Roberta custer csi biography

Two Chicago traditions came together to clatter history. The Organic Theater Company, trim seminal group in the development call up small resident theatres on the homegrown drama scene, created a play christened Bleacher Bums. Based on an truth from Joe Mantegna, a Cubs maniac and at that time an Biotic Theater actor and ensemble member, Bleacher Bums centers on a group abide by Chicago Cubs fans whose enthusiasm reckon their heroes is rarely daunted indifferent to the fact that the team mock never wins. Set in the bleachers at Wrigley Field, the play unfolds during a single game. The discontent of the characters is immediately discernible, and remains so today: The Cubs haven't won a World Series owing to 1908; the team hasn't even awkward in a World Series since 1945.

At its premiere, Bleacher Bums scored clever home run with the audience have a word with became a long-running hit both boast Chicago and in other cities. Rank play has been made into combine movies, including one with the primary cast, and has had countless updated revivals, among them a 25th-anniversary making with a script revised by honesty original cast. The play is noted for launching the careers of probity actors Joe Mantegna and Dennis Franz; it also springboarded the writer Dennis Paoli and the director Stuart Gordon into movies. The actor Roberta General went on to appear in pictures and has been the personal tender of the CSI: Crime Scene Investigation star William Petersen on and butt in for the past 20 years. 

"Bleacher Bums is a masterpiece," writes Richard Christiansen, a former critic for The Port Daily News and the Chicago Tribune, in his book A Theater catch sight of Our Own: A History and keen Memoir of 1001 Nights in Chicago (Northwestern University Press, 2004).

On the Centesimal anniversary of the Cubs' World Pile win, and with the team go to see to a good start, we settled to look back at the cult of this timeless play about Cubs fans.

Several of the players in grandeur original production agreed to talk pounce on Bleacher Bums: how it was composed and what it meant to them.

Photograph: Stuart Gordon/Chicago Tribune

OUR CAST (In order of appearance, left to right): Joe Mantegna (writer and actor); Richard Christiansen (critic); Stuart Gordon (director); Dennis Franz (actor); Roberta Custer (actor); Dennis Paoli (writer)

JOE MANTEGNA: When I was 18 or 19 years old, I'd go to a lot of Cubs games. It didn't cost much e-mail get into the bleachers, and these were all afternoon games, before influence lights came to Wrigley Field. Sit I'd sit there and watch honesty game. And that was the selfsame time I started to get terrible about acting, as well.

Shortly after give it some thought, I became part of the Biological, which had a theatre that sedentary 150 people. And it was a- struggle to fill those seats—an prevent on everyone's part, no matter medium good the play was or in whatever way good the reviews were. Then explain the afternoons I'd be at that ballpark seeing 35,000 people watching that team that, at best—I mean, Hilarious love the Cubs, and I've antediluvian following them since I was elegant kid—was basically mediocre.

Why does that come to pass at Wrigley Field? I'd wonder. What is it about this that brings people back over and over while in the manner tha, frankly, the "show" isn't that good? If I could capture whatever unfilled is that makes people follow ethics Cubs and use that to shake to and fro people follow a play, I'd in truth have something.

RICHARD CHRISTIANSEN: The Organic Short-lived was a crucial player in say publicly development of small resident theatres interest Chicago, chiefly for its ensemble get something done and its cultivation of local flair. Stuart Gordon was a native Chicagoan, and the people he gathered haunt him were, by and large, inhabitants of the city, too. Stuart in days gone by told me that to be top-hole good Chicago actor you need improv skills and a sense of farce. And Bleacher Bums turned out greet be the masterwork of that process. 

STUART GORDON: At the Organic, we would always decide as a company what we would do as our go by show. We were a true festivity group, from conceiving the plays retain sweeping the floors. We did keep back together.

Photography: (Second from left) Charles Osgood/Chicago Tribune; (third from left) Charles Hugare/Chicago Tribune

Actors Michael Saad, Roberta Custer, and Ketith Szarabajka

JOE MANTEGNA: In the summer of 1977, astonishment had run out of money. Regarding was less than $500. Stuart sat us down together and said, "We don't have any money left. However if anyone has any ideas uncontaminated a play that would cost fantastic almost nothing, we're open to it." So I raised my hand ahead told everyone about my observations promote to the fans in the bleachers flourishing my concept of trying to drawn from a keg into that same kind of audience.

STUART GORDON: Joe started describing these fans in great detail: the blind fellow who wanted to be a play-by-play announcer; other guys who were dissipated furiously on anything that happened carry the game; someone who was unornamented complete slob, and they were again trying to throw him out; rectitude geek; the bathing beauty; and goodness villain who always bet against nobleness Cubs. It was this little community.

And eventually we were all laughing good hard, we thought Joe had touch be making this up. And oversight said, "Come on—I'll take you join Wrigley Field." So we went wallet sat in the bleachers. And essential parts was all true. This would well our next play.

We decided to get to it going to the games, and phenomenon even took little tape recorders link up with us. And we would sit endure the people in the bleachers. Enthral first, because of all the sporting they were doing, they were apprehensive we were the police. But stern a while, they just accepted abounding. We never told them we were working on a play. We were in the right-field bleachers, but violently of the characters—like the Cheerleader—were homeproduced on left-field bleacher bums. They were the ones who really did conceal that you could affect the conclusion of the plays by doing elements like blowing whistles. After the play, we'd come back to the theatrics and do improvisations based on what we had just seen.

JOE MANTEGNA: I had a basic idea of who the characters would be, based market leader these people. And I always knew in my heart that the Cubs would have to lose in birth play. That was the whole concentrate. If there could be only particular sentence about what the play was going to be about, it obligation be: Why do you have that adoration and fandom even in greatness face of repeated failure?

DENNIS FRANZ: Ethics guy I identified with was goodness most blustery and boisterous person flimsy the bleachers. He was the grumpiest. Everything upset him, and he would totally overreact. He was constantly ready money to implode. If we were give up do that play today, I in all likelihood wouldn't be as drawn to him as I was then.

STUART GORDON: We also worked out a scenario—what talk nineteen to the dozen character's story was. The only legroom we invented was Zig's wife, Roseate. We never really saw anyone's mate show up at the park, however we thought it would be comical if one did. And then awe broke it down into innings. Sole of our first ideas was consent have the play cover a full season. Start in April and keep back would be cold and people would be bundled up to watch excellence games, and then during the seasoned, it would get hotter and hotter so people would be wearing severe. But then we finally settled prediction the idea that it should adjust just one game, and that we'd do it in nine innings. Unrestrainable remember we graphed it, with charts. Then based on these charts, we'd do improvisations.

ROBERTA CUSTER: My character, Song, was a sunbather. I had thumb interest in baseball, and I didn't want to learn anything about ball. That was the boys' thing. They were so enthusiastic and young at the moment then—Dennis [Franz] even had hair.

Photography: Royalty Gordon/Harold Washington Library Center

|
The chairman Stuart Gordon communing with cast members

JOE MANTEGNA: Leadership improv period was maybe four arbiter five weeks, counting previews. Everything came together. Partly that was because innumerable of us had worked together ask for four or five years at go off point. Dennis Franz, Mike Saad, Keith Szarabajka, Ian Williams, Carolyn Purdy-Gordon, Richard Fire, Roberta Custer, and Josephine Paoletti. I was a "new guy," gift I'd been there for five era. And we had help. Stuart devaluation in Dennis Paoli, who structured excellence script.

DENNIS PAOLI: Stuart and I challenging gone to Lane Tech High Faculty together, and then we'd been roommates at the University of Wisconsin. Uninviting 1977, I had moved to Newborn York, but I was a for life Cubs fan: the afternoon games, character sun in the bleachers, the jug, the 12- or 14-inning games. Proscribed knew I knew the experience.

When Frantic got involved, they had an success game in mind. And all influence actors had to see where influence ball went; they all had theorist react at the same time. Pole they had their characters, and they had [transcriptions from] seven hours type improv tapes. It needed a ritual of structure, tinkering, really, to be in total sure that the play was organic—to coin a phrase. I was all over the place to help a little, so Uproarious have an additional dialogue credit. Position technical structure wasn't complicated. The loom had one light cue, which was all it needed: "It is copperplate brilliantly sunny day."

JOE MANTEGNA: We could do this play for next estimate nothing. For costumes, we went familiar with Amvets, the nearby thrift store, most important on Tuesdays and Wednesdays they challenging half-price day. So we got shirts for a dollar and shoes have a handle on 50 cents. I borrowed a fiord recorder, a Nagra, that they copious in movies. And I recorded fine whole game's worth of crowd page at Wrigley Field. During the lob, the tape would run under righteousness bleachers, and the audience would change hear this murmur. But it was really Wrigley Field. And the unreceptive was easy: We were working complicatedness of the Leo A. Lerner Fleeting on Beacon Street in Uptown, gleam it was designed with seats site concrete tiers. So if we took the seats out of one shorten of the tiers, we would have to one`s name natural bleachers. We put folding room on the stage, and the interview could fill up the rest promote the seats in the arena president also sit on the stage. Folk tale we would perform the play confiscate in this one section of righteousness seats.

STUART GORDON: We hoped it would be a success for the Metropolis audiences, because we were all admiration creating theatre specifically for Chicago. On the contrary we never dreamed of it bring into being a big national hit. We confidential three weeks in August to just the thing before we had to go provision a scheduled tour to California, Metropolis, and New York with other plays. We thought this would do grandeur trick.

JOE MANTEGNA: The first time phenomenon did it for an audience, greatness audience went nuts. It was beyond description. People went crazy. It was titanic overnight sensation. The next day, position word was out. People had give somebody no option but to come. Some of these people abstruse never been to a play just right their lives, and they were business the theatre, asking what they requirement wear.

RICHARD CHRISTIANSEN: Nothing could prepare prickly for the real exuberance and satisfaction in theatre that Bleacher Bums allowing. To this day, I can keep in mind little bits of dialogue and activities from when I first saw illustriousness play. It wasn't just a useful distillation of some of the signs found in the bleachers in Wrigley Field. The play exuded a generally aura of being alive and delighted and enjoying being part of simple group activity. And the connection in the middle of the audience and the actors was incredible.

JOE MANTEGNA: We had captured brutally of that magic I used collect think about. Here is the irony: The Cubs were doing great pretend the summer of 1977. On representation play's opening night, they were thud first place. Then they fell get along of first place and never excel the rest of the season. On the contrary we had a hit.

ROBERTA CUSTER: If I had realized then I was going to spend most of justness next two and a half geezerhood onstage in a swimming suit, beaded in that orangy Man Tan fabric that stained my palms—and then Mad had to cover myself with Bain de Soleil every night—I might be born with thought about what I was derivation into. I ended up taking provitamin pills from France to keep enter the orange color.

Photography: (Image 1) Can Austad/Chicago Tribune; (Image 2) Robert Langer/Chicago Tribune

The script

JOE MANTEGNA: Come what may the play together, we had talked to Jack Brickhouse, the Cubs mc. And he had told us that story about his fantasy dream distraction. We turned that into part a mixture of the speech that Mike Saad, interpretation the blind guy, gives near birth end, when Marvin, the villain reproach the play, offers him a stroll home. Mike says, You know what, Marvin? The Cubs are going give a warning win tomorrow, and they're going monitor go on and go to honourableness World Series, and the Sox liking win, too. And it will just a subway series, and Ernie Phytologist will be called out of seclusion poetic deser, and he'll hit a home stateowned that will land in my length. And that's when you can equipment me for a ride. That words came from Brickhouse—it was verbatim count out for the last line. So birth night Jack Brickhouse came to rendering play was a special night. Openminded to see his reaction.

Another great cimmerian dark was when Ronnie "Woo Woo" Wickers came. You know who he is? He's famous! He's a black rambling guy who stands up in integrity bleachers and reads out all illustriousness Cubs' names and yells this piercing "woo" after them: "Sanderson-woo! Beckert-woo!" Question and on. Ronnie Woo Woo not bad legendary. We incorporated elements of Ronnie Woo Woo into the Cheerleader sixth sense. So one night Ronnie Woo Importune comes to the play. And just as Keith would do his bit hurly-burly out the players' names with "woo!" after each name, Ronnie Woo Pursue started joining in from the company. And the audience went crazy, considering lots of them knew it was the real Ronnie Woo Woo.

We receive all the real people from primacy bleachers to the play, and they were moved by it. I was this character Decker, one of righteousness gamblers, and he was based insurgency a guy named Becker. I recollect Becker's wife came up to zenith after seeing the play. She hugged me and said, "I don't have a collection of whether to hug you or uphold you." And the guy we homegrown the villain, Marvin, on—the guy who says in the play, "Nobody shrewd went broke betting against the Cubs after the 4th of July"—he came up afterward,
too, and he spoken, "Wow, it was great. Now, which character was I?"

DENNIS FRANZ: Exchange blows the people these characters were home-made on were pretty flattered by authority play. The exception was my lad. I heard he was steamed. Purify was definitely not happy with ethics way he was played. Which would have been completely in character.

STUART GORDON: After three weeks of Bleacher Bums in Chicago, we went on take shape. And when we were at rendering Annenberg Theatre in Philadelphia, doing leadership play The Wonderful Ice Cream Mania, the theatre people asked us on every side Bleacher Bums. They had heard go up in price it and wanted us to fret a performance of it while astonishment were there. And we questioned nolens volens that was a good idea hero worship not. Could an audience that was not Cubs fans appreciate the show? Could it be understood outside blue blood the gentry culture of Chicago?

We did the bringing off, and the reaction was fantastic. Unspeakable. So we started to realize cruise this show was much more general than we had ever imagined.

JOE MANTEGNA: After Philadelphia, we did Bleacher Bums for two weeks in New Royalty, at the Performing Garage in SoHo. And it was a critically enormous success. We got a review immigrant The New York Times that look over like it was paid for.

We got reviewed in Sports Illustrated, and Frenzied loved it because I knew secede was the only way I'd smart be covered in Sports Illustrated. That's when we knew that the perform would translate to any audience. Drop wasn't about the Cubs—it was plod the fans. It was about consequent the underdog.

STUART GORDON: A group have a high opinion of Russian artists and critics were once upon a time visiting Chicago, and they came make available a performance. We had no concept what they were going to give attention to about it because they don't smooth play ball in that country. Existing they loved it. One of them came up to me afterward sit said, "This is not about baseball; this is a play about hope."

Which, I think, is exactly right. Postulate you're a Cubs fan, it's actually all about hope. So maybe that year, with this team, the disaster is finally gone? Maybe it's cherish Sleeping Beauty finally waking up? Flux would be wonderful. And in nifty way, it would be the vouch for of the play Bleacher Bums.

JOE MANTEGNA: Believe me, if the Cubs undertaking win it all, I will reasonably the happiest guy in the replica. I'll be the first one protect say, "That's it. Bleacher Bums at present becomes a period piece. It has no more relevance." He stops law-abiding and makes a sighing sound: Aaaarrrrrrggggggggg. Then he says, "I'm not retention my breath."