Most of the time in the theatre, it’s all about good luck and timing. I was fortunate, at my very first audition, to meet a fellow actor who would permanently change my perspective; who would force me to think about why I was an actor and what I wanted to say. And even, in later years, when to call it quits (for a while g).

Let’s call him Harry. A wildly talented, hysterically funny, conflicted gay man, whom one reviewer described as “an emaciated Roger Daltrey.” He had a gorgeous Irish tenor singing voice, matchless comic timing, and an appealing vulnerability coupled with a singular vision and absolutely no fear.

Shortly after I worked with him in my first play, where “Huey” and “Louie” also made their debuts (and after I had endured a couple of mind-numbingly incompetent directors in the interim) I got a call from him. He had been reading a book called “Free Shakespeare,” and had an idea for an experimental theatre project. He would place in ad in the neighborhood paper to gather a group of actors, distribute the lines and cues ONLY of a Shakespeare play. They would be told to go home, learn the lines and the cues, with no idea what the play was or who was addressing them, and costume themselves only according to what they gleaned from their lines. Then, they would show up on opening night with no rehearsal whatsoever (or any discussion about it), and just...see what happened. There would be one performance only, because after that, of course, the spontaneity would be gone. There would be a person in the audience on book in case anyone forgot their lines, and importantly, NO DIRECTOR. Well. After my recent experiences, this sounded like just the ticket, and I signed on.

Interestingly, not everybody who answered Harry’s ad were actors. Some of them were just people who had always wanted to be on stage, and to them this simply looked like fun. At the first meeting, I was amused to see a fireman, an office manager, a manicurist, a wealthy heiress who lived nearby, and a janitor -- along with various and sundry actors of varying training and experience, including one guy who seemed to be talented but was so shy he couldn’t speak above a whisper. But they were all game. Harry then placed another ad advertising the production, making it clear upfront that this was merely an experiment and any audience member who didn’t like it would get their money (all 3 dollars of it) refunded. Enough people were intrigued by this idea to sell out the show.

Opening night was a revelation. Talk about being “in the moment!” Because all you got were the last five words or so of somebody’s speech, you had to listen very intently for your cue. And since you were experiencing all of this for the first time, your reactions were, to say the least, immediate and fresh. And the costumes! Somebody playing a steward showed up dressed as a wine steward or a flight attendant. A messenger might make his or her entrance in a Western Union uniform -- one arrived onstage on a bicycle. People took things very literally, with no preconceived notions.

The packed audience ate all of this up with a spoon, and needless to say, over the course of a year or so, almost all of Shakespeare’s plays were tackled in this manner, resulting in some very funny moments. In “A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” the woman playing Helena arrived in 1960s cheerleader uniform and did her whole “How happy some o’er other some can be” speech with pom-poms, to the accompaniment of a boombox playing Bobby Vinton’s “Mr. Lonely.” Harry himself, playing Pericles, interpreted the character’s being shipwrecked with nothing as meaning that he should make his entrance stark naked. And he did, much to the surprise of the squirt gun-wielding “fishermen” on stage with him. The woman playing Hippolyta sported a Wonder Woman costume.

We also did a half-hour version of Macbeth, illuminated only by flashlights held by the actors, resulting in some very interesting lighting effects...the witches held their flashlights under their chins through their green tee-shirts, creating a very creepy atmosphere. And all because we wanted to save on the electric bill. This was on a double-bill with a half-hour version of Hamlet, which turned into slapstick as Hamlet’s father’s ghost inhabited Hamlet’s left arm, which, despite Hamlet’s strenuous efforts to control it, kept trying to goose Gertrude. Horatio turned out to be an undercover TV reporter, and Polonius was killed with an imaginary chainsaw.

And then there was “environmental” Shakespeare out in the woods, with the audience chasing after us, armed with camp chairs, picnic lunches and bug spray. But that’s a story for another blog. g

The biggest laugh ever was when the actor (I think it was the fireman) muffed the final lines of Romeo and Juliet. Instead of saying:

For never was a story of more woe Than this of Juliet, and her Romeo. He said: For never was a story of more woe Than this of Romeo, and his...her...um...uh...JULIO!

We laughed about that one for years.

At the end of the year, Harry decided that we should do a 24-hour Shakespeare marathon, and bring back everyone (over a hundred people by then) to reprise their roles. I’ve never seen anything like it, and probably never will again. We charged a flat fee for the 24 hours, allowed the audience to bring in food and sleeping bags and come and go as they liked. We performed “Midsummer” twice -- once at the beginning and once, punch-drunk, at the end. During the marathon, several of the actors fell asleep, including, in one memorable instance, onstage in the middle of a speech! We raised a lot of money for Easter Seals, and people still talk about that marathon, through it was over 20 years ago.

That was pretty much it for the “free Shakespeare” concept, by the way. But it was fun while it lasted!

As for me, the whole experience re-ignited my enthusiasm for the theatre, as I got to play everything imaginable, several times over. The fireman went back to putting out fires. The heiress bought us all dinner...a lot. And the guy who couldn’t speak above a whisper? He’s had quite a nice career as a character/supporting actor on TV and in films.

And Harry? Well, he was a gay man in the early 1980s. And although I bet you’re expecting me to say that he died of AIDS, he didn’t -- he was one of the lucky ones. And so was I, for having met him.