Audiences Across America Are Saying Hello to 'Say Goodnight Gracie' As It Takes to the Road by Joanne Johnson / Humor Editor T a l k i n g C o m e d y . c o m In his one-man-show Say Goodnight Gracie Rupert Holmes has written a great showcase for Frank Gorshin's extraordinary talents as both an impressionist and an actor. Allowing Gorshin to take the audience on a roller coaster ride of emotions -- one minute with tears of laughter rolling down their faces, the next tears of sorrow. Then back to laughter again and all so smoothly and so beautifully done. Say Goodnight Gracie has begun its tour across America after a year of success on the Great White Way. And comedy lovers, young and old, are getting the chance to see George Burns for one last grand performance. Well, all right, this isn't the real George Burns, but if you didn't know he was dead you'd swear he was right there in front of you. It all began five years ago when producer Bill Franzblau approached Rupert Holmes and asked if he was interested in writing a show for Broadway about the life of comedy legend George Burns. Rupert Holmes created The Mystery of Edwin Drood for Broadway in 1986, becoming the first individual in theatrical history to win Tony Awards simultaneously for book, music, and lyrics. But the Holmes' project that most convinced Franzblau that Holmes was the right man for the job was the series Holmes created and wrote for AMC, Remember WENN. Holmes recalls Bill Franzblau saying that he originally thought Holmes only did caustic humor. But after seeing his work on Remember WENN it was obvious that Holmes could do very gentle humor as well. Because the Remember WENN series was all about the golden age of radio, which was much of the time frame for Burns and Allen, the choice seemed a natural one to Franzblau. Once the decision was made to come on board as writer of the project Holmes began immersing himself in anything and everything having to do with George Burns. “I steeped myself in him for four months,” says Holmes of the research and preparation that always comes before the writing. “I immersed myself in George Burns… his writings, his radio shows, his TV shows, his memoirs … that's all I thought about, all I did, all I looked at.” Holmes did this until he began to talk like Burns. “I would find in conversations … it wasn't like I was doing Burn's voice," says Holmes, "but I was getting his rhythms.” So Holmes steeped himself in George Burns until he felt like he knew his rhythms… until he felt like he knew his story. “I so respected him by the time I began writing … I so respected his tenacity,” says Holmes of a comedian whom he says didn't really have a lot of justification for staying in the business for the first 15 years of his Vaudeville career. But if there wasn't a lot of justification for his aspirations in show business that didn't matter to George Burns, he loved what he was doing too much to care about how he was doing. “One of the reasons George Burns tells such great stories about his past is that he loved… he really loved being in the business,” says Holmes of Burns' enthusiasm for show business even during the days he was struggling to make ends meet. George Burns would relate stories about when he was first starting out … stories of how he would put makeup on the inside of his shirt collar so that people would think he'd just come from the stage. When Burns talked about his early days in Vaudeville he could real off all the acts he either worked with or was a part of… I was Sullivan of Ryan & Sullivan. I was Ryan of Sullivan & Ryan. I was… and on and on … “He just loved all those names, he loved saying those names, because, he loved being in the business,” says Holmes. Rupert Holmes recalls his own early days starting out in the music business… “Sometimes I was writing Gospel lead sheets, sometimes I was writing the Charlie Pride song folio and arranging it, sometimes I was doing a marching band arrangement for Frosty the Snowman, or the concert band version of selections from Hair. But I didn't wait a table. I didn't tend a bar. I just worked with words and music… and it was astounding. So I really related to so much of that with George Burns.” Energized by a new found kinship with Burns, Rupert Holmes set out to begin writing Burn's story for the stage. “I wrote a draft of his life. There were 100 years that I had to cover. And the first draft ran about 2 hours and 20 minutes,” realizing he had to cut a lot Holmes began the work of skimming off the fat without loosing any of the cream. “In some instances I had to create my own George Burns stories to cover things that would have needed ten stories to cover otherwise. I tried to find a way that one story would have all the flavors of those ten stories. So there are some stories that are inventions, but they're based on real stories. Since I couldn't give you all ten stories I had to create one that had all the pungency of all ten,” relates Holmes. By doing this Holmes was able to condense the 100 years of George Burns' life down into a 90 minute stage show. 100 years into 90 minutes -- an impossible task one might think! Yet Holmes does it and does it brilliantly. For the play, in the end, leaves the audience wanting more …yet simultaneously… leaves them with a real sense, a real satisfaction, that they've caught every important essence they needed to catch about this legendary comedian's life. “Midway through the process someone said Frank Gorshin would be great for this,” relates Holmes. “I didn't even know Frank did a George Burns. I'd never seen him do a George Burns.” But not long before Frank Gorshin had been hired to do a movie portraying George Burns as one of the principle characters. Although the film was never completed or released Gorshin trained himself to do a perfect impression of Burns and added it to his repertoire of celebrity impersonations. “I knew I needed an actor,” confides Holmes. “It wasn't going to be enough for me to get someone who simply does impressions… I needed an actor!” So Rupert Holmes went down to Atlantic City to see Frank Gorshin perform. During the evening's performance Gorshin did an impression of someone like Dean Martin. “Then…” says Holmes, “he turned his back to the audience, paused, and turned around again. He hadn't put on any props He hadn't put on the round owl glasses. He hadn't even taken out a cigar. He just stood there. And I heard three different people in the audience say… 'George Burns.' And he hadn't even uttered a word yet. And I thought to myself, oh, we have to have this man.” They sorted through a number of possibilities before deciding on doing it as a one-man show. “You know one-man shows are very hard to write. And I'm very thrilled that it got a Tony nomination for best play because most people don’t even think they're plays they think they're acts.” But when Holmes started writing he hadn't decided to make it a one-man show. “George did me a great favor in that I knew it was factually true that after Gracie died he would talk to her at the mausoleum as if he was having a conversation with her,” relates Holmes. “And although it was therapy for him I thought, well, I'm going to do that scene. I have to have a scene in this play where he's at the mausoleum talking to her… because that's such a strong moment.” Holmes realized he could use the same sort of approach for several scenes throughout the play and not just the mausoleum scene. “I just have to write scenes for George and Gracie. And George will talk to Gracie. We'll just have to imagine that Gracie's there. That was a big turn for me. At that point I realized it could be a one man show.” “And then I thought, around midway into the show, I want to take the audience to the Palace Theater and give them some Burns and Allen.” Holmes knew George Burns had invented the idea of doing a song that keeps getting interrupted by a series of jokes, a technique popular in the days of vaudeville. Holmes felt that by including this technique in a scene of the play he could not only highlight an entertainment technique that Burns and Allan created and made famous but also insert a production number into the show. “And you know what? … a soft shoe is always two people both doing exactly the same movements and moving in perfect sync. So, I thought… since we all know that whatever we see George doing Gracie would be doing as well, then I can have him dance a little soft shoe.” Holmes did a musical arrangement of Tea for Two and wrote some jokes to be inserted into the breaks in the song. At first Holmes wasn't sure what to do with the jokes he'd written. Wouldn't the audience have to hear the punch lines to appreciate the jokes. Then the answer came to him…“Well, you know what, we'll just hear Gracie's voice,” thought Holmes. “If I build… if we keep hearing George talking to Gracie. If she keeps getting more and more real, as the play goes on, I'll just have her say the lines. I'll have an actress (Didi Conn) who sounds like Gracie Allen say her lines and it won't seem so weird that suddenly we can hear her voice because we've been building toward this moment.” The play, Say Goodnight Gracie, is currently scheduled for a two-year tour across America but venues are being added continually to the tours' line up (visit www.SayGoodnightGracie.net for tour schedule). “My goal,” says Holmes with a chuckle, “is for Frank Gorshin to live longer than George Burns and to be doing this show eight times a week for the rest of his life. I don't know if he's on board with that yet. But I'm going to talk it through with him and we'll see if he falls in line with my plan.” For more on 'Say Goodnight Gracie' and when it will be coming to a theater near you visit www.SayGoodnightGracie.net and www.SayGoodnightGracie.net/theatre/theatre.htm Read our Book Section Interview about Rupert Holmes' novel 'Where the Truth Lies' www.TalkingComedy.com For more information on Rupert Holmes visit www.RupertHolmes.com Photo Credits: Photos Courtesy Peter Cromarty & Co. Production photos of Frank Gorshin by Carol Rosegg TalkingComedy.com features interviews with Comedians in Television, Movies and Standup. CLICK HERE to Return to the MAIN INDEX of TALKINGCOMEDY.com Web Design by... For questions or comments on this site, please contact the Webmaster