This is a weekly feature on BroadwayLiving.com. It’s
just like the game “Six Degrees of Kevin Bacon”. You
know how it goes…someone throws out an actor’s
name and you have to try to connect them to Kevin Bacon
in six steps or less.
I thought it might be fun to do
the same thing with the theater’s luminaries. I
will be trying to connect them to the longest running
show in Broadway
history, The Phantom of the Opera and its
very first “Phantom”, Michael Crawford.
Jim Dale celebrated a birthday
this week (August 15, 1935). At the age of 9 he started training for
a career in show business, and at the age of 17 he
became the youngest professional comedian in Great
Britain. By the time he was 22 he found himself
one of the first recording artists under the tutelage
of soon-to-be legendary Beatles producer Sir George
Martin. Then when he was 35 he joined the
British National Theatre as a leading actor at the
request of Laurence Olivier. At 38 he made his
Broadway debut in his own co-adaptation (with Frank
Dunlop) of Molière’s Scapino. At
45 he nabbed a Tony Award for his portrayal of P.T.
Barnum in the musical Barnum. Now at
72 he finds himself once again in the limelight.
These days most people know Jim
Dale as the voice(s) of the Harry Potter audiobooks. For his work
on the books he holds a record in the Guinness Book
of World Records for creating the most voices in an
audiobook. At last count he has created over
200 different voices for the series.
While not nearly as prolific on
the Broadway stage (or anywhere else for that matter),
he has nonetheless
enjoyed great success on the Great White Way. In
addition to the afore mentioned Scapino (1974)
and Barnum (1980) he has also appeared in
the revivals of A Day in the Death of Joe Egg (1985), Candide (1997), The
Threepenny Opera (2006) and as a replacement for
the role of Bill Snibson in Me and My Girl.
1) Jim Dale starred in Barnum with
Kelly Walters
2) Kelly Walters appeared in Grind with Ray Roderick
3) Ray Roderick did the ’96 revival
of A Funny Thing
Happened on the Way to the Forum with Cris Groenendaal
4) Cris Groenendaal was the original Monsieur André in Phantom
of the Opera with Michael Crawford
“Staying home, living day
by day
May be safe but it can’t be duller,
Seeing things only black and gray
When the world is alive with color,
Doing just what your neighbors do
May be wise but it ain’t so clever,
Ev’ry man has a dream or two
Let ‘em go and they’re gone forever.”
Phineas
Taylor Barnum in Barnum
So that’s the game. Join
me each week as I try to come up with new ways of
connecting Michael
Crawford to the entire theater community.
