Flicklives.com

1959

Look Charlie

On Monday February 2nd and 9th of 1959, "LOOK CHARLIE" played in Orpheum Theatre, at 126 2nd Avenue across the street from Ratner's Deli. - Admission: $3.60

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Thanks to Donald E. Doyle, M.D., F.A.C.S. for sending a copy of his original program and sharing the following memory: "At the end of the show, Jean walked down into the center aisle and invited everyone in the audience to join him for coffee. I remember Jules Feiffer was in the rear of the theatre. Shep said, "Jules, they don't believe me."

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Part of the cast was a band called The Red Onion Jazz Band - Frank Laidlaw was a member and writes:

I was a member of the Red Onion Jazz Band.. actually a quartet.. for these shows. We provided jazz music for Jean's monologues and accompanied Jean and Shel Silverstein in a number of songs, nose-flute and head banging (by Jean) features...also a Herb Gardner juggling act and Rita Gardner singing Bessie Smith's "Send Me to the 'Lectric Chair" while dressed in a little girl costume and carrying a parasol.

I think there were more than the two shows but am not entirely certain. I do know that all of the shows were recorded and that the engineer was David Jones who did work for Elektra and other labels.. and I would love to hear them after all these years. We recorded an album with Shel Silverstein for Elektra which developed as a result of this show.. the original was called "Hairy Jazz" with liner notes by Jean.. and a later release on an Elektra subsidiary was titled "Shel's Stag Party".

I loved working with Jean and have warm memories about the shows. Jean would vary the content of his dialog so it never got dull.. he only needed to bring us in on cue.. which he always did. This was essential because the four players were seated apart from each other and facing in different directions.. I wore a raincoat and the other guys wore different outfits. We were on stage the entire show but were barely visible until the spotlights hit us for the musical bits.