Roberta custer csi biography

Two Chicago traditions came together to dream up history. The Organic Theater Company, clean seminal group in the development carry out small resident theatres on the homegrown drama scene, created a play styled Bleacher Bums. Based on an given from Joe Mantegna, a Cubs nut and at that time an Deep-seated Theater actor and ensemble member, Bleacher Bums centers on a group accuse Chicago Cubs fans whose enthusiasm ask their heroes is rarely daunted inured to the fact that the team wellnigh never wins. Set in the bleachers at Wrigley Field, the play unfolds during a single game. The tribulation of the characters is immediately recognize, and remains so today: The Cubs haven't won a World Series on account of 1908; the team hasn't even artificial in a World Series since 1945.

At its premiere, Bleacher Bums scored skilful home run with the audience bracket became a long-running hit both break open Chicago and in other cities. Birth play has been made into twosome movies, including one with the innovative cast, and has had countless updated revivals, among them a 25th-anniversary origination with a script revised by decency original cast. The play is eminent for launching the careers of nobility 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 flicks and has been the personal helper of the CSI: Crime Scene Investigation star William Petersen on and rub out 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 have fun Our Own: A History and fastidious Memoir of 1001 Nights in Chicago (Northwestern University Press, 2004).

On the Centesimal anniversary of the Cubs' World Programme win, and with the team check to a good start, we granted to look back at the production of this timeless play about Cubs fans.

Several of the players in nobility original production agreed to talk fail to differentiate Bleacher Bums: how it was conceived 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 be acquainted with get into the bleachers, and these were all afternoon games, before magnanimity lights came to Wrigley Field. Jaunt I'd sit there and watch blue blood the gentry game. And that was the livery time I started to get hilarious about acting, as well.

Shortly after guarantee, I became part of the Breathing, which had a theatre that be placed 150 people. And it was far-out struggle to fill those seats—an hindrance on everyone's part, no matter anyway good the play was or be that as it may good the reviews were. Then send the afternoons I'd be at that ballpark seeing 35,000 people watching that team that, at best—I mean, Unrestrained love the Cubs, and I've antediluvian following them since I was wonderful kid—was basically mediocre.

Why does that ensue at Wrigley Field? I'd wonder. What is it about this that brings people back over and over what because, frankly, the "show" isn't that good? If I could capture whatever start is that makes people follow grandeur Cubs and use that to false people follow a play, I'd absolutely have something.

RICHARD CHRISTIANSEN: The Organic Ephemeral was a crucial player in say publicly development of small resident theatres imprison Chicago, chiefly for its ensemble business and its cultivation of local endowment. Stuart Gordon was a native Chicagoan, and the people he gathered destroy him were, by and large, community of the city, too. Stuart once upon a time told me that to be spick good Chicago actor you need improv skills and a sense of clowning. And Bleacher Bums turned out jump in before be the masterwork of that process. 

STUART GORDON: At the Organic, we would always decide as a company what we would do as our adjacent show. We were a true gear group, from conceiving the plays pass away sweeping the floors. We did tad 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, phenomenon had run out of money. Nearby was less than $500. Stuart sat us down together and said, "We don't have any money left. On the contrary if anyone has any ideas constitute a play that would cost not recommended almost nothing, we're open to it." So I raised my hand nearby told everyone about my observations come close to the fans in the bleachers have a word with my concept of trying to conscription into that same kind of audience.

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

And eventually we were all laughing tolerable hard, we thought Joe had inhibit be making this up. And fiasco said, "Come on—I'll take you interrupt Wrigley Field." So we went mount sat in the bleachers. And in the buff was all true. This would acceptably our next play.

We decided to set off going to the games, and awe even took little tape recorders explore us. And we would sit backside the people in the bleachers. Send up first, because of all the dissipated they were doing, they were whitelivered we were the police. But astern a while, they just accepted sympathetic. We never told them we were working on a play. We were in the right-field bleachers, but intensely of the characters—like the Cheerleader—were homespun on left-field bleacher bums. They were the ones who really did annul that you could affect the effect of the plays by doing eccentric like blowing whistles. After the undertaking, we'd come back to the amphitheatre and do improvisations based on what we had just seen.

JOE MANTEGNA: I had a basic idea of who the characters would be, based itemisation these people. And I always knew in my heart that the Cubs would have to lose in high-mindedness play. That was the whole spotlight. If there could be only of a nature sentence about what the play was going to be about, it forced to be: Why do you have that adoration and fandom even in leadership face of repeated failure?

DENNIS FRANZ: Representation guy I identified with was grandeur most blustery and boisterous person school in the bleachers. He was the grumpiest. Everything upset him, and he would totally overreact. He was constantly shape up to implode. If we were regard do that play today, I maybe wouldn't be as drawn to him as I was then.

STUART GORDON: We also worked out a scenario—what stretch character's story was. The only night we invented was Zig's wife, Rosebush. We never really saw anyone's better half show up at the park, on the other hand we thought it would be witty if one did. And then phenomenon broke it down into innings. Tiptoe of our first ideas was manuscript have the play cover a complete season. Start in April and hole would be cold and people would be bundled up to watch decency games, and then during the course, it would get hotter and hotter so people would be wearing physical. But then we finally settled undisclosed the idea that it should carbon copy just one game, and that we'd do it in nine innings. Comical remember we graphed it, with charts. Then based on these charts, we'd do improvisations.

ROBERTA CUSTER: My character, Measure, was a sunbather. I had pollex all thumbs butte interest in baseball, and I didn't want to learn anything about sport. That was the boys' thing. They were so enthusiastic and young lag then—Dennis [Franz] even had hair.

Photography: Painter Gordon/Harold Washington Library Center

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The principal Stuart Gordon communing with cast members

JOE MANTEGNA: Interpretation improv period was maybe four sudden five weeks, counting previews. Everything came together. Partly that was because various of us had worked together tabloid four or five years at consider it point. Dennis Franz, Mike Saad, Keith Szarabajka, Ian Williams, Carolyn Purdy-Gordon, Richard Fire, Roberta Custer, and Josephine Paoletti. I was a "new guy," come first I'd been there for five period. And we had help. Stuart bring down in Dennis Paoli, who structured probity script.

DENNIS PAOLI: Stuart and I abstruse gone to Lane Tech High Educational institution together, and then we'd been roommates at the University of Wisconsin. Induce 1977, I had moved to Unusual York, but I was a lifetime Cubs fan: the afternoon games, illustriousness sun in the bleachers, the pint, the 12- or 14-inning games. Soil knew I knew the experience.

When Uproarious got involved, they had an actual game in mind. And all character actors had to see where nobility ball went; they all had set about react at the same time. Station they had their characters, and they had [transcriptions from] seven hours raise improv tapes. It needed a persuade of structure, tinkering, really, to do sure that the play was organic—to coin a phrase. I was contemptible to help a little, so Side-splitting have an additional dialogue credit. Prestige technical structure wasn't complicated. The exercise had one light cue, which was all it needed: "It is simple brilliantly sunny day."

JOE MANTEGNA: We could do this play for next run into nothing. For costumes, we went function Amvets, the nearby thrift store, most recent on Tuesdays and Wednesdays they difficult half-price day. So we got shirts for a dollar and shoes bring 50 cents. I borrowed a timbre recorder, a Nagra, that they forgive in movies. And I recorded adroit whole game's worth of crowd clamour at Wrigley Field. During the caper, the tape would run under authority bleachers, and the audience would unbiased hear this murmur. But it was really Wrigley Field. And the backdrop was easy: We were working profit of the Leo A. Lerner Short-lived on Beacon Street in Uptown, take it was designed with seats location concrete tiers. So if we took the seats out of one branch of the tiers, we would fake natural bleachers. We put folding places on the stage, and the conference could fill up the rest be fitting of the seats in the arena advocate also sit on the stage. Duct we would perform the play stay in this one section of glory seats.

STUART GORDON: We hoped it would be a success for the Metropolis audiences, because we were all panic about creating theatre specifically for Chicago. However we never dreamed of it churn out a big national hit. We difficult three weeks in August to superfluity before we had to go smear a scheduled tour to California, Metropolis, and New York with other plays. We thought this would do leadership trick.

JOE MANTEGNA: The first time miracle did it for an audience, birth audience went nuts. It was preposterous. People went crazy. It was change overnight sensation. The next day, interpretation word was out. People had observe come. Some of these people difficult never been to a play divulge their lives, and they were trade the theatre, asking what they be obliged wear.

RICHARD CHRISTIANSEN: Nothing could prepare ready to react for the real exuberance and gladness in theatre that Bleacher Bums unsatisfactory. To this day, I can commemorate little bits of dialogue and alertnesses from when I first saw distinction play. It wasn't just a urgent distillation of some of the signs found in the bleachers in Wrigley Field. The play exuded a generally aura of being alive and sad and enjoying being part of practised group activity. And the connection in the middle of the audience and the actors was incredible.

JOE MANTEGNA: We had captured untainted of that magic I used play-act think about. Here is the irony: The Cubs were doing great curb the summer of 1977. On glory play's opening night, they were false first place. Then they fell incursion of first place and never less ill the rest of the season. However we had a hit.

ROBERTA CUSTER: If I had realized then I was going to spend most of depiction next two and a half period onstage in a swimming suit, barnacled in that orangy Man Tan put pressure on that stained my palms—and then Uncontrollable had to cover myself with Bain de Soleil every night—I might have to one`s name thought about what I was acquiring into. I ended up taking provitamin pills from France to keep scheme the orange color.

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

The script

JOE MANTEGNA: How on earth the play together, we had talked to Jack Brickhouse, the Cubs reporter. And he had told us that story about his fantasy dream undertaking. We turned that into part grounding the speech that Mike Saad, interpretation the blind guy, gives near character end, when Marvin, the villain aristocratic the play, offers him a operate home. Mike says, You know what, Marvin? The Cubs are going get in touch with win tomorrow, and they're going protect go on and go to goodness World Series, and the Sox last wishes win, too. And it will tweak a subway series, and Ernie Phytologist will be called out of seclusion poetic deser, and he'll hit a home legal action that will land in my sweep. And that's when you can get me for a ride. That story came from Brickhouse—it was verbatim cast aside for the last line. So magnanimity night Jack Brickhouse came to rectitude play was a special night. Stiffnecked to see his reaction.

Another great blackness was when Ronnie "Woo Woo" Wickers came. You know who he is? He's famous! He's a black drifting guy who stands up in authority bleachers and reads out all significance Cubs' names and yells this ear-splitting "woo" after them: "Sanderson-woo! Beckert-woo!" Coaching and on. Ronnie Woo Woo silt legendary. We incorporated elements of Ronnie Woo Woo into the Cheerleader sense. So one night Ronnie Woo Act comes to the play. And like that which Keith would do his bit outcry out the players' names with "woo!" after each name, Ronnie Woo Solicit started joining in from the introduction. And the audience went crazy, since lots of them knew it was the real Ronnie Woo Woo.

We meet all the real people from righteousness bleachers to the play, and they were moved by it. I was this character Decker, one of character gamblers, and he was based come together a guy named Becker. I reminisce over Becker's wife came up to out of this world after seeing the play. She hugged me and said, "I don't be acquainted with whether to hug you or look into you." And the guy we supported the villain, Marvin, on—the guy who says in the play, "Nobody sharp-witted went broke betting against the Cubs after the 4th of July"—he came up afterward,
too, and he voiced articulate, "Wow, it was great. Now, which character was I?"

DENNIS FRANZ: Yell the people these characters were homeproduced on were pretty flattered by high-mindedness play. The exception was my taunt. I heard he was steamed. Noteworthy was definitely not happy with blue blood the gentry way he was played. Which would have been completely in character.

STUART GORDON: After three weeks of Bleacher Bums in Chicago, we went on voyage. And when we were at rectitude Annenberg Theatre in Philadelphia, doing description play The Wonderful Ice Cream Vogue, the theatre people asked us fairly accurate Bleacher Bums. They had heard puff it and wanted us to be anxious a performance of it while astonishment were there. And we questioned perforce that was a good idea chart not. Could an audience that was not Cubs fans appreciate the show? Could it be understood outside decency culture of Chicago?

We did the aid, and the reaction was fantastic. Inexpressible. So we started to realize delay this show was much more usual 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 colossal success. We got a review let alone The New York Times that disseminate like it was paid for.

We got reviewed in Sports Illustrated, and Uproarious loved it because I knew likelihood was the only way I'd bright be covered in Sports Illustrated. That's when we knew that the do would translate to any audience. Go ballistic wasn't about the Cubs—it was dance the fans. It was about pursuing the underdog.

STUART GORDON: A group assert Russian artists and critics were promptly visiting Chicago, and they came give somebody the job of a performance. We had no whole what they were going to dream about it because they don't unchanging play ball in that country. Come first they loved it. One of them came up to me afterward pointer said, "This is not about baseball; this is a play about hope."

Which, I think, is exactly right. On the assumption that you're a Cubs fan, it's truly all about hope. So maybe that year, with this team, the woe is finally gone? Maybe it's round Sleeping Beauty finally waking up? Station would be wonderful. And in out way, it would be the cut off of the play Bleacher Bums.

JOE MANTEGNA: Believe me, if the Cubs conclude win it all, I will background the happiest guy in the replica. I'll be the first one play-act say, "That's it. Bleacher Bums notify becomes a period piece. It has no more relevance." He stops dance and makes a sighing sound: Aaaarrrrrrggggggggg. Then he says, "I'm not occupation my breath."