My first professional theatre job was Lighting Director at the Starlight Theater in Kansas City, Missouri, which billed itself as the "second largest theatre in the United States," with some 8,000 seats and lawn seating for some 6,000 more. We performed seven nights a week, with dress rehearsals begriming at midnight on Saturdays, and playing a new Broadway musical each week for ten weeks. This was my first experience meeting and working with professional performers and celebrated individuals.

Years later, Senator and Mrs. John F. Kennedy strolled past the Georgetown University Mask and Bauble Offices one Sunday afternoon and stopped to say hello when students rushed out to greet them. Mrs. Kennedy remembered this occasion, and when the Kennedys moved to The White House, I received a call inviting us to provide lighting and technical support for East Room performances, which we did throughout the Kennedy and Johnson administrations. Of course, many notables were in every audience. Subsequently, as President of the National Theatre, I met other celebrities. However fleeting, encounters with the famous are fun and memorable, but I never really thought much about asking for autographs or photo ops. I recall happily some of those I encountered -- now living and dead -- here.

Julia Cameron
The author of many inspirational books, and developer of "The Artist's Way," a guide to increased creativity, Julia is a prolific writer and a spiritual, motivational guide to many people. I directed her as a dancer in an original musical when she was a student at Georgetown. She was bright, charming and easy to work with.
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Carol Channing
The indomitable "Dolly" performed at the National Theatre on a number of occasions. I once accompanied her to the Washington Press Club where she made a delightful speech. We have maintained personal contact over the years. Carol is a Larger-than-Life Force and a truly gracious, giving and generous person.
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Bill Clinton
I met President Clinton when he came to a performance of Grease at the National Theatre and came backstage to meet Rosie O'Donnell and the cast. He certainly has an open and electric personality and seems genuinely pleased to meet people. His exuberance is infectious.

Placido Domingo -
When I was president of the National Theatre and Mr. Domingo was heading the Washington Opera, he came one day to inspect the National as a possible venue for chamber opera. He was all business, accompanied by a party of some half-dozen people, and was disappointingly brisk and moody rather than gracious.

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Catherine Doucet - 1875-1958
Miss Doucet was a stage and film actress who appeared in the summer of 1954 at Olney Theatre, where I was working as a stage technician. We ate in a communal dining room where she enjoyed shocking the summer interns by eating the shells of her soft-boiled eggs each morning, declaring them a healthful source of calcium. She was a vivacious, impressive presence.
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Jim Henson
The creator of the Muppets was a recent college graduate when I worked for a summer as a Floor Manager at NBC-TV Channel 4 in Washington. He did solo live commercials on a table-top set for a local dairy, with cartons of milk and his puppet moppets. He was genial and accommodating, and we hurried him out of the way for the upcoming live News Show, when we should have been offering to work for him! Nice man, whose grand Muppet characters live on.
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Lyndon and Claudia "Ladybird" Johnson
1908-1973 1912-2007
Most remarkably, I remember a day we were at the White House setting up lighting all day. In the afternoon I heard the President speak out on the South Lawn to a large number of political supporters. He wore a cowboy hat and boots, and spoke in a very folksy down-home drawl. That evening in the East Room, he wore black tie, and spoke with very elegant distinction. Lady Bird was always graceful and dignified, and Lynda Bird vociferous. Lucy was studying at Georgetown at this time.
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Rachel Maddow
Having spent many of my adult weekday nights in rehearsals at Georgetown, The American Light Opera Company, or Chestnut Lodge Hospital, and many of my weekend nights either going to theatre, partying, or otherwise enjoying myself, I can honestly say that I never, ever, watched a television series with any consistency... that is until Rachel came along. Now I'm tuned in five nights a week. I encountered her briefly at a fundraising dinner, just long enough to give her a compliment and a hug. She was most gracious.
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David Murphy
My nephew, David, has had a long and successful career as a newscaster and weatherman on ABC Channel 6 in Philadelphia. He played the lead in a grade-school production of You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown and then appeared as a child on television commercials and soap operas. He next acted at Arena Stage in Washington, and toured with Theodore Bikel in Fiddler on the Roof.
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Barnette Ricci
Ms. Ricci is a singer and director at Walt Disney Productions. I encountered her when I was the Festival Coordinator for a group of 30 Moroccan drummers and dancers who were among 1,200 performers brought from all parts of the globe to Florida for the Opening Celebration week at EPCOT Center in October, 1982. Ms. Ricci was in charge of staging a parade and performances around the lake in the World Showcase, and worked with ease and notable joie de vivre. Nearly 20 years later she conceived, staged, and sang on the soundtrack of the water spectacle Fantasmic! which plays now in Disney parks in California, Florida and Tokyo.
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Chita Rivera
Ms. Rivera kindly agreed to be the guest of honor at a National Theatre Donor Thank You dinner some years ago. It was my pleasure to "collect her" at the train station upon her arrival from New York. She is as delightful and sharp in person as in public persona, and it was a pleasure to talk with her. She, of course, charmed everyone at the dinner.
Talent + Substance.

Thomas Schumacher
Tom is the President of the Disney Theatrical Group, responsible for the presentation of Disney productions on Broadway. My friend, Ron Logan, was the head of Disney World in Florida, when he convinced Michael Eisner to send the theme park Beauty and the Beast to Broadway. Since then Tom has brought The Lion King, The Little Mermaid, Mary Poppins and other shows to Broadway, to London and to Europe, and sent them on American tours.
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Norma Terris - 2004 - 1989
Miss Terris originated the role of Magnolia in Showboat at the National Theatre in 1927. When I was directing the show for The American Light Opera Company in 1961, I invited her to come from her home in Connecticut to one of our performances. She arrived on the train, elegant, all in black, alone, and veiled. she reminisced about the original production. Climbing atop a piano at a cast party after the show, she did a devastating impersonation of an inebriated Helen Morgan (who had created the role of Julie) singing "Bill" from the show.
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