Players Workshop
Psychopathia Sexualis
John Patrick Shanley
Opening Night Gala
Tue, Jul 14, 8pm
200 pesos
Monday Night Special
Mon, Jul 20, 8pm
100 pesos
Performances
Wed, Thu & Sat, Jul 15, 16, & 18, 8pm
Sun, Jul 19, 5pm
Tue–Thu, Jul 21–23, 8pm
Teatro Santa Ana
Biblioteca Pública
Reloj 50A
150 pesos, except Jul 14 & 20
| The journeymen: a tale of two actors By Michael Gottlieb “Rudy Hornish!” |
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Thus, as it happens in magical places, two men who hadn’t seen each other in 30 years bump into one another in San Miguel and the rest is history.
Hornish and Newell: Two of the very special few who have the perfect combination of talent, commitment and luck to say about their working lives, “I was a professional actor.” Before their reunion here, they’d known each other in the good old days in New York City when they were young men making countless rounds of auditions for plays, films, commercials, summer repertory and Broadway show touring companies.
Both men are products of Catholic-prep education, Newell in Chicago and Hornish from New Jersey. Newell first got the acting bug in high school. On a whim, he auditioned for his school’s production of Desperate Hours, made famous by Bogart on the big screen. Newell got the lead in the play and hasn’t looked back since.
Hornish, a prodigy of music-loving parents, was a band leader before he graduated high school and an accomplished musical performer. He felt his destiny call at the University of Notre Dame when he followed a couple of pretty coeds into a room where auditions were being held for Finian’s Rainbow. He was awarded a part in the dancers’ chorus and the acting bug got him for good.
By the time they headed to New York City to make their mark, Newell and Hornish had accomplished much. They both did a stint with the US Army and began to raise families. They worked “normal” jobs like selling insurance and advertising. Both the first in their families to go to college, Newell earned his Ph.D. in theater from Wayne State. Ask him about the Goodman Theater in Chicago (his thesis topic); he’s an expert. Hornish earned a master’s degree in English. Both men have taught at the college level.
In New York, they often ran into each other in pursuit of professional acting work. Newell got a job his first six months in the Big Apple and worked steadily from then on. Hornish also got acting work right away, but then didn’t work again for years. To sustain himself, Hornish even worked a stint as a tour guide at 30 Rockefeller Center—the home of NBC.
Eventually life took the men on very different journeys, though they both enjoyed successful careers on stage and screen, and in TV commercials, the bread-and-butter of most working actors. Commercials pay the bills while “serious” work is pursued in a brutal ritual of casting auditions—thousands and thousands of competitors vying for literally a handful of jobs. That they rose from obscurity to the top of the heap, received more and more work and bigger and better parts, says something about Hornish and Newell. It takes a rare mix of talent, skill, intelligence, wit and perseverance to succeed.
Hornish played Larry in the original national touring production of Stephen Sondheim’s Company. He acted with Al Pacino on Broadway in Richard III.
Newell was the longtime “JELL-O” TV spokesman (as Bill Cosby was for “JELL-O Pudding”) and has appeared in numerous guest roles on America’s most popular TV shows including Dallas, Benson and The Wayan Brothers.
Both men did soaps, including One Life to Live, As the World Turns, Guiding Light and The Doctors.
When asked how many shows they’ve done, they both roll their eyes and laugh. When asked about their favorite roles or jobs, Newell is quick to point to some of the classic roles he’s done professionally. Starbuck from The Rainmaker (his very favorite role), The Scottish King (Macbeth—it’s bad luck for actors to name the play out loud), Jamie from O’Neill’s Long Day’s Journey into Night and Billy Bigelow from the musical Carousel.
Hornish remembers fondly a production he did in the Catskills as Matthew Brady in Inherit the Wind opposite the actor Ed Nelson (most famous for TV’s Peyton Place). What made that production and that summer in the Catskills so special was because Hornish met his future (and present) wife, the actress Nancy Kandal. “What could be better than falling in love and getting paid to act at the same time?” says Hornish.
By the time Hornish and Newell arrived in San Miguel to retire, they’d had successful show business careers on both coasts. Hornish even went on to form a development and production partnership at Paramount Pictures with the actor Kelsey Grammer (Cheers, Frasier) and produce hit TV shows like Fired-Up and Girlfriends.
In San Miguel, Newell planned to retire and play golf while Hornish yearned to return to his first passion: music and composition. But, oh, that acting bug is hard to stomp out, even in retirement. Before they knew it, Newell was playing the part of Sir Thomas More in A Man for All Seasons for local director Murray Kamelhar and Hornish had signed on to direct Craig Lucas’s Prelude to a Kiss for Players Workshop. After 30 years, they bumped into each other at Teatro Santa Ana.
Since arriving in San Miguel, Hornish and Newell have done dozens of plays and playreadings, including the memorable main-stage productions of Moonlight and Magnolias, Impossible Marriage and the current Players Workshop presentation of Psychopathia Sexualis by John Patrick Shanley.
So, when one sits over a cup of coffee with these two venerable leading men of stage and screen, working their buns off in retirement for less than peanuts and one asks why, one sees Newell and Hornish smile together as though part of a secret fraternity—those who, with big talent and hard work, earn themselves “an actor’s life.”
In the end it’s not about the money or fame (though that’s nice). It’s about the bug which bites with a passion.
Newell and Hornish might be considered grizzled survivors of a Wheel-of-Fortune crapshoot. To this writer they are authentic heroes worthy of our respect and admiration. The proof is up on the Teatro Santa Ana stage through July 23.
Psychopathia Sexualis opens with a gala performance and post-show reception Tuesday, July 14, with no show on Friday, July 17.
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