So, just who is Rosey the Reviewer?
I loved the theatre so much I decided not to aspire to be a professional actor. (I have, of course, become a real estate broker, and I’m open to the premise that performers in both fields have more than a few skills in common.)
By the time I graduated with a theatre degree in 1974, I knew I had talent. I also knew I wasn’t good enough. Not by my standards. Not to do justice to a craft I held as holy.
Why holy?
Growing up, my Dad, the original Rosey, was drama editor for the New York Post. For the sake of his son, he assigned himself to review children’s shows; we would see as many as four a weekend. (Though my memory is vague, I don’t believe he ever turned in a negative review.)
As soon as I was old enough—and probably long before—I became a Broadway and off-Broadway regular. With tickets free and a phone call away, I saw a lot. I still get chills remembering James Earl Jones in “The Great White Hope” and George C. Scott in “Death of a Salesman.” (Another memorable moment was seeing Mohammad Ali, after he’d been stripped of his heavyweight crown, parading down the aisle past me in a short-lived and forgettable musical “Buck White.”
And imagine what the dinner table conversation sounded like, with parents who never missed an opening. The debates were particularly hot, and ongoing, about the succession of actors playing Tevye in “Fiddler on the Roof.” Who was better, Herschel Bernardi or the original Zero Mostel?
So when I settled in Ashland, the home of the Oregon Shakespeare Festival, it felt like coming home. Of course, with the quality of the productions at OSF and the other companies here, am continually reminded why I didn’t aspire to become an actor. 
Loading ...
