The Prompter: Behind the Lines at Bay Street Theater

As the Tony Awards draw near, it is worth noting, at Bay Street Theater, in one very funny scene of a new play, The Prompter, an actress makes her Best Actress acceptance speech without thanking the very person most responsible for her award, her prompter. In her return to theater after a 20 year hiatus, Irene Young (the marvelous Tovah Feldshuh) simply cannot remember her lines and requires the services of Wade Wade Dooley, co-star and writer) to whisper through an ear piece the entirety of the work she is performing down to her stage movements. As narrated by the charming and talented Wade, Irene’s thank-yous are the source of angst. He knows how crucial he is to her performance, and by gosh, he deserves it. Besides, his mother is watching.

Needless to say, diva that she is, she doesn’t even think of him. And yet she’s no monster, making up for this lack in other ways. Among its many joys, The Prompter, under the deft direction of Scott Schwartz, provides an intimate back stage glimpse of life in the theater.

On opening night this week, I had the chance to ask Wade Dooley whether or not he always had Tovah Feldshuh in mind to be his partner for this two-hander. “We thought she was too young. Do you see how fit she is?”

In fact one of Feldshuh’s exceptionally challenging acrobatic roles was in a recent production of Pippin on Broadway. How great to be thought too young, I thought. Not Tovah: “They asked me to age up. They wanted Estelle Parsons. She’s 94. She’s too old and can’t memorize her lines. She’d need a prompter.”