The Theater Calls…

     Well, my rock ‘n roll days are now over. The Five Part Invention dissolved in a very friendly way after Peter and Susie Martin bought a house in Pasadena and Jan was headed back to Colorado to get married. So, for me, it was time to see if I could make my childhood dream come true of being a working actor…eventually, of course, in a Broadway Show. Remember that I told you that through all four years of high school I was in every possible drama, comedy and musical they produced and really came to love everything and anything about the theater, even hanging lights and painting sets.  

     A very cool new dinner theater had opened that summer in Denver – The Country Dinner Playhouse.

     A very familiar face in the Denver night club scene, Bill McHale, was the producer/director for both venues. There was a sister-theater of the same name in Dallas and Bill’s operation was to have different shows running in both houses for 3-weeks, then the Dallas show would move to Denver and the two casts would switch. It was pretty much a travelling repertoire arrangement.

     So…heaven smiled on me once again as Bill cast me as Ali Hakim, the comedy lead in the Broadway hit classic, Rogers and Hammerstein’s wonderful Oklahoma!

     Yes, getting the part was not the highest highlight for me in this opportunity. Getting my union card, however, truly was! By being cast in this show, I was now a fully-vested member of the Actor’s union – Actor’s Equity.

     This was a really big deal as struggling actors can go for a very, very long time and never get their card. The “catch-22” in the theater business in that you can’t be cast in a show if you don’t have your card and you can’t get a card unless you are cast in a show. Getting it in a regional dinner theater was yet another of heaven’s blessings to me.

     Dinner theater is a whole different animal from doing a show on a large proscenium stage. The audience is right up in your lap and the show, of necessity, can’t be as large a production in such tight quarters. But, boy is it fun to do!

     I had met George and Georgia Lee when they were in Bill McHale’s Highlights of Broadway cabaret show in one of the city’s finest supper clubs. George had this great booming baritone voice and Georgia was a fabulous singer/dancer. George played the romantic lead, Curly and Georgia and I played opposite each other, she as Ado Annie and I as the wily Persian peddler. What a terrific show this turned out to be.

     After we moved the show to Dallas for the next three-week run, Bill was casting his next production, The Boy Friend, a show that was pure fluff, pure fun and pure “camp”. He gave me a role in this new show that would really test me and get me up on my feet as a dancer….most definitely not one of my acquired skills.

     So, sure enough, it was time to dive right into the deep end and start learning to dance with Georgia Lee as my very patient teacher.

     But first…the beard had to come off and I had to transition from dirty old man into the young boy dancer. I had really come to like the beard but, anything for my craft, right? 

     

     This show was a heck-of-a-lot of fun and had a very, very different feel from the first one. Audiences loved this one too and the cast was once again, loaded with mega-talents.

     George Lee and I became good friends and we made the decision together to head out to New York City after this last show had wrapped. It was time for us to go for the “big time” and see if we could “cut it” in The Big Apple.

     We had met and made friends with Mike Burke, who played Jud in Oklahoma! He had invited us to stay with him in his Manhattan apartment while we made the rounds and went to auditions. So, as soon as our obligations to dinner theater were complete, off we went.

     A fabulous summer in the theater came to a close. Broadway here I come! 

     I also thought you might enjoy a newspaper article and a couple of quotes from the reviews that were published during our run.

The Dallas Morning News - September 1, 1970

“Wuergler Bounds Through Life” by Francis Raffetto

     In “The Boy Friend” at Country Dinner Playhouse, a character, Bobby Van Husen, keeps bounding in high leaps across the stage, dressed in striped blazer, white flannels and tennis shoes, as if to ask “Tennis anyone?”

     This character and bit of stage business so accurate for this spoof of the 1920s, belongs to Mike Wuergler, 28, an alumnus of a bouncy singing group now turned actor.

     “Our director, Bill McHale, told me to go from one place to another and that seemed like the best way to get there,” said Wuergler, a Denver native who has a degree in radio and TV production and knows where he’s going dramatically.

     “The Boy Friend,” the most successful show for Country Dinner in its short span, was extended for one 2-week period and then for another fortnight, to end with Sunday’s show.

“It’s high style, very camp, fresh and honest,” analyses Wuergler. “People think it’s fun, and I think that Bill McHale’s enthusiasm had much to do with it.”

     It was also the vehicle for the early Julie Andrews when she first came to these shores.

Wuergler was front man for the Hustlers, modern singing group with three men and a girl which lasted for eight years. The youngsters got together at the University of Colorado and became especially great in the ski country around Aspen.

     “Aspen is the hippest audience,” said Wuergler. “Seattle was the slowest for current events and humor appreciation.”

     Wuergler’s show biz roots run deep. His distant cousin if our own Mary Martin. His grandmother, now retired safely to Aurora, Colo., was the silent screen’s Dorothy Dean, who batted her eyes, guarded her virtue, was tied to railroad tracks and clung from cliffs before riding off into the sunset with cowboy stars Tom Mix or W.S. Hart. And his mother was Kay Robinson, a vocalist for the swing bands of the 1930s.

     Mike never had doubt about his career. After eight years writing and leading the Hustlers (night clubs mostly) he was happy over his first two stage roles, both for Country Dinner: Ali Hakim in “Oklahoma!” and now Bobby Van Husen in “The Boy Friend.”

     Does he find it hard to dance opposite Georgia Gray Lee in the latter? “No,” he smiled. “I’m not so much a dancer but what the business refers to as a mover. I move well.”

     Somewhere in the off-stage world there is a Wuergler benefactor, who evidently saw him in a college show. When Mike was too broke to start his sophomore year at UC, an anonymous benefactor sent the school $500 for him.

     The stipulation was that (a) he would continue his show biz career and (b) he would pass it on to some other youngster some day. 

Dallas Morning News Reviews

‘Oklahoma’ Revived Again by John Neville

“…But, as we said, the audience didn’t seem to notice anything but the music – much foot-tapping and humming or soft singing along – and the broad comedy scenes, especially those which highlight the Persian peddler, Aki Hakim, wonderfully characterized by Michael Wuergler – a truly funny man.”

“A Bright ‘The Boy Friend’ by Olin Chism

“…So many other characters are so good that it’s hard to know where to start discussing them. Michael Wuergler, though, and Georgia Gray Lee are nearly irresistible as another young couple, both of whom have their 20s spoofery down pat. Wuergler’s bouncy Bobby Van Husen is a pleasure to watch.”

“The Twenties Roar at CDP” by John Neville

“…Bubbly Georgia Gray Lee and Michael Wuergler (both of whom appeared at the CDPs – “Oklahoma!”) are a scream as Maisie and Bobby.”