The Wurster Interviews, Part 9: The Less Early But Still Early Years of PPE

Read previous installments:     Part 1     Part 2     Part 3     Part 4     Part 5      Part 6      Part 7      Part 8

The Famous Rider

You’ll remember that Ann and Trudy, proprietors of Lion Walk, had a theater company: the Pennsylvania Repertory Theater. There was another theater company in residence at Lion Walk: the Fine Line Theater Company. You’ll remember when Ann and Trudy gave up Lion Walk, Peter Gillespie (Janet’s husband) took over. PPE continued producing poetry events and conducting monthly workshops.

When Peter decided to get married (which, of course, involved getting unmarried from Janet), he pulled out of Lion Walk and Bill Royston came in. Fine Line had already left. Bill had his own agenda. After leaving Lion Walk, Fine Line moved to the building at Fifth and Craft in Oakland, which had been the former home of Royston’s Pittsburgh Laboratory Theater. Fine Line had run into some financial difficulties and had been bailed out by a visionary businessman named Larry May.

Larry had a business called Compad, which did printing, advertising and promotion, and market research. Larry’s wife, Carolyn Bradley, was the sister of Lisa Bradley, a member of Fine Line. Lisa was the sweetheart of Fred Donatelli, a charter member of Fine Line.

It seemed like a good time for PPE to move to the Fine Line building. I requested a meeting with Larry May. I met with Larry and Carolyn and they were amenable to PPE moving in as the resident poetry organization. Fine Line had been restructured and Larry asked me to be a member of the board.

Financial tension between the financial part of Fine Line (Larry) and the artistic part (the artists) continued. A rupture occurred. The board met at Larry and Carolyn’s house and conducted yet another restructuring. Since the Fine Line company was gone, a new name was needed for the facility. It was I who proposed “The Famous Rider.” Fine Line was replaced by Allegheny Repertory Theater. Larry and Carolyn took a very active role in Famous Rider activities.

Here are some anecdotes and stories about The Famous Rider.

We did our monthly workshop there, which was very successful — it was right on the bus line. We produced frequent poetry readings. A big help in staging the poetry readings was Frank Correnti, who was still producing the readings at Wobbly Joe’s.

One of the poetry readings I was proudest of was a reading by Ed Ochester and Etheridge Knight, the great African-American poet. We had brought Etheridge to town as part of the Western Penitentiary Poetry series. Etheridge had a bit of a reputation as a wild man, but he was very well-behaved for us. He had been an inmate at Joliet and had been mentored by Gwendolyn Brooks.

After the reading, there was a reception at Jane Coleman’s house featuring a live harpsichord performance by Donald Franklin (a famous harpsichordist in those days — he taught at CMU). The next day, Etheridge visited several classes at Pitt.

The Famous Rider was a significant theater hub. Allegheny Repertory Theater had a fine run of plays including the world premiere of August Wilson’s Jitney. There were other theatrical attractions as well, including an original musical, Liberty Avenue by Bill Ram-Z, a resident playwright. A representative from David Merrick’s office in New York attended the premiere, but did not offer an option. The musical still needed some work.

There was a small art gallery in The Famous Rider and we mounted a series of shows. We did Gene King’s “Black Couch” series. Gene was a great artist, now deceased. So anyway, this was a series of paintings of people alone or in groups sitting, lying, whatever, on Gene’s black couch. In the gallery there was a small stage area. We put the actual couch on that stage with a gold rope roping it off from the rest of the gallery. One of the paintings was of a lovely young woman lying nude on the couch. This same young woman at the opening of the show doffed her clothing, went under the rope, and laid down nude in the same pose as in the painting. That created a minor sensation.

 

Next in issue 13: Whatever Became of The Famous Rider