Forever Plaid, 20th Anniversary Special Performance, Thurs., July 9; Red Carpet Event, 4 pm; Live Stage Show, 6:30 pm. Tickets: $50 (general); $175 (VIP premiere) available at TicketMaster.com. Club Nokia, 800 W. Olympic Blvd., Los Angeles. For further information, go to foreverplaid.com
The long-awaited film version of creator/director Stuart Ross’ musical Forever Plaid premieres July 9 on over 375 screens nationwide. However, Los Angeles fans will receive a special bonus with a live performance from The Plaids at Club Nokia, after the 5 pm screening. Three of the original cast members, Stan Chandler (Jinx), David Engel (Smudge) and Larry Raben (Sparky), are in the film version along with Daniel Reichard as the fourth Plaid (Frankie). The stage show will feature Broadway legend Carol Channing who will sing with The Plaids and create a four-part harmony version of “Diamonds Are a Girl’s Best Friend” 60 years after she first performed the song in 1949.
Stan Chandler - Jinx
When Ross began rehearsals for Forever Plaid in 1989, there were six actors playing the roles. Chandler remembers, “Stuart called me and said, ‘Hey, I have this project. I don’t really know where it’s going, we don’t have a venue and there’s no money. Are you interested?’ Well, being the self-respecting actor I am, I said, ‘Sure!’ We rehearsed the show in my New York apartment, using the windows as mirrors because they were reflective at night. There really was no money to rent a rehearsal studio. In October, we started performing one or two shows a week at Steve McGraw’s on Manhattan’s Upper West Side, not knowing what we had or how it would go over. We opened officially in May of 1990, and the rest is history.”
David Engle - Smudge
Engel recalls, “For the first 10 years of my career, I was strictly a dancer. I had just finished the run of La Cage aux Folles on Broadway and was in Philadelphia doing a Broadway tryout of another show. The dance arranger on the show was the brilliant James Raitt. He noticed in the choral singing that I had these low bass notes. He told me I had to meet his friend Stuart Ross. He was collaborating with him on a project called The Plaidtones. I met him but he didn’t think I was ‘character’ enough and they went about finding another bass. After not finding anyone they liked, James pushed for me again, so Stuart stuck a pair of horned-rim glasses on me and I was in. The show morphed and changed every week and we started attracting an audience. We found a producer and in the spring on 1990, we officially opened off-Broadway and the show really took off. None of us had any idea it would be such a sensation and become the highest grossing off-Broadway show ever. After 20 years it is the most produced show in theaters across the country.”
Larry Raben - Sparky
Raben says, “I had worked with Stuart on an earlier show and when he started to workshop Forever Plaid in New York he called and said he would like me to be a part of it. He was self-producing it on his credit card and none of us were paid. He and arranger/musical director James Raitt had culled six of us and we started rehearsing. The show had been presented in earlier incarnations in Rochester, New York and Teaneck, New Jersey and the idea was great but something about it didn’t work. Because we shared the stage of Steve McGraw’s, we couldn’t have a set so Stuart decided to present the show as a concert happening in modern time. It was the missing ingredient. The show was first presented Oct. 17, 1989. All six of us rotated performances as we all had other shows at the time. We donated all of the proceeds to Broadway Cares/Equity Fights AIDS. The workshop continued from October until May of 1990 with Guy Stroman, Stan Chandler, David Engel and me doing the bulk of the performances. The show officially opened Off-Broadway in May of 1990. I understudied Jason Graae (who had done the Teaneck production) and David (who did it in Rochester) when it first opened. I replaced Jason shortly into the run. Guy, Stan, David and I performed it in New York, Los Angeles and London over the course of the next four years.”
Daniel Reichard - Frankie
Reichard says, “About six years ago, I was doing a musical called Radiant Baby about the life of Keith Haring, written by Stuart Ross. At the time he said, you really should do Plaid one day. He even invited me to do Plaid Tidings, which I wasn’t available for. Cut to last spring and I was at the gym when Stuart called me and said, ‘We’re gonna do the Plaid movie. Would you like to play Frankie?’ I responded, ‘Uh…YES!’ Then I began the journey of teaching myself the show from a video of the LA production. I would stand in my hotel room with a mirror across from the TV and figure out what my character was doing throughout the show. Let me tell you, there are a lot of details. It was overwhelming at times but once David, Stan, Larry, Stuart and I started working, it made a lot more sense. They were absolutely incredible in the process of teaching me the show. We basically rehearsed for a week total.”
For those uninitiated with the Plaids, the revue centers on four young, eager male singers killed in a car crash in the 1950s on the way to their first big concert. Now, they are miraculously revived for the posthumous chance to fulfill their dreams and perform the show that never was. The musical has amassed loyal followers from around the world. “Plaid Heads” (a term coined by Jay Leno) have seen the show upwards of 700 times.
LA Stage asked the original cast members to recall a particularly funny but unexpected moment that happened during performance:
SC: Once at the Old Globe Theatre in San Diego, we had just finished our rousing 11 o’clock number, “Shangri-La/Rags to Riches.” Huge finale, Plaid chaser lights, the whole magilla. Once the thunderous applause died down, one elderly, gravel-voiced, female audience member decided it was time for us to take requests. So in the deafening silence, a lone Harvey Fierstein/Bea Arthur-like voice called out, “I’ve Got You Under My Skin.” Needless to say, we weren’t in any position to take requests but we all had a hard time keeping straight faces.
DE: I think the funniest moments that ever happen during live performances of Forever Plaid always seem to involve the audience volunteer. When we first brought the show to Beverly Hills from New York, I was at the beach every day spending most of the time in the water body surfing. I would often get tossed and tumbled in the waves; sea water would get forced up into my sinuses and get trapped. Later in the day or evening, my sinuses would find the most inopportune time to release the trapped water and just come gushing out. You can see where this is going… At the end of the “Heart & Soul” section of the show, we would present the volunteer with “The Plaid Book of Life” to sign and to pass around to the rest of the audience to sign. Well, just as I am asking her to autograph the page, my sinuses gave way and released all over the book. I couldn’t explain it away and just followed it up with “and please pass this around to the rest of the audience so that they can sign it as well”. Obviously the book came back to us that night unsigned!
LR: When we were doing our long sit down run at the Canon in Beverly Hills, a rather attractive but inebriated young lady in a tube top was pulled up to play “Heart and Soul.” Near the end of the song as we danced with her, the choreography had us lift her arms high and to the sides. She had a “wardrobe malfunction.” All of us, including the lady on stage, were completely unaware of what was happening until we heard the roar of laughter from the audience. She showed all of us her heart and soul and then some.
DR: Larry, David and Stan are truly the authorities on this show. We joke that it is in their DNA now. When we were in front of the audience for the film, when it was their two thousandth or so performance of Plaid, it was my first, and I was as truly terrified as the character of Frankie is! Life imitating art, I guess.
LAS: Did you ever dream you would be doing this show 20 years later? What is different for you this time around?
SC: No, I never imagined I’d be filming a movie version 20 years later. I never assumed I’d be able to hit the high notes 20 years later! What’s most different for me this time around is that I’ve got a beautiful wife and two young sons watching me and cheering me on. It means a lot to me that my little boys will be able to show this movie to their children and their children’s children.
DE: Not is my wildest dreams could I have imagined we would still be doing it 20 years later. Although I feel no different on the inside, I am definitely 20 years older. It is a little tough acting all gosh-and-golly when I am obviously not in my 20s. I am so used to seeing myself in pictures from Plaid all fresh, young and dewy. The first day of shooting, they kept letting us watch playback. I finally had to turn away from the monitor and stop looking. I know the audience isn’t going to be as critical as I am…I hope. If you just commit to your performance, the audience just buys what they are given, and people just looked older in the late ’50s, early ’60s. That’s what I am telling myself anyway!
LR: Never, although I’m thrilled to still be connected to it. It was life and career changing for me and to now have that experience and work preserved on film is a bigger dream than I ever imagined. With this film our performances are truly now, FOREVER Plaid. Plaid has always been a real brotherhood and all of the things I cherish most in my life have a direct connection back to Forever Plaid. This time is different because the camera comes to you, rather than your energy having to go to the back wall of the theatre. So often, theatre performances on film look too exaggerated. We filmed for seven days and then had one day with a live audience. It was an interesting challenge to find the right balance for the film and the live audience.
LAS: What else are you doing this year?
SC: Right now David, Larry and I are rehearsing The Andrews Brothers for Fullerton Civic Light Opera. It opens the day after the Plaid premiere. My wife and I do a two-person duet concert entitled “It Takes Two” which we are performing later this year at various venues. And then there’s the best part: spending quality time with my family!
DE: We have three productions lined up of The Andrews Brothers. Directly after, I fly to Boston to play Albin/ZaZa in La Cage aux Folles for Reagle Players. Jerry Herman recommended me and it is my favorite role. I come back and immediately head into another production of Andrews, then White Christmas for Cabrillo Music Theatre.
LR: In between The Andrews Brothers I’m going to The Lyric in Oklahoma City to do Leo Bloom in The Producers with an amazing cast: Lewis J. Stadlen, Lee Roy Reams and Sarah Cornell, all of which I did the show with on Broadway. I’m also a founding member of a new theatre company in Palm Springs, Coyote Stageworks, and I will be directing our first production, Greater Tuna, in September.
DR: I’m working on the development of two new shows. One is called The Happy Embalmer which I have been collaborating on with my childhood best friend for the past year. It will be done at the New York Musicals Festival this fall. It is ridiculous and outrageous, just like me.
LAS: Any last words?
DE: I am grateful we have put our performances down definitively on film. Most people who originate shows never get the chance to recreate them on film. It has been the defining marker in my life; everything I hold dear in my life I can track back to my involvement with it. Being a Plaid will always be a huge part of me. I’m sure this is not the last time I will strap on that plaid cummerbund.
LR: I’m excited that people will get to see a record of how underplayed the original show was and that it will inspire the right kind of stage productions and future Plaids.
DR: The audience takes such an emotional journey with these guys. Stuart has created such a beautiful theatrical piece and through it, Larry, David, Stan and the original Frankie Guy Stroman have made their mark in the theatre with their brilliant creations.
SC: I hope you enjoy the movie!
Feature image of The Plaids: Daniel Reichard, David Engel, Stan Chandler and Larry Raben. Courtesy of Forever Plaid Productions.
