‘Harvey’ got its director hooked on theater

Tom Titus

Back in 1946 (or ‘47, he can’t remember exactly which), Charles

Nelson Reilly took a job as a teenage usher in a Hartford, Ct.,

theater where he saw his first play -- the post-Broadway tour of

“Harvey” with its original star, Frank Fay.

“That show inspired me,” he declared. “I wanted to do what they

did.”

Saturday, after a virtual lifetime in show business (he’s now 72),

Reilly will direct the opening production of the Laguna Playhouse’s

2003-04 season, Mary Chase’s Pulitzer Prize-winning play “Harvey,”

with a cast that’s priming the venerable comedy for a Broadway

revival.

“The show will be staged exactly as I saw it,” Reilly promised,

resisting any temptations to update the tender story of tippling

bachelor Elwood P. Dowd and his constant companion -- a six-foot-tall

invisible rabbit, the play’s title character. His Elwood will be the

noted screen and stage actor Charles Durning, with the brother-sister

team of Dick and Joyce Van Patten assuming the roles of Dr. Chumley

and Aunt Veta Louise Simmons.

Reilly is no stranger to the Playhouse. He’s brought Julie Harris

to the Laguna theater on two occasions, directing her in her Tony

Award-winning one-woman drama “The Belle of Amherst.” And he’s taken

the stage for his one-man show, “Save It for the Stage: The Life of

Reilly,” on two other occasions. He also earned a Tony nomination for

his direction of Harris in the 1997 revival of “The Gin Game.”

As an actor, Reilly earned a Tony nomination as best featured

actor in a musical for his role opposite Carol Channing in the

original “Hello, Dolly” in 1964. He got the Tony Award for best

featured actor in a musical for his performance as Bud Frump in “How

To Succeed In Business Without Really Trying” in 1962.

Reilly not only acts and directs, he’s spent years as a teacher at

the HB Studio, the acting studio created by Herbert Berghof and his

wife, Uta Hagen (the original star of “Who’s Afraid of Virginia

Woolf?” He’s also an acting coach at the Burt Reynolds Dinner Theatre

in Jupiter, Fla., and he has directed many Broadway and off-Broadway

shows.

Television audiences will remember Reilly as a longtime panelist

on “Match Game,” hosted by his pal, Gene Rayburn, whom he met when he

understudied Rayburn in the original production of “Bye Bye, Birdie.”

During the show’s heyday in the 1970s, Reilly was beloved for his

goofy wisecracks, flowery ascots, and barbed exchanges with fellow

panelist Brett Somers.

The original production of “Harvey” opened Nov. 1, 1944, under the

direction of Antoinette Perry. For those unfamiliar with that name,

she was the lady they named the Tony awards after. The show closed in

January of 1949 and became a movie in 1950 with a memorable

performance by James Stewart as Elwood.

Harvey played himself, as he’ll do once again in Laguna.

* TOM TITUS reviews local theater for the Coastline Pilot.