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LEFT PAGE [[advertisement for cigarettes, attractive blonde, white woman holding a pack of Winstons]] Headline: I smoke for only one reason. I smoke because I enjoy it. I smoke Winston Super King. Super King's extra length gives me an extra smooth taste that's real. Real taste -- and real pleasure -- are what smoking's all about. Winston is for real. Warning: The Surgeon General Has Determined That Cigarette Smoking Is Dangerous to Your Health. 19 m.g. "tar", 1.3 m.g. nicotine av. per cigarette, FTC Report OCT. '74 RIGHT PAGE Headline: ONSTAGE VOICES offstage noises by Chris Chase A few years ago, I went down to the Theatre de Lys in Greenwich Village and auditioned for a part in a play called [italics]Jimmy Shine[end italics]. I remember the day, it was bright, hot summer, and actresses who already had work uptown kept arriving at the front doors in taxi cabs, while we unemployed ones who had all the time in the world, and had walked down Christopher Street and still got to the theatre too early, sat and watched the passing scene from wooden camp chairs set up in the lobby. I finally got inside, and had an argument with the men in charge. They wanted me to read for what I thought was a soppy ingenue, while I had my eye on the much more far out role of a Madam in a house of joy. Anyhow, nobody would let me read for the bawd, and they didn't hire me for the soppy ingenue either, and I walked on home again thinking that even though being turned down always hurts, it hurts a little less in the summer when you can say the hell with it, and go to the park. I've forgotten who directed [italics]Jimmy Shine[end italics], but Murray Schisgal had written it, Dustin Hoffman was starring in it, and Cleavon Little was playing Hoffman's sidekick. I don't know how things would have gone if I'd been part of the ensemble, but without me, [italics]Jimmy Shine[end italics] wasn't a really big hit. Afterwards, I lost track of the fellows -- Murray, Dusty, Cleavon -- and often wondered what became of 'em. Well, I've just found out. They've all got together again -- Mr. S. writing, Mr. H. directing, Mr. L. starring -- and have fielded this farce called [italics]All Over Town[end italics] which is causing audiences to fall down laughing. So I stopped in at the Booth the other day, and went to Cleavon Little's dressing room and explained to him that I was his old friend, and that he should be glad to take a little time out of his busy life as a matinee idol in order to discuss with me the nature of what makes people laugh. "Okay," said Cleavon, edging toward the door and thinking I couldn't tell he was looking for the stage doorman. Sternly, I pushed the door shut with my foot. "For instance," I said, "one of the things that makes [italics]me[end italics] laugh is you, in [italics]All Over Town[end italics]. You are this handsome black chap --" "I know that," said Cleavon, interrupting. And then he just seemed to give up. I took it as a tribute to my charisma, my star quality and my ability to hold an audience spellbound. He sank down on a little cot in the three-and-a-half by seven foot cell they call the star dressing room at the Booth (Mary Martin would [italics]not[end italics] have lived with it) and he stared at me. "You,"I repeated, "are this handsome black chap, and you come into this middle class liberal doctor's house, and all the [[Photo of Cleavon Little]] Photo caption: Cleavon Little, star of the hit comedy All Over Town, talks about what's funny... Photo credit: Frederic Ohringer members of the doctor's family mistake you for a welfare client who's impregnated five different women and fathered nine different babies, and they're so fascinated they can't do enough for you. And you go along with the gag (as Murray Schisgal gets down to work, merrily skewering everybody--social workers, welfare mothers, black sexual prowess, Yogis, Page number: 3
