© Adam Granger
My Time at the Guthrie Theater (Read at a celebration of the closing of the original Guthrie Theater building)
By Adam Granger 5-1-06
The Guthrie Theater's moving to a new home by the river
So we come down to Aisle Ten just this one last time
We're gathered here to toast the gal with all the love we can give her
I've decided to offer mine in complicated rhyme
In nineteen hundred and seventy four, or was it '73
I moved up here with three cats in an old Ford beater
I came from Oklahoma with my guitar on my knee
Never dreaming I'd end up at the Tyrone Guthrie Theater
But 1975 rolled in and a job was what I sought
I saw an ad in the Star Tribune: "box office job today"
My employment choices thus far were male prostitute or rent-a-cop
So I jumped at the opportunity--although I would have anyway!
I took phone orders in a little booth, sitting like a lotus
I gave directions to the Theater that were daunting and bewilderin’
I said "croquet" instead of "okay" just to see if folks would notice
And offered vague synopses of Mother Courage and Her Children
I was put in charge of comps by Mary, or by Audrey
A job of great simplicity with which they figured I could cope
I came up with a system that was only slightly tawdry:
My friends all got the queen's box; my enemies got the slope
Then John Caruso came aboard, an apparition shady
You know: New York accent, probably wanted by the Feds
He raised some Midwest eyebrows when he called the females "lady"
But he turned out to be a pussycat in fine Italian threads
It was a great time to be alive, a great time to be at the Theater
We were young and brash and as yet unmarked by stress or strife
We hadn’t yet become husbands, wives, felons, baby breeders
It was a clearinghouse for eccentric people living eccentric lives
Like Ollie Cliff at the Irvine mansion quoting the Bard most fetching
And Jeff Chandler as Scrooge, and Richard Council as Stanley
And Michael the Custodian, obsessed with Duder etchings
And Magraw, Livingston, Babcock, Howard, Ciatti—Guthrie family
Persch came in one day to assemble a small file cabinet
He tossed away the instructions, saying they were not needed
He ended up with a gizmo that could have garroted a rabbit
I guess those were instructions that old Persch should have readed
One day a taxicab pulled up, dropped off a scruffy guy
Who wore a porkpie hat and had a guitar in his hand
He said, “My name’s Tom Waits, and I’m playing here tonight”
I promptly let him in, ‘cause Tom Waits for no man
For a time, job discontent our youthful spirits fettered
So we were visited by a Teamster rep who looked like he was mafia
We voted not to join, 'cause management kissed and made it better
And anyhow, none of us wanted to end up like Jimmy Hoffia
Closer to home, I've got memories only box office folk would cherish
The Ernestine-type switchboard only Lou Ambrose could run
Bud Luce dropped a sign on a patron's head--we thought that she would perish
Better it were I hospitalized, 'til Select-A-Seat was done
Select-a-Seat! It printed tickets backwards, it printed tickets wrong
The Frigidaire-sized printer boxes teemed with digital gremlins
It printed parking tickets, it printed old folk songs
It printed dinner menus and passes to the Kremlin
And then one day I got a call from a guy named Garrison Keillor,
Who had this little thirteen-station radio show
He was forming the Powdermilk Biscuit Band and was sending out a feeler
Was I interested in the gig, was what he wanted to know
I walked the floor and chewed the nails on both my hands and feet
Prairie Home Companion or box office, I couldn't make up my mind
I paid a gypsy to read tea leaves; she said, “Buddy, hit the street”
And the rest is my personal history for another place and time
So now this building's closing down, but the Theater, of course, survives
And when I'm ninety-six years old and friends have died long since
I'll hobble down to the Guthrie on the river, if I’m still alive
And buy a matinee ticket from my good old friend Jane Krenz
By Adam Granger 5-1-06
The Guthrie Theater's moving to a new home by the river
So we come down to Aisle Ten just this one last time
We're gathered here to toast the gal with all the love we can give her
I've decided to offer mine in complicated rhyme
In nineteen hundred and seventy four, or was it '73
I moved up here with three cats in an old Ford beater
I came from Oklahoma with my guitar on my knee
Never dreaming I'd end up at the Tyrone Guthrie Theater
But 1975 rolled in and a job was what I sought
I saw an ad in the Star Tribune: "box office job today"
My employment choices thus far were male prostitute or rent-a-cop
So I jumped at the opportunity--although I would have anyway!
I took phone orders in a little booth, sitting like a lotus
I gave directions to the Theater that were daunting and bewilderin’
I said "croquet" instead of "okay" just to see if folks would notice
And offered vague synopses of Mother Courage and Her Children
I was put in charge of comps by Mary, or by Audrey
A job of great simplicity with which they figured I could cope
I came up with a system that was only slightly tawdry:
My friends all got the queen's box; my enemies got the slope
Then John Caruso came aboard, an apparition shady
You know: New York accent, probably wanted by the Feds
He raised some Midwest eyebrows when he called the females "lady"
But he turned out to be a pussycat in fine Italian threads
It was a great time to be alive, a great time to be at the Theater
We were young and brash and as yet unmarked by stress or strife
We hadn’t yet become husbands, wives, felons, baby breeders
It was a clearinghouse for eccentric people living eccentric lives
Like Ollie Cliff at the Irvine mansion quoting the Bard most fetching
And Jeff Chandler as Scrooge, and Richard Council as Stanley
And Michael the Custodian, obsessed with Duder etchings
And Magraw, Livingston, Babcock, Howard, Ciatti—Guthrie family
Persch came in one day to assemble a small file cabinet
He tossed away the instructions, saying they were not needed
He ended up with a gizmo that could have garroted a rabbit
I guess those were instructions that old Persch should have readed
One day a taxicab pulled up, dropped off a scruffy guy
Who wore a porkpie hat and had a guitar in his hand
He said, “My name’s Tom Waits, and I’m playing here tonight”
I promptly let him in, ‘cause Tom Waits for no man
For a time, job discontent our youthful spirits fettered
So we were visited by a Teamster rep who looked like he was mafia
We voted not to join, 'cause management kissed and made it better
And anyhow, none of us wanted to end up like Jimmy Hoffia
Closer to home, I've got memories only box office folk would cherish
The Ernestine-type switchboard only Lou Ambrose could run
Bud Luce dropped a sign on a patron's head--we thought that she would perish
Better it were I hospitalized, 'til Select-A-Seat was done
Select-a-Seat! It printed tickets backwards, it printed tickets wrong
The Frigidaire-sized printer boxes teemed with digital gremlins
It printed parking tickets, it printed old folk songs
It printed dinner menus and passes to the Kremlin
And then one day I got a call from a guy named Garrison Keillor,
Who had this little thirteen-station radio show
He was forming the Powdermilk Biscuit Band and was sending out a feeler
Was I interested in the gig, was what he wanted to know
I walked the floor and chewed the nails on both my hands and feet
Prairie Home Companion or box office, I couldn't make up my mind
I paid a gypsy to read tea leaves; she said, “Buddy, hit the street”
And the rest is my personal history for another place and time
So now this building's closing down, but the Theater, of course, survives
And when I'm ninety-six years old and friends have died long since
I'll hobble down to the Guthrie on the river, if I’m still alive
And buy a matinee ticket from my good old friend Jane Krenz