April 2, 2011
New York
Blast From My Past!
Jose Quintero, a Panamanian, became known as one of the most important directors of American playwrights like Eugene O’Neil and Tennessee Williams. He also pretty much invented off-Broadway theater when he co-founded The Circle in the Square Theater in New York in 1951. He was largely responsible for the careers of Geraldine Page and Jason Robards, Jr.
He was also a colorful figure, with a lyrical, humanistic sensibility.
For some inexplicable reason, he agreed to teach a series of master classes at North Texas State University in 1978. Or, hell, it might have been early 1979. Actually, I imagine the reason he agreed to do it was the check cleared.
I was lucky enough to be a student at NTSU that year, and while I wasn’t a drama major, I was still exposed to this remarkable man.
On his last evening with us, everyone took him out for an evening of merriment. Near the end of the evening, we went up to a fellow student, who I’ll call, oh, let’s just call him Rick Higginbotham. Rick had mightily impressed Mr. Quintero with his rendition of Cyrano de Bergerac. The old master slipped a piece of paper with a phone number on it into Rick’s hand. “Call me when you’re ready, ” he whispered.
Well. As you can imagine, there was an electrical fire in poor Rick’s brain. This was every actor’s dream. For anyone who is foolish enough to aspire to work in the theater, one of the main obstacles is the simple fact that there doesn’t seem to be a direct and logical path to success, unlike most professions. You move to New York or Los Angeles, get some pictures, take some classes, stumble around town and try to get an audition. It really sucks, and it’s really intimidating.
But here was a famous director handing Rick his very own Golden Ticket! The heavens parted and the angels sang!
A few months later I auditioned for and was accepted to The American Academy of Dramatic Arts in New York. Perhaps not a Golden Ticket, but a Silver one, at least, or so I thought at the time. My father convinced of the soundness of my plan, I cancelled plans to do my junior year at the university and made my plans to move to New York.
The idea of moving to New York was scary, of course, but made a little bit less so because Rick Higginbotham announced that he and a friend of his were going with me. Well, fantastic! I’d start school while Rick got started on permitting Jose Quintero to turn him into the next Geraldine Page. Yay!
Of course, even at this point I considered Rick’s game plan a bit shaky. “So. What exactly are you going to do in New York?” I asked him, trying not to sound as dubious as I really felt.
Rick rolled his eyes at my foolish question. “I’m going to work in the theater.”
Yep. That was his whole plan. He was going to get off the plane, call the famous director, and on Monday begin rehearsals for some major Broadway production. As young and stupid as I was, this sounded a bit too much like a house of straw to me, but held my counsel.
We got to New York, found an apartment in this building:
I started school, and it was magical almost from the very first day, it was all almost unbearably exciting.
Rick called Mr. Quintero. Left a message.
I got my stupid, humiliating dance class stuff (a Texas boy, even a closeted gay Texas boy, does not naturally fit comfortably into a dance belt and tights).
Rick called Mr. Quintero again. Left another message.
I began to make friends. I started to enjoy my classes. Even movement class, thanks to the dynamic instructor, Liz Milwe.
Rick called Mr. Quintero again. Left multiple message. (I have no idea what his friend, whose name was Huckabee, was doing during this time.)
One night after three weeks, Rick and Huckabee sat me down back at the apartment. “This city sucks. We’re leaving.”
Poor Rick. He’d finally figured out what most of us knew but didn’t have the heart to tell him: That the scrap of paper with the phone number was not an actual invitation to come have a brilliant career, but simply a drunken gesture of a horny old man who’d been besotted by the charms of an intense young actor. Mr. Quintero had sobered up. He would not be returning Rick’s calls.
I, of course, freaked out. Being in New York with two friends helped tether me to the real world. Plus, I’d signed a lease! How would I pay the enormous ($600) rent myself? What if I couldn’t find new roommates? I vividly remember standing on the roof of the Brewster and looking south from 86th Street and Central Park West at the glittering, beautiful, yet forbidding city of my dreams. I felt truly alone.
I’m also not proud to report that my thought bubble when Rick told me the news of his departure was smug and self-righteous. “Wow, three weeks, that’s all your dream is worth?, ” I remember thinking.
Rick and Huck went home and I never heard from them, or even about them. Well, I might have heard that Rick became a radio DJ, which sounded like a good idea (he had a terrific voice for radio).
North Texas State University became The University of North Texas in 1988. Jose Quintero died in 1999. And while I have a very impressive Associates Degree of Occupational Studies from the American Academy of Dramatic Arts, I have never acquired a Bachelor’s Degree.
Looking back on it, I find I’m quite sympathetic to Rick and the mistake he made. Being young and full of dreams doesn’t do much for your default IQ. Plus I’m one to talk; I had my own mistaken illusions. I thought I was going to a swanky acting school, and while I did have some great teachers there, and make great friends, by the late 1970s the AADA was no longer a school whose reputation helped you get ahead in show business. Not like Julliard or Yale, or even for that matter SMU, which was just down the damn road a bit from where I was in college in the first place.
But at least I had more resilience than Rick, right?. I stayed in school and graduated. I did the struggling actor boogie for years. I moved to Los Angeles and did a commercial and walk-ons on soaps, and the odd play. After that, as everyone knows, my multifacetless career had an utter lack of any impact whatsoever on the world of theater in any way.
So you could argue that Rick was smarter, cutting his losses early and getting on with his life. I hope you have had a good one, Rick, wherever you are.
The last thing I remember Huck saying to me was a breezy, “You’ll be alright.” Which I thought was pretty callous of him at the time. But of course, he was right.
Notable Productions Directed by Jose Quintero
- Summer and Smoke (Tennessee Williams) starring Geraldine Page, 1952
- The Iceman Cometh (Eugene O’Neill) starring Jason Robards, 1956
- Long Day’s Journey Into Night (O’Neill), 1957
- Strange Interlude (O’Neill), 1963
