss Hannigan not to love this 'Annie.' ...The adult chorus comes on strong and fine. What makes it especially good are some especially talented members who develop distinct characterizations in numerous tiny parts. Nancy Tarascio, Don Ross, Gail Brothers, David Loftus and Jerry Counsil are a kick." -- Linda Schnell, The Roseburg News-Review, July 29, 1988