My first professional theatre job was Lighting Director at the Starlight Theater in Kansas City, Missouri, which billed itself as the "second largest theatre in the United States," with some 8,000 seats and lawn seating for some 6,000 more. We performed seven nights a week, with dress rehearsals begriming at midnight on Saturdays, and playing a new Broadway musical each week for ten weeks. This was my first experience meeting and working with professional performers and celebrated individuals, and I have been fortunate to meet others over the years.

Senator and Mrs. John F. Kennedy strolled past the Georgetown University Mask and Bauble Offices one Sunday afternoon and stopped to say hello when students rushed out to greet them. Mrs. Kennedy remembered this occasion, and when the Kennedys moved to The White House, I received a call inviting us to provide lighting and technical support for East Room performances, which we did throughout the Kennedy and Johnson administrations. Of course, many notables were in every audience. Subsequently, as President of the National Theatre, I met other celebrities. However fleeting, encounters with the famous are fun and memorable, but I never really thought much about asking for autographs or photo ops. I recall happily some of the notables I encountered -- now living and dead -- here.

Pearl Bailey - 1918 – 1990
I first saw "Pearly Mae" in vaudeville at the Lincoln Theatre in Washington. The theatre had fallen on hard times and Miss Bailey caught her heel in a crack in the stage floor. Of course she responded with a wilting ad-lib about the management. I wrote a fan letter and months later received a hand-written response on pale blue stationery. I met her later when she played the National Theatre in Hello, Dolly! and saw her often on the Georgetown University campus when she came to take classes while I was teaching there. Sassy, classy, talented lady.
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Theodore Bikel - 1924
Tamara Brooks - 1941-2012
I had the pleasure of playing a major role onstage with Mr. Bikel in a reading of Tennessee Williams Ten Blocks on the Camino Real. We performed in Georgetown's elegant old Gaston Hall in 2011, with a large cast of students, alumni and local actors, directed by Professor Derek A. Goldman. We all had a marvelous experience with the gentlemanly Mr. B., and his engaging wife, conductor Tamara Brooks, who also participated in the production, creating a variety of grand sound effects. Tamara was an advocate for victims of childhood violence.
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Alyson Cambridge
The opera singer grew up two doors away from me in Arlington, Virginia. I once succeeded in getting her to sing for the guests at a neighborhood party. It was an amazing pleasure to watch her ascend to appearances at major opera houses all over the world. In 2012 the Chicago Lyric Opera hung a 5-story poster of Alyson on the outside of its building. She's come a long way from Arlington.
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Julia Cameron - 1948
The author of many inspirational books, and developer of "The Artist's Way," a guide to increased creativity, Julia is a prolific writer and a spiritual, motivational guide to many people. I directed her as a dancer in an original musical when she was a student at Georgetown. She was bright, charming and easy to work with.
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Carol Channing - 1921
The indomitable "Dolly" performed at the National Theatre on a number of occasions. I once accompanied her to the Washington Press Club where she made a delightful speech. We have maintained personal contact over the years. Carol is a Larger-than-Life Force and a truly gracious, giving and generous person.
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Bill Clinton - 1946
I met President Clinton when he came to a performance of Grease at the National Theatre and came backstage to meet Rosie O'Donnell and the cast. He certainly has an open and electric personality and seems genuinely pleased to meet people. His exuberance is infectious.

Dame Edna Everage (Barry Humphries)- 1934
When an after-performance party was arranged in the National Theatre Helen Hayes Gallery, Dame Edna came in the charming person of Mr. Barry Humphries, an elegant Australian gentleman in three-piece suit with a gold watch chain on his vest. Mr. Humphries was just as charming and just as quick-witted, although not quite as acerbic as his grand, quick-witted, tart-tongued, violet-haired alter-ego, Dame Edna Everage.

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Placido Domingo - 1941
When I was president of the National Theatre and Mr. Domingo was heading the Washington Opera, he came one day to inspect the National as a possible venue for chamber opera. He was all business, accompanied by a party of some half-dozen people, and was disappointingly brisk and moody rather than gracious.

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Catherine Doucet - 1875-1958
Miss Doucet was a stage and film actress who appeared in the summer of 1954 at Olney Theatre, where I was working as a stage technician. We ate in a communal dining room where she enjoyed shocking the summer interns by eating the shells of her soft-boiled eggs each morning, declaring them a healthful source of calcium. She was a vivacious, impressive presence.
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Jim Henson - 1936 - 1990
The creator of the Muppets was a recent college graduate when I worked for a summer as a Floor Manager at NBC-TV Channel 4 in Washington. He did solo live commercials on a table-top set for a local dairy, with cartons of milk and his puppet moppets. He was genial and accommodating, and we hurried him out of the way for the upcoming live News Show, when we should have been offering to work for him! Nice man, whose grand Muppet characters live on.
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Sally Ann Howes - 1930
The delightful British actress, born into a London theatrical family, appeared in many film roles in childhood, and eventually followed Julie Andrews on Broadway in the original My Fair Lady, and played Eliza in many other productions of the musical. She won a Tony Award on for Brigadoon on Broadway, and she repeated that role on television. Her long career included many other stage appearances and films including Chitty Chitty Bang Bang and Anna Karennina. I met her at a party given by the Patrick Flynns, Senior and Junior, in Florida, 2012.
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Michael Jackson - 1958-2009
I attended one of Mr. Jackson's early concerts and remember little about it except the massive crowd between us and the singer, who was barely discernable in the far distance. Some years later, hearing in the lobby of the Hale Koa hotel in Hawaii that he was about to arrive at the Hilton next door, I went over for a closer look. There were few people around as the singer emerged from his limousine surounded by security guards. Michael waved, and swiftly disappeared into the hotel.
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Lyndon Johnson and Claudia "Lady Bird" Johnson
1908-1973 1912-2007
Most remarkably, I remember a day we were at the White House setting up lighting all day. In the afternoon I heard the President speak out on the South Lawn to a large number of political supporters. He wore a cowboy hat and boots, and spoke in a very folksy down-home drawl. That evening in the East Room, he wore black tie, and spoke with very elegant distinction. Lady Bird was always graceful and dignified, and Lynda Bird vociferous. Lucy was studying at Georgetown at this time.
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Cherry Jones - 1956
When she came to the National Theatre starring as the stern nun in Doubt, our mutual friend, Julia Pomeroy, asked Ms. Jones if she would host a small reception for our intimate National Theatre Circle. She responded, "I will be there, and I shall shake every hand!" Which, true to her word, she did, with great warmth and elan: She is stunning onstage and charming off.
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Rachel Maddow - 1973
Having spent many of my adult weekday nights in rehearsals at Georgetown, The American Light Opera Company, or Chestnut Lodge Hospital, and many of my weekend nights either going to theatre, partying, or otherwise enjoying myself, I can honestly say that I never, ever, watched a television series with any consistency... that is until Rachel came along. Now I'm tuned in five nights a week. I encountered her briefly at a fundraising dinner, just long enough to give her a compliment and a hug. She was most gracious.
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David Murphy
My nephew, David, has had a long and successful career as a newscaster and weatherman on ABC Channel 6 in Philadelphia. He played the lead in a grade-school production of You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown and then appeared as a child on television commercials and soap operas. He next acted at Arena Stage in Washington, and toured with Theodore Bikel in Fiddler on the Roof.
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The Two Michaels: Eisner 1942
and Ovits 1946
We met in the lobby of the Kennedy Center at the Washington opening of Beauty and the Beast. I was the guest of Mr. Eisner, CEO of Disney, and his lovely wife, Jane. Their son, Breck, was my student at Georgetown at the time. The Eisners were very warm and gracious. Michael Ovits, then Disney President, seemed rather distracted, and was only interested in how one of the magic tricks in the show worked. Mirrors, Michael.
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Cathy Rigby - 1952
America's Peter Pan, Ms. Rigby has played the leading role in the musical thousands of times, certainly a record that would be very, very hard to beat. The musical demands not only singing and acting, but being adept at acrobatics and high-wire-flying, in which a misstep could cause a sprained ankle -- or a broken back. She is a real trouper, and, in person -- after an exhausting performance in Branson, Missouri, 2010, -- relaxed, energetic, completely charming and, uh, well, down-to-earth.
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Chita Rivera - 1933
Ms. Rivera kindly agreed to be the guest of honor at a National Theatre Donor Thank You dinner some years ago. It was my pleasure to "collect her" at the train station upon her arrival from New York. She is as delightful and sharp in person as in public persona, and it was a pleasure to talk with her. She, of course, charmed everyone at the dinner.
Talent + Substance.

Inga Rundvold - 1920-2004
The first summer that I spent in Washington, DC, in 1954, I had a job as a floor manager for WRC-TV, Channel 4. Each Friday we had a program called Inga's Angle. Our glamorous star was the wife of a Washington diplomat. Occasionally, she "cooked," actually putting together a cake or pie prepared for her. She sometimes arrived late and was frantic to be instructed in what she was to do with "her" cooking. On camera, whe was composed and convincing.

Thomas Schumacher -
Tom is the President of the Disney Theatrical Group, responsible for the presentation of Disney productions on Broadway. My friend, Ron Logan, was the head of Disney World in Florida, when he convinced Michael Eisner to send the theme park Beauty and the Beast to Broadway. Since then Tom has brought The Lion King, The Little Mermaid, Mary Poppins and other shows to Broadway, to London and to Europe, and sent them on American tours.
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Norma Terris - 2004-1989
Miss Terris originated the role of Magnolia in Showboat at the National Theatre in 1927. When I was directing the show for The American Light Opera Company in 1961, I invited her to come from her home in Connecticut to one of our performances. She arrived on the train, elegant, all in black, alone, and veiled. she reminisced about the original production. Climbing atop a piano at a cast party after the show, she did a devastating impersonation of an inebriated Helen Morgan (who had created the role of Julie) singing "Bill" from the show.
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