The Tampa Bay area isn't much of a magnet for performing arts personalities. After all, we don't even have two first-class regional stages here to compete with the Asolo Theatre and the Florida Studio Theatre in Sarasota; and we don't get half the national attention that the glitzier, more cosmopolitan Miami does. Without the theaters to support them, top actors and actresses naturally choose time and again not to remain in this region. And one of the inevitable results is that local up-and-coming thespians lack role models and teachers from the professional theater world.
Now that Dick Schaal has made a home in Indian Rocks Beach — and now that the 73-year-old actor is teaching again — maybe that doesn't have to be the case. Schaal's originally from Chicago, where in 1960 he joined the eventually-to-be-famous Second City improvisational troupe, then under the direction of Paul Sills. After stints in London and New York, he married Broadway dancer Valerie Harper (they later divorced) and went with her to L.A. to rejoin the Second City in a limited run. The result was that Harper landed on The Mary Tyler Moore Show and Schaal began a TV and movie career that included over 200 television shows — among them Bob Newhart, Trapper John, M.D., and Rhoda — and a dozen films, including The Russians are Coming! The Russians Are Coming!, Slaughterhouse Five and Hollywood Nights. He also taught improvisational theater at the New School in New York and in Los Angeles.
In the late '90s, a spinal cord problem sent Schaal to Miami for surgery, but the condition worsened and he found himself in a wheelchair. At the suggestion of a friend, he moved to Indian Rocks, where, he says, he "sat in the window watching the waves for two years, till I could get enough strength together to start to get out and about." Then, about a year ago, local producer Nancy Whitman suggested that Schaal come out of retirement and start teaching improv. Whitman rounded up about 20 students, and Schaal began classes at the Deaf Service Center in Pinellas Park. Cheered by the success of the class, Schaal went on to present several more workshops. He also organized seven actors and a musician in a production of Paul Sills' Story Theatre — the same Tony-winning play based on Aesop's Fables and Grimm's Fairy Tales that Schaal had appeared in on Broadway. The show opened at the Royalty Theater in Clearwater but with virtually no advertising, only about 50 people showed up for each of four performances. Schall was appalled and pulled the plug.
Still, he soldiered on. He began negotiations with a property owner in St. Petersburg about turning a newly empty space into a 100-seat cabaret theater: "It would be like back in the '60s when we opened Second City." And earlier this month he forged a new alliance with local theater teachers Kathy Laughlin and Effie Trihaf; Schaal is scheduled to teach adult improv at Laughlin's Hillsborough Avenue studio in Tampa. Laughlin will continue to teach acting, and Trihaf will, as usual, teach teen and children's improv. Schaal says that the workshops should eventually turn into recitals before the public, and might travel out of the area: "My idea is to invite people that I know from L.A. and New York to come down and take a look and see if it's something that they want to take … either take it to L.A., take it to New York, take it to Chicago, Detroit, or put it out on the circuit." Another project in the works is a one-man Story Theater-like show about Henry David Thoreau, acted by WMNF's Matt Cowley (a Schaal student) and emerging from improvisational work.
Schaal says with some regret that he contacted American Stage, The Tampa Bay Performing Arts Center and the Largo Cultural Center when he was looking for a home: "A place where I can work, a place where we can train, rehearse and present, all under one roof. And I haven't been successful at that." But he says he's not disappointed. "It's a matter of enlightenment," he says. "I realize that the psyche here is very local. I've had people say, "Yeah, I'd like to go, but … it's all the way to St. Petersburg.' "So where do you live?' They say, "Tampa.' I mean, it's a half-hour drive!"
But Schaal is undeterred. He's got his new agreement with Laughlin and Trihaf, he's got at least 40 play projects "in my pocket" and he should hear any day now whether the St. Petersburg space, possibly the new home of a Cabaret Theater, will be made available to him.
The question is, where are the actors who want to study with this seasoned pro?
Dick Schaal will be teaching his adult improvisation class at 8313 W. Hillsborough Ave., Tampa, on Friday nights. Call 727-596-6246.
All in the Family. There have been some changes at the LiveArts Peninsula Foundation, the group which was first formed to fund a reprise of Bill Leavengood and Lee Ahlin's musical Webb's City, and which then became dedicated to promoting new, as-yet-unwritten plays on local subjects. According to LiveArts general manager Diana Leavengood (wife of the playwright), the board decided last month that Bill would become the foundation's artistic director, in charge of discovering, developing and acting as dramaturg on new projects. Leavengood will receive no pay for assuming the position unless the November showing of Webb's City turns a profit; in that case, he'll receive a $5,000 annual salary.
There's also word of the first new commission by the foundation. Bob Devin Jones, who directed From the Mississippi Delta at American Stage last season, has been asked to pen The Manhattan Casino, about a once-popular St. Petersburg nightspot. The play, says Diana Leavengood, will be conceived by Jones and Bill Leavengood, but written by Jones alone. Jones is to receive both a lump sum and a percentage of box office proceeds for his work.
Finally, a budget of $300,000 has been raised for the re-showing of Webb's City.
The saga continues.
This article appears in Jun 28 – Jul 4, 2001.