Broadway Tails (21 page)

The morning of our first rehearsal, we loaded up the dogs in our huge truck in Brooklyn and headed for New York City. When we got there we were supposed to have a street parking permit, but none had come in. Then I discovered our dressing room hadn’t been built. With all the other technical issues, the crew hadn’t gotten to it. I was very annoyed. I had eight dogs in New York City for their first trip and I couldn’t unload them. I only had ten rehearsal days, and now I was going to lose one of those. I decided to leave. The dogs ended up spending four hours in the truck that day—they were a little jangled and very anxious to get back to their own apartment. After many calls to the office, I was promised the room would be ready for the next day.

When we arrived at noon, the stagehands were still plastering the walls and sweeping out the room—or perhaps “closet.” Knowing we had eight dogs, they had built a 10-by-8-foot room with a single door—96 square feet for eight dogs and three people. I took a deep breath and we moved everybody in, but before I did, I told them to build one large shelf in the back so we could put cages underneath and have a space on top to sit. The cramped space put everybody on edge, humans and dogs. The dogs started to pick fights with each other. We kept Barney the poodle up on the shelf for the whole run of the play just so he wouldn’t be trampled.

The cast and crew were naturally curious and would come to our door, but again the dogs would rush the door and then start fights to get people’s attention. So for the first time ever, I had to impose a new rule: No visitors until further notice. That upset many people, but the conditions dictated it. The only exception was Ken Kantor, who needed to bond with the dogs.

The technical part of the show was so difficult and they were so behind schedule, no time was given to the dogs beyond the five-minute breaks when the actors and crew stepped away. We would hear the break, and we would run the dogs up to see the stage, but we never had quality time to really train them. This became the final sticking point in my negotiations with the managers. If I didn’t get the time, I couldn’t guarantee a performance, and they wouldn’t guarantee the time. Four days after we arrived, we finally got to work onstage in the scene. We had the entire cast onstage, but the dogs were wound up like springs.

Fortunately, Ken Kantor had spent all his offstage time in our room. He’d come in, sit on the floor, and get smothered with hair and dog kisses. By only allowing Ken to come in, and Ken being so good with them, they bonded to him very quickly. But take eight friendly dogs and let them go on a stage full of actors, and they all went wild. The director actually loved it—but the issue to me was that the curtain, with a heavy lead pipe in the bottom, was coming down at the same moment to enclose them in an 8-foot space upstage. The director thought it would be funny if they ended up on the wrong side of the curtain, but I was concerned for their safety. I wanted them to stay with Ken
as he led them to an open pen waiting stage right.

We didn’t get back to that scene for another four days, and again, the dogs found Ken, but then they scattered and were almost hit by the curtain. By dress rehearsal, after only three tries, the dogs did it. I was amazed at their work together. However, there was a second part to the scene. The stage had a “runway” that curved around between the orchestra pit and the audience. They wanted the first dog out of the pack to enter along this runway. I picked Barney to do it because he didn’t like the other dogs and he had the most stage experience. But then the director said they wanted him to enter and exit downstage, close to the curtain. The set design had been altered from the London production, and my trainers were going to be upstage handling the other dogs. How could we be two places at once? Obviously, we couldn’t, but the director said that was our problem. The company managers said the stage managers would help out, but the stage managers weren’t pleased at all. Meanwhile, we had less than a week to teach Barney to do a difficult cross with perfect strangers. He learned it—but each time he failed, it could be traced back to the fact that he was being handled by people who didn’t know how or when to release him.

Our first public preview came, and three of the dogs got distracted by the audience and ended up on the wrong side of the stage, scared and confused. I was furious. Being underprepared meant the dogs were almost
injured, and I refused to put those three on until we got proper rehearsal. The managers insisted they were paying me for eight dogs. Continuing technical problems meant there was still no rehearsal time. As we got a chance to rehearse, we were able to get all the dogs back onstage. Again, that was basically because of Ken Kantor. He continued to volunteer to come in on his own time, even when the other actors weren’t there.

But there were many other problems with the show. The publicity department had done a great job—but American audiences didn’t really understand British humor. And the creative team resisted changing anything that had worked so well in London. I’ve always felt that
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
was to the British public what
The Wizard of Oz
is to Americans. It’s the familiar, beloved story they grew up with. While we here in America liked the 1968 film with Dick Van Dyke, we didn’t relate to it in the same way.

The dogs and I continued doing publicity for the show. I spoke with pride about the fact that our dogs were rescued. Opening night came and the reviews were mixed, with good notices for the stage effects, our brilliant actors, and even the dogs, but less enthusiasm for the story and the show overall.

For the most part, the dogs stayed on track. Ken had his clothes shredded by jumping dogs, and he had to start wearing gloves to protect his fingers from little nips. The dogs all had their quirks. Harriet and Patches, the beagle, were always on mark and did it right every night. Fred had to go out every hour to relieve himself. Lady, the King Charles spaniel, would sneak in between all the other dogs’ legs, grab the treats, and run. Argyle, the collie, just followed everybody around—until halfway through the run he was hit by the curtain, and after that he refused to go on, even though we kept trying. Bard just ran across the stage and wouldn’t stop. Sidney, the cocker, would follow the group and bark and nip at everyone’s heels.

Sidney never seemed interested in treats, and I really didn’t understand why. Then it became clear. One night, Patches bumped into Sidney, pointing him toward the orchestra pit. I happened to be in the audience, and I watched in horror as he ran full tilt, barking, and fell in the pit. While I knew we had protective netting there, the audience didn’t know that, and
there was a gasp. One of the actors scooped him out of the pit, he got applause, and he was fine. A trip to the vet the next day told us that he had severe cataracts in both eyes. When we got him, we knew he had a cataract in one, but the other one was brand new and fully formed. The vet said he was almost blind. I had a choice—I could retire him, or take him to one of the world’s best ophthalmologic vets at the Animal Medical Center in New York City. I pulled some strings and got him in. The surgery would cost $5,000, but it was the only hope of restoring Sidney’s eyesight.

I figured out that Sidney had learned to follow the smell and sound of the group, fooling us all. When he was outside, he was always on a leash, and in the apartment he memorized his pathways. We had already adopted a corgi named Dory to use as a backup, so we fast-tracked her into Sidney’s place. She was young and crazy and upset the pack for a while. Sidney had the surgery and recovered in forty-five days. He could see perfectly and was so happy. To see a dog rediscover the world is like seeing a puppy discover it. We finally got him to the point where he was ready to return to the show, and he came back with a renewed vigor, except for first night—when he went out it was as if he was seeing it for the first time. Then he got very angry he didn’t get any treats. The second night, he was still getting pushed away by all the other dogs, and he got really mad. By the third night, his sweet demeanor was gone. He had decided he hated this show and hated show business—he was starting fights with the other dogs backstage. I decided to find him a home with his expensive new eyesight.

I finally put Snickers, one of our cairn terriers who had played Toto, into the pack. After all the scenes in
The Wizard of Oz
, she loved this show—one cue, lots of treats, and then a nap. She thought it was heaven.

Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
closed after 285 performances. I had two months left on the apartment lease, and I finally sold the truck at a loss. The dogs had better luck. Our soundman, Scott, came down after every show to visit and play with the dogs. His much-loved pit bull had died, and he became very attached to Harriet. At the end of the run, he asked if he could take her. I was thrilled, except, I explained, Harriet had separation anxiety, and she was
bonded to Patches, the beagle. This pit bull from Queens and this beagle from upstate New York ate, played, and slept together. After a short hesitation, Scott and his wife took them both, and those two dogs now have the best lives.

Lady was having a secret love affair with an actor named Dirk. Dirk, his partner, and Lady send Christmas cards to us every year. Fred was adopted by a mystery writer and his wife on the Upper West Side. They really wanted to give a dog a loving home, and when they met Fred, they fell in love with him. Sidney the cocker spaniel went to a young woman who had left her strong-willed cocker at home when she went to college. Sidney reminded her of her old dog, and the two fell in love immediately. Herding Dog Rescue helped us find a home for Dory the corgi. She now lives with a retired couple from Ireland who had corgis all their lives. They live near us in Connecticut, and Dory stops by and visits regularly. Barney, Bard, and Snickers were ours to begin with, and they just came home.

That left one dog, Argyle, the collie. I felt he would never work with me again because of the way he had been frightened, and I felt guilty keeping a dog for myself who wouldn’t get the attention that the other working dogs did. I loved that breed so much. I called the rescue group and asked them to find him a home. The day I got the call that they would take Argyle, I went to the kitchen window and looked outside. I saw my seven-year-old daughter playing with him. She was pretending to be a dog trainer, and he was following her all around the yard. She was doing all the commands wrong, but Argyle didn’t care. She saw me watching her from the kitchen window and said, “Dad, come here. I trained Argyle.” She showed me how he heeled—basically, he followed her. She’d say
Sit
, and push his butt down, and he’d lick her face. She’d throw a ball and say
Fetch
. He’d run, get it, and bring it right back to her, and drop it at her feet. Then she said she wanted to show me his best trick. She told him to pick up the ball, and she led him to a bucket, tapped him on the back of the head, and said
Drop it
—and he did.

For a moment I wondered if this was what I was like with my collie, Rexie. The love that dog was showing Jenna was so sweet that I went in, called the rescue group, thanked them, and said, “He’s our collie now.”

In 1996 I was asked to train animals for my first Andrew Lloyd Webber show, a musical based on the British film,
Whistle Down the Wind
, reset in the American South. I had to train two bloodhounds to be handled by actors playing sheriffs as they were chasing criminals. I rescued one bloodhound named Cricket from Bloodhound Rescue of New York, and a bloodhound/coonhound mix named Whitney from a backyard breeder in Connecticut.

The show looked like a sure thing—even bad Andrew Lloyd Webber shows ran for a year. Unfortunately, there were many artistic differences between the creators that could not be resolved, and the show closed out of town. Cricket lived with us until she died of old age. I gave Whitney to my friend Dave. She was a sweet, outgoing dog. In the morning she would get on the local school bus with the kids and was a fixture in Dave’s town for years.

In the summer of 2005, I was in Seattle, Washington, setting up the thirtieth-anniversary tour of
Annie
. It was set to run for two years and open in New York in 2007. I find it hard to believe I’ve been lucky enough to be doing this for thirty years. That August, while we were setting up the show, Dorothy called me from home. Her friend Wendy, who had managed
La B
ê
te
, the show where Dorothy and I met, was representing a London transfer of a new Andrew Lloyd Webber show. It was called
The Woman in White
, a very dark musical based on a book by Wilkie Collins. It was doing well in London, and American producers were bringing it here to Broadway. Wendy said there were birds in cages, some mice, and a trained rat. She asked if I would set up the show but allow a production assistant to actually run it.

It was a tough decision, and Dorothy and I discussed it for some time. We were able to get a lot of information about how the animals were used in London—and some of the news was not good. The London trainer had six months to prepare; I would have six weeks. There were stories of birds escaping onstage on opening night and flying around the theater. There were even stories of mice dying because the dry-cleaning chemicals that were used in the costumes were too strong. Based on that information, I thought trying to train a production assistant, probably a college kid, to handle the animals was a bad idea. In the end, concern for the safety of the animals made us decide to go forward, because ignorance is the biggest form of cruelty. With very little enforcement of humane practices on Broadway, there was no telling what might happen if we weren’t involved. We agreed to consult in the training of the animals and allow a production assistant to handle them, as long as the person they picked was acceptable to us.

The research we had done showed that the animals in London lived at the theater full-time. The show called for twenty small birds, two larger parrots, four mice that would be trained to stay in your hand, and a rat that would run up and down an actor’s arm—on cue. They didn’t tell us how they trained them, but we knew all the backstage cues. Dorothy could easily handle the bird setup, and my trainer, Rob Cox, from
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
had kept pet rats all his adult life. He never trained them, but he thought they made great pets.

The villain who had the rat was played by one of England’s foremost musical comedy stars, Michael Ball. He had also been in the London production. The good thing about remounting a show is there is little struggle over the material. All the bugs have been worked out, and you are re-creating the same show with a new cast and a replica of the same set.

My concern was the rat. How could we train the rat so quickly if it took six months in London? I knew rats were very smart, social creatures. They were used for experiments in learning and conditioning, so what could be so hard about training a rat to run up and down someone’s arm? I went to the local pet
store and bought a book on rats. As I started looking up rat rescue groups, the word came back that Michael Ball wanted to use his London rat. We were asked if we knew anything about flying rats across the Atlantic. It became clear that if someone else’s animals were opening the show and we were making less money than usual and getting less than our normal credit, there was no reason for us to do the show at all. I decided to pass.

But when they got the quote from the London trainer on the cost of coming over, they came back to us. By then, time was running short, and I felt training a nonprofessional handler was not practical. They found some extra money to pay one of my handlers. At the time, Rob was lead handler on
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang
. He took a pay cut to work with the rats. He was still living in Brooklyn with the dogs, and I made up the difference in pay for him to continue their care.

We got the birds here in Connecticut from a man named Dominic—he works full-time in a factory, but his birds are his passion. When we need a
pigeon for
Sesame Street
or a dove for a photo shoot, we usually rent them from him, so he was very happy to help us get twenty canaries. We bought two cockatiels and four mice from a local pet shop. We went on Petfinder.com, and soon we had adopted three rats from Great Pets Rattery and Rescue Center of New York. All three had to go together. Their names were Beatrice and Tabitha, standard white hooded rats, and Charlotte, who was a naked hooded rat. She was all pink and wrinkly, with no hair at all on her body. Talk about weird.

Rats act like hamsters or other small rodents. My daughter, Jenna, loved them, but they made Dorothy uncomfortable—there was something about their scaly, bald tails she didn’t like. We brought the rats into New York and met Michael Ball so he could demonstrate some of the cues. He was very upbeat and cordial. He said he wore a fat suit and a full wig in the play, and he demonstrated the move. The rat was supposed to run up his arm to his head, back to his right hand, and then from his right hand to his left hand. I asked about rewards and treats, but Michael said none were ever used. Outside of meeting and making his acquaintance, we really got no information on how to solve the problem, but at least we got the moves for the rats and the mice. The birds always remained in cages.

Rob went on vacation that week, so I started training the rats at home. Using food as a positive reinforcement was the basis of classical conditioning. It works with dogs, so why not on rats? Rob had said they like yogurt treats made especially for rats. Jenna and I began by letting them crawl all over our bodies so they got used to us. Then I began putting the rats on my arms and leading them up my arm, onto my shoulder—where they got a treat—and then down my arm to the other hand, where they got another treat. In three days, they were going completely each way.

Rob had warned us that they have very sharp little teeth and might nibble to explore their environment. Rule number one in owning a rat is do not stick your finger
inside the cage. A rat will see it and nibble it to investigate. Rule number two is when you’re handling them, make sure you wash your hands so that you have no food matter on them, or they will nibble your fingers.

The director of the show, Trevor Nunn, is known around the world, and I was looking forward to meeting him. I finally got the chance in late September after a rehearsal. I showed him the white rats and Charlotte, the naked rat, who happened to be the best trained. He laughed and said while they certainly wanted a little repulsion factor with the image of the rat crawling over Michael, the naked rat was taking it a bit too far. When we showed him the behaviors, he said, “We cannot use food at all because they would bite the actors.” I assured him that with proper hygiene and handling, it wouldn’t be a problem, but he was adamant. The trainers in London were insistent because they feared for the actor’s safety. It was a challenge. I guaranteed him the rats would not bite the actors. He smiled a slight smile and said, “Would you bet your job on it?” Without waiting a beat, I said, “Yes.”

He said he would be very impressed if I succeeded, and said if it were true, it would have saved them a lot of money in London. It would be the last time that we would have a chance to speak for the rest of the run, but I had bet my reputation on a rat. Now, practically speaking, I kept trying to figure out the problem. When you pick up the treat, you get the scent on your hands. If you don’t feed the rats fast enough, the rats will bite your fingers trying to get the treat. I kept trying to figure out ways to handle the food and the rat at the same time—then it came to me. Could a rat learn to do a series of behaviors that began in its cage and ended in its cage? They learned very fast, and within a week I had taught them to go from their cage to my right hand, to my left, then back to their cage, where they were rewarded with a treat.

To prepare Michael, we would give him some hand sanitizer before he went on. He could then handle the rat, drop the treat in the top of the onstage cage, never having to touch the rat with food on his hands. It worked like a charm. The rat never nibbled us at all. The mice were actually harder because they were not as smart, and they got stressed. We used magic markers on their tails to tell them apart. The calmest mouse had one
stripe, two stripes for the next calmest, and so on. We would place them on our palms, and when they moved to the edge of our hands, we would touch their heads with our thumbs. They learned very quickly that if they wanted to avoid being touched, they just had to sit in the palms of our hands.

Dorothy secured all the birds in the proper cages and we were ready to go. A special dressing room was outfitted at the theater, the Marriott Marquis on Times Square. We were given the only dressing room in the entire theater with windows, so the animals could have natural light, and a special thermostat was installed so we could keep it climate controlled. We filed all the health permits with the City of New York, a vet came to inspect the premises, and we were finally all set.